Posted on 04/01/2006 9:43:17 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
By Dan Ferguson Staff Reporter Mar 31 2006
Everyone was having a good time until the fight began and someone started shooting.
When a 29-year-old Surrey man exchanged insults with four young Indo-Canadian men at Garry T’s pub at 72 Avenue and Scott Road, the confrontation escalated and one of the Indo-Canadians produced a handgun and started shooting, inflicting multiple wounds – one of them fatal.
The Dec. 8, 2005 incident is just one of many in Surrey and other Lower Mainland communities where a gunfight has erupted in a public place, with bullets being sprayed indiscriminately with no concern for innocent bystanders.
According to police, the number of shooting incidents nearly doubled last year, fuelled by a “bad boy” mentality that sees young men with no criminal past packing handguns to bolster a tough-guy image.
As a result, disputes that would have ended in a fistfight or an exchange of insults are turning into potentially fatal encounters.
When police find the men responsible for such incidents, there is a good chance that they won’t have adult or youth criminal records, RCMP Staff Sgt. John Ward says.
“It’s the bad boy image. It’s young men who are in this lifestyle.”
Handguns were used in eight of 17 confirmed homicides in Surrey last year, including the May 13 murder of 30-year-old Dean Mohamed Elshamy, who died in a hail of gunfire at a Mac’s store across the street from Garry T’s.
Elshamy did not have a criminal record.
Ward says the number of shooting incidents has risen noticeably in the Lower Mainland, but he cannot provide precise figures for Surrey.
Vancouver p olice statistics, however, suggest the rate of shooting incidents has roughly doubled from the previous year.
Most of the gunplay is happening in the South Asian community, according to the Integrated Gang Task Force (IGTF).
A summary report, “Responses to gang violence,” indicates the task force is concentrating on gang activity within South Asian groups “due to (their) high profile and level of violence.”
The gang task force was revived in 2004 at the urging of Indo-Canadian community leaders, seven months after it was quietly wound down.
While the first task force was created to co-ordinate work between different police agencies on a small number of existing gang cases, the new force can launch its own investigations.
The IGTF has 60 full-time police officers and 13 civilian staff from all municipal departments and RCMP detachments in the Lower Mainland.
In its report, the IGTF says the loosely knit criminal groups that function within the South Asian community are smaller and far more chaotic than traditional gangs.
They are “unstructured organizations” with fewer participants than traditional gangs “... networked along family lines and neighbourhoods (with) alliances frequently developed from school,” the report states. “Criminal relationships (in South Asian gangs) are fluid – allies one minute, enemies the next.”
The report cites statistics showing there has been an increase in significant incidents in gang-related violent acts, with over 80 homicides between 1994 and 2005 “related to Indo-Canadian gang violence.”
Kidnapping offences have more than doubled since 1999, from 150 to 360 in 2004.
“The majority of crimes are opportunistic – extortion, kidnapping, drug ‘rips,’ drug smuggling, homicides and violent acts.”
In a perverse way, the report suggests, the bad boys with the guns still adhere to traditional Sikh values of “image, status, reputation and respect.”
On an Internet chat group, Surrey blogger “Raj” confirms this, saying the guns and gangster attitude are a way to get respect.
“I’m all for some arrogant racist white guy getting put in check for making a racist comment to a Desi,” Raj says.
“It’s empowering to be a Desi thug, to have these a..holes who look down on us, to fear us. It’s good in a way, for us to unite and look out for each other.” He complains that established gangs like the Chinese triads and white outlaw bikers are using the less well-organized South Asians as their pawns.
“These long established gangs... are able to get the most out of the situation by making the Desis compete with each other,” Raj observes.
Research by VIRSA, the Sikh Alliance Against Violence, shows that “gender inequality” and authoritarian parenting may help create bad boys.
The studies show “many young boys killed in gang violence were either the only son or the first son in the family,” writes Harbans Singh Kandola, president of VIRSA.
“Parents give boys everything they want such as expensive cars, permission to come home late and other special treatment while girls are restricted and treated differently.”
Kandola says there is often poor communication between immigrant parents and their Canadian-raised offspring. “The common complaint of our boys and young girls is that their parents do not listen to them. Some describe their communication with their parents as talking to a brick wall. Children growing in western culture do not take orders, they ask for logical discussion and logical answers rather than decisions being forced on them.”
VIRSA is campaigning for public education programs and early intervention to prevent more young men from joining the gun culture.
Staff Sgt. Ward has some practical suggestions in the meantime, saying patrons of pubs, bars and other night spots should be aware of the potential risk posed by aggressive young men packing concealed weapons.
“They have to be aware of their surroundings,” Ward says. “You can’t ignore the fact ... that innocent bystanders have been hurt.”
***
Staying out of trouble:
Getting into a fight with a stranger is never a good idea, but it can be fatal now that guns are becoming an increasingly common fashion accessory for some young men.
The day when disputes could be settled with "fists in a back lane and a handshake after" are long gone, cautions Const., Shinder Kirk, spokesman for the Lower Mainland Integrated Gang Task Force.
"There's been an evolution" of violence," from fists to knives to guns.
He says people need be "extremely cautious" about getting into confrontations.
If there's a dispute, "Walk away and let the authorities handle it, Kirk says.
"You never know if the other person will have a gun." Night clubbing has become rougher in the last 10 years, according to one poster to a local Internet forum about cub violence.
" I'm from Surrey and never go to a club there without 10 buds ... that's all i gotta say," he wrote. "It's that bad."
Another writer said there is more gang-style violence now than there used to be.
"When I started clubbing back in the early '90s I never saw any fights where there were four on one. It was frowned upon by everyone," he said.
"Back in the day, two individuals would go outside and duke it out. After it was finished, win or lose, both people would walk away with respect. Nowadays you get a bunch of punks who feel they are tough by ganging up on an individual."
Indo-Canadian=Sikh?The media are soo imaginative.Why couldn't they have just said Sikh to begin with?BTW isn't Sikh a form of Hinduism?
Australia has had the same experience. A gun register and gun licencing has not stopped the flow of illegal guns into the community.
Are you allowed to have guns?
Yes we can have guns provided we are a member of a shooting club such as the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, register the guns and have them stored properly. I am a licensed shooter and there are no problems owning guns and having a licence if you are a law abiding citizen. However pistols and fully automatics are not allowed - unless you are a criminal and own the guns illegally.
If the Canadian gov runs true to the liberal line we'll learn next that it's due to the "easy" availability of guns in the US. The US needs to be disarmed next. When gun control does no good the demand is always for MORE gun control.
Our government data banks seem to have been compromised, with gun owners being targeted.
Either that, or the employees are leaking the information.
I can't imagine why.
;-)
I have no knowledge of that happening here. However, police time is used checking that lawful gun owners have their weapons properly stored etc. In the meantime unlicensed people and criminals are obtaining guns through the black market and getting away with it. It is a system that wastes police resources that would be best spent targeting criminals. There was a good story in one of today's newspapers but it was not made available on the web.
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