(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Mar. 7, 2001)
Glorification of crime has consequences
By Leo Knight
THERE
is a disturbing trend of violence that seems to be saturating an
element of our youth these days.
Last
Friday night in Calgary, a 17-year-old youth was shot in the
aftermath of a fight at a house party.
The
same night, about 100 kilometres up the road in Bowden, a young
man of just 21 years was stabbed to death in an apparent
disagreement with his roommate.
Would
that these were random incidents! But they're not.
Last
week North Vancouver RCMP recovered a gun during a search
warrant. The gun was allegedly in the possession of a young man
barely out of his teens. It had, according to police, been used
in a home invasion. One of two in the area in the past month.
These are not the schoolyard punch-ups of our youth. Quite the contrary, these are the ramifications of a society which has little or no consequences for criminal actions.
Some
kids on our streets carry guns, knives and machetes to bully
others. They use violence to punctuate their threats, extortions
and robberies.
They
have all been in and out of the justice system since they were
barely in their teens.
Some
before that, even. And nothing has really happened to them
despite their many brushes with the law.
Worse
yet, they see on TV, on the streets and in the movies, the
bikers, the gangsters, the very antithesis of what we should
value and cherish.
Some
of them want to be like them.
These
guys have it all, don't they? The biker from the hard streets of
East Vancouver now sits high on the hill in the British
Properties.
They
drive the best cars, have lots of money and best of all,
everyone is afraid of them.
They
don't have to work their tails off every day like the rest of
us.
And
some kids on our streets think that is what they want. And you
know what else?
That
is exactly what they will get. As long as our justice system and
our government will not step in and say, "No!"
It's
a mystery to me why society makes heroes out of people like John
Gotti or "Mom" Boucher. They achieve a level of fame
most politicians or actors never see. Why?
Why
do we stick our heads in the sand and try to pretend that
organized crime does not affect us?
It
is literally stealing our children off the streets.
Last
week the story of an 11-year-old girl working as a prostitute on
the seedy streets of the Downtown Eastside shocked this city.
Why?
This is nothing new. Who do you think is responsible for
"recruiting" these young girls? Where do you think the
drugs come from that are used to make these kids compliant?
How
powerful are these people? Last week, in a joint project, the
Organized Crime Agency of B.C. (OCABC), the RCMP, and several
U.S. forces intercepted a fishing vessel from Victoria carrying
two thousand kilos of cocaine.
Police
on both sides of the border have stated the shipment was
destined for Vancouver and the Hells Angels were behind it.
Knowing
how the Angels work, this is not a purchase made by the
organization itself, but by a couple of members doing a deal.
Just a couple of the 80 or so in the province.
Well,
let's do the math on this. A kilo of cocaine wholesales for
about $35,000. That's not street retail. It's wholesale.
Multiply
the size of that shipment and you come up with a wholesale
number of $70 million just to buy the dope from the source
country. Never mind the shipping arrangements.
The
profits from landing such a shipment would be in the hundreds of
millions.
Now
this is for just one deal and they are making deals big and
small every day. And, not just drugs.
There
are grow-ops, prostitution, gambling, VLTs, gun smuggling, stock
market frauds, you name it. If it's illegal and will make money,
they will do it.
This
is a big money game. And precisely the reason why those wannabe
gangsters in Lynn Valley are working their way up the ladder.
Beats working for a living.
The
government of B.C. gives a paltry $14.1 million annually to fund
the efforts of OCABC. Premier Dosanjh will try to tell you his
government is serious about the fight against organized crime.
He
spends twice that amount in government advertising to tell us,
with our own money, why his government is so wonderful.
He should bloody well be ashamed of himself.
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