Vancouver Police form Gang Task Force in wake of a sting of fatal shootings

VANCOUVER - B.C. , Canada

       Vancouver City Police are getting tough . Over the weekend they recovered two hand guns and one of them was seized in the 70th and Granville area where there was deadly shootings last week.



     Police in Vancouver are forming a gang-violence task force to deal with a recent spate of brazen shootings that have put public safety at risk over disputes fuelled by the drug trade.   Four fatal shootings in one week has everyone worried.

 At a news conference, Deputy Police Chief Bob Rich said the gang problem is the department's No. 1 priority and the new task force is aimed at sending a clear message to gangsters.

"We are going to be watching them very closely and they might want to reconsider their options," Rich said.

"The public needs to know we're going to take every step to ensure their safety.

Rich said the task force "will be a very much an in-your-face" unit.

"It will be confronting people who are gangsters, who are moving about the streets, we'll be checking on where they live," he said.

The Vancouver gang unit comes in addition to the force's participation in an integrated gang unit operated by the RCMP.

Vancouver police say there's no gang war in the city, despite the shooting of a reputed leader of the Big Circle Boys gang Saturday, a restaurant shooting last week, two other shootings at Vancouver eateries this past summer and last month's mass murder of six men in a suburban Surrey apartment.

Deputy Chief Doug LePard said drugs are the cause of fights in most cases and some of the people involved are known gang members, although the homicides are not necessarily related.

What's troubling is that unsophisticated gangsters are packing guns to settle even relatively minor disputes over everything from women, drugs and taking offence at something said by a rival gang member, LePard said.

Several gangs are involved, including the UN Gang - so named because of its ethnic diversity - but LePard declined to name any others.

"They're very cavalier about their use of violence and use of firearms in settling their disputes," he said. "We are very fortunate that we have not had more innocent victims caught in the crossfire."

LePard said the provincial government needs to provide kids with early-prevention education in school so they aren't lured into a flashy gang lifestyle that could get them killed.

He said he was at the scene of the shooting Tuesday and saw the bullet-riddled bodies of the two men who were known to police.

"They didn't look glamorous at all, so those who think that the gang lifestyle is for them I think they need to think about what the odds are of ending up like those two young men," said LePard.

B.C. Solicitor General John Les said the province has a police team that's strong enough to fight gang crime in the Vancouver area.

He rejected calls from the police community to form a metro police unit devoted to fighting gangland crime.

He said there are 900 more police officers in British Columbia than there were five years ago and 600 officers who are part of an integrated crime-fighting unit.

"We're attacking this on a number of fronts," he said. "We're doing everything that's possible to be done."