Too easy for criminals to get firearms, former top cop says
Across Metro Vancouver Wednesday, at least a dozen people accused of firearms crimes appeared in provincial courthouses.
Four of them were in Vancouver courtrooms on charges that included possession of a firearm without a licence, possession of a firearm contrary to a court order and attempted murder with a firearm.
Three others appeared in Surrey on counts that included robbery with a firearm and possession of a loaded restricted gun. Two more were on the court list in North Vancouver for firearms charges. Another two gun cases were being heard in Richmond. And one man appeared in Port Coquitlam provincial court charged with robbery using a firearm.
The large number of firearms prosecutions demonstrates the relative ease with which criminals can get their hands on guns, says former solicitor general Kash Heed.
For a few hundred dollars, even street-level drug dealers can buy guns, creating the potential for deadly violence like the shootout that led to the death of 15-year-old Coquitlam student Alfred Wong in Vancouver Saturday, Heed said.
“The access to firearms is relatively easy for anyone that is motivated to get one. These firearms are from outside of Canada or they are taken during burglaries here in Canada,” said Heed, a longtime Vancouver police officer and former West Vancouver police chief.
“There is a market for this kind of commodity and most of that market goes to the individuals that are involved in gang activity or drug activity.”
Drug trafficker Kevin Whiteside also died in Saturday’s shooting, after exchanging gunfire with someone else along a busy stretch of Broadway. Wong was struck by a stray bullet while riding as a passenger in his parents’ car, which happened to be passing by as the shots were exchanged near Ontario Street.
Vancouver Police investigators continue to hunt for the other suspect or suspects.
Whiteside, 23, had firearms convictions and was under a court-ordered lifetime ban from possessing a gun.
It’s a ban that he breached in 2015, resulting in a three-month jail sentence. And it was a ban he breached again Saturday when he fired away before getting fatally struck himself.
Heed said that years ago, police would only seize guns from criminals in mid-level gangs or in the upper echelons of organized crime.
“But what we have found in the last few years is that people at all levels of the crime structure have access to guns now,” he said.
“These individuals, once they have a gun strapped to their hip, they feel invincible and they don’t have any qualms whatsoever using that gun to settle disputes.”
Heed said the B.C. government needs to move more quickly on recommendations introduced last fall to curb gun violence.
In November, the B.C. Task Force on Illegal Firearms made 37 recommendations to tackle gun and gang violence.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said at the time that the government would immediately begin working on recommendations to expand the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit to lead a provincial illegal-firearms strategy, as well as create a central firearms intelligence hub to analyze data from police agencies and partners.
Farnworth could be not reached Wednesday for comment on the progress of those recommendations.
But CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said the work is already underway.
“The government has invested in CFSEU, enabling us to increase our capacity to investigate crimes more specifically in the area of firearms illegally in possession of organized crime groups,” Winpenny said.
The new money has been used to set up an anti-gun trafficking task force within the anti-gang agency, she said.
Police have seen a shift in the origin of B.C. guns over the years. At one point, most firearms in the province were smuggled in from the United States.
As of 2016, most B.C. criminals were getting their guns in Canada. Some were stolen from individuals or businesses. Others were bought by “straw purchasers” — people not on police radar who are paid to get a gun licence and make legal firearm purchases on behalf of a criminal.