Chasing the glamour fix
‘Disorganized crime’ blamed for epidemic of gunfire in suburb
Surrey RCMP responded toa nother shooting early Sunday.
A number of 911 calls came in at around 1 a.m. about gunshots heard in the 13900-block 104th Avenue in Whalley, police said.
Police found physical evidence that shots had been fired but no victims were located.
Witnesses reported seeing a darkcoloured sports car with tinted windows fleeing the area.
Police are asking anyone who witnessed the incident, or saw the car leaving the scene, to call them at 604-599-0502. There was no word on whether the latest is related to a series of shootings recently.
Half of the roughly three dozen shootings in the Surrey and Delta area since March have been linked to a drug feud between two groups involved in “disorganized crime,” said RCMP Sgt. Dale Carr.
Carr said it’s not criminal gangs, but the pursuit of glamour behind the shootings that have residents worried about who the next bullet will hit.
“When you talk to some of these low-level drug dealers, it’s really funny how in some instances the first thing they go to is what they own. ‘That’s my Beamer, this is my Rolex or my Breitling’ (watch), or $400 whatever-brand jeans.”
Several people have been injured and one man has been killed in the 18 shootings police have directly connected to the retaliatory gunfire between young people running dial a operations.
The federal government is spending $3.5 million to expand a Surrey school district anti-gangs program to extract teens from the lifestyle in response to concerns over the violence. Young people are getting involved for easy money and prestige, said three teenagers participating in the Wrap Project, though they aren’t involved in the dispute and asked for anonymity.
They said difficult childhoods or absent parents help push the vulnerable toward those who feel like family.
“Everybody wants to be a gangster type-of-thing. When I was a kid, I used to look at a gangster. I’d be like, ‘He’s driving a nice car, he’s wearing nice clothes, he’s got a nice watch on,’ ” said Terrence, 18, whose name has been changed.
“You kind of get lured into it. ‘Why can’t I have that,’ right? You don’t weigh out the consequences. You don’t see what they had to do to get there, how many times they probably went in and out of jail.”
Ryan Lucas, a former football player with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, now coaches troubled teenagers in the gang prevention program.
“The one phenomenon I’ve found out here that’s unique ... is that it’s not just at-risk kids from poor families getting sucked in,” Lucas said.
“More and more there are kids who come from affluent families who have the same draw and pull as the kids doing it out of necessity.”
The Wrap program, launched in 2009, provides mentors and opportunities, such as help with schoolwork and employment.
“They get drawn into the gang life because the people bringing them in make them feel like a million bucks. So that becomes their family now,” said Satbir Jawandha, 26, who also coaches Wrap participants. “We’re trying to do the exact same thing, but in a positive way. We’re trying to draw them in to say, ‘There’s a way out of it. There’s a different path.’ ”