Cuts to special police units will eventually mean an increase in organized crime in B.C.
The province has cut $4.2 million from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) and Provincial Major Crime program, slicing a total of 25 investigators from the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang squad and the major-crimes' missing persons and unsolved homicide team.
While spending on policing has to be managed, and policing needs change constantly, it is far too soon to cut back on enforcement which is targeting organized crime.
While a number of gang kingpins are in jail, many are either awaiting trial or in the midst of trials - and the activities of their gangs continue because there is money to be made.
The Surrey Six trial is still underway and it has exposed the way gang members think. Their reasoning goes: Anyone who is part of a rival gang doesn't deserve to live nor, in fact, do any innocent bystanders who happen to be somewhere near where an execution takes place.
The provincial cabinet, which ultimately made the decision to cut money from these policing units, needs to think back to the early months of 2009, when a wave of gangland slayings was underway. People were terrified, given that the crimes often took place in broad daylight.
It was pretty obvious that police had no idea of what was coming next. Several rival gangs were busy shooting at each other.
One morning in February 2009, Nicole Alemy, a White Rock woman associated with a gangster, was murdered while driving in Surrey. A four-year-old child was in the back of her vehicle at the time. Many other shootings took place in those few months.
In the first quarter of 2009, more than 20 people were killed and another 40 were wounded in this vicious turf war. Some of those crimes have been solved but the turf war is far from over.
It is because of special policing units such as the ones being cut back that police were able to get more of a handle on the situation.
Surrey RCMP says because it has a large force, it can absorb the activities of units that are facing cuts. That may be the case, but it has been proven many times that these crimes are not territorial. They take place in many jurisdictions, and combined units are far more effective.
Several politicians have suggested that these cuts will hurt. They are correct.
The police officers who are being moved to other units won't be the ones suffering.
It will be the average people who get caught in the middle of turf wars between gangsters and it will be the young people who get caught up in what they think is a glamorous lifestyle. Only when it is too late do they realize what they have signed up for: an early grave, beatings or, in some cases, significant time in jail.
The fights over drugs and other aspects of organized crime will always be with us. But strong and quick responses to situations, such as those that happened in 2009, are vital for the welfare of the greater community.
Metro Vancouver needs quick responses from police to situations of all types - and organized crime must be high on police departments' lists.
Frank Bucholtz is editor of The Langley Times, a Black Press sister newspaper of The Tri-City News.
