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Gang Violence: Stop the blaming, start the naming!
Provincial politicians say they are concerned. Metro Vancouver mayors say what’s going on is unacceptable. The public is frightened. The cops are exasperated. Welcome to the best place to live on the planet where the authorities are all talk and the gangsters are all action. Okay then! You want us to shun, shame and snitch on these gang bangers who have made our communities a free-for-all firing range, then arm us. Provide the public with your police intelligence. Release the photos and gang affiliations of those arrested and charged to the media. Create a public dossier of these thugs and show us who they are and where they roam. They have done this with the notorious Bacon brothers — who are out on bail while contesting gun and drug charges and who seem to be a catalyst for much of the brazen violence. They have done this with sex offenders. And they have done this with violent offenders who are being released from jail. The time has come for a very public registry of B.C. gangsters to get the citizenry to gang up on the gangs.
Five shootings in six days — two at shopping malls involving gang bangers — have left the Lower Mainland reeling as thugs target each other in high profile, brazen attacks to settle scores. So far the latest spasm of gangland-style shootings has elicited nothing but more rhetoric from the authorities. Consolation is being offered up in statements like, "The public should not be alarmed, but remain cautious."
What the heck is that supposed to mean? Do we now have to wear body armour when dining out or shopping for groceries?
The cops continue to blame the courts for letting gangsters out on bail, the courts say their hands are tied by the laws enacted by the politicians while civic representatives are screaming at both of them to do something.
In the meantime, as promises of tighter laws, bail reform and anti-gang task forces are doled out, police have taken to pleading to the public for information.
Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and neighbors and friends are being urged to shun and snitch on the gangsters.
"The police can just not do this on our own," said a frustrated Cpl. Dale Carr of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Unit, which has the success rate of a Vancouver Canucks penalty kill. "If you have information, for crying out loud, give the police a call," was his desperate cry.
Don’t scurry back to the confines of privacy legislation because the gangsters do not give two hoots about our privacy.
Damn their civil liberties as they have damned our public safety. There are precedents for these kinds of public alerts. The authorities have used a similar mechanism to shame johns who use prostitutes.
Stop the blaming and start the naming. The cops need to shine a light on the thugs they want us to shun.
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