CPS working to keep up with gangs
Police put emphasis on stopping violence in city before it happens
Two vehicles speed through a southeast Calgary neighbourhood in a high-speed pursuit as a man opens fire from one of the cars on a busy thoroughfare. As the real-life movie scene moved from central to southeast Calgary, an innocent mother of five is killed while the intended victim is injured and the suspect fled.
A week later, police issued nationwide warrants for the arrest of Talal Amer, the suspect in the death of the mom — 40-year-old Angela Mckenzie, whose van was struck by the shooter's vehicle.
Amer, named this week as one of Canada's most wanted fugitives by law-enforcement officials, had only days earlier completed his most recent jail sentence for his role in a bloody gang war that plagued Calgary in 2015, when the deadly May 10 shootout occurred.
With Amer's suspected involvement, Mckenzie's death is one of at least six Calgary slayings in 2022 with ties to organized crime. The Calgary Police Service had responded to more than 100 shootings by the middle of September, with approximately a quarter of that gunplay believed to be linked to organized crime. Insp. Jodi Gach said CPS has put an emphasis on stopping gang violence before it happens and ensuring those involved are pursued and jailed.
“We're able to identify them, prioritize and they'll either then be investigated or enforced and then be able to follow up after charges are laid so that we can have an impact on managing offenders while in the community,” said Gach.
The CPS Violent Crime Suppression Unit, a team of officers dedicated to surveilling known and suspected gang members, is part of that surveillance effort. Staff Sgt. Andrew Macleod said the unit is constantly working to establish connections between violent offenders and keep up with where loyalties lie.
“You got your Hells Angels who have that typical structure, that tree kind of thing, here's the top and here's the two guys underneath, but our organized crime is much more like roots of the tree and they intermingle and tangle and they go in all different directions,” said Macleod.
Violence stemming from organized crime and the drug trade isn't new to Calgary, where a bloody war between rival gangs known as the FOB and FK in the mid-2000s culminated with what is now known as the Bolsa shooting. On Jan. 1, 2009, three men entered the Bolsa Restaurant in broad daylight and opened fire on a rival gang member. The violent episode left three men dead, including bystander Keni Su'a.
The shooting was seen as a turning point in the city's war on organized crime and played a major part in passing the eventual legislation that led to the creation of Macleod's team.
Today, the Violent Crime Suppression Team tracks as many as 1,200 people at a time — many who are violent, such as Amer — memorizing their appearances, knowing who their friends and family are and even recognizing their vehicles. Macleod said CPS collects as much information as they can to stay ahead of a gang scene described as an “amoeba,” where loyalties change over slights as little as one gang member not being visited in jail by another.
“They just kind of change up depending on whatever conflict is going on. It could be `hey, you owe me money,' or `hey, you didn't visit me in jail,' or hey, `that was my girlfriend,'” said Macleod. “They literally could be that innocuous, but factions change. So we work really, really hard to try and get intelligence built as quickly as possible.”
Members of Macleod's team are often seen patrolling Calgary's bars, clubs, restaurants and other licensed establishments. In pairs, or larger groups, the team performs walk-throughs scanning for known gang members, gang associates or anyone not permitted at those establishments.
While conducting ejections, the team will also record any information about who is hanging out with whom and upload information to a central system for other units within CPS.
Const. Chris O'halloran, working in a pair with Const. Joe Shorkey, patrol Cactus Club Cafe along Stephen Avenue where they see a young man known to the unit as a former gang associate sitting at a full table. They approach him and spark up a conversation, the intention however, is to confirm the identities of everyone involved.
In this instance, O'halloran says there is no reason to suspect anyone at the table is involved in the local gang scene but the interaction could help investigators in the future.
“It'd be more of just like intelligence gathering now saying, We know they were a part of this group before. So these guys are still hanging out together ... Who's this guy? Well, he's associated to these guys from this check here or whatever. So we tie a lot of stuff together for investigators down the road.”
O'halloran said the teams are often face-to-face with the most dangerous people in the city ranging from street-level dealers to well-known bikers dining at highend steak houses. He said it's not uncommon for unit members to enter an establishment and see people make a line to the kitchen or other backdoor exits. On at least one occasion, they watched a known gang member enter a bar's ventilation system before he was taken into custody.
Often, the team finds firearms within packed establishments.
Macleod says the process has helped keep gang violence in crowded areas to a minimum since the Bolsa shooting. CPS data provided to Postmedia shows that in months when the unit is conducting higher levels of patrols, the number of shootings in central Calgary drop.
Doug King, a criminal justice expert at Mount Royal University, said the concept of having teams that monitor known gang members is not new or unique to Calgary. Such initiatives began in the U.S. and most major cities in Canada now have similar teams, he said.
“Crime trends, and then the police responses, first start in the United States. And then they move into Canada, but a decade later and that's true, virtually almost across the board,” said King.
On top of providing information on people, the unit will also keep tabs on vehicles they drive or addresses they're associated with. A week after the Cactus Club check, Macleod said his units responded to reports of a shooting on Edmonton Trail where they were able to identify a vehicle involved whose occupants shot at another vehicle at a red light.
It is believed the shooters, in that case, have connections to gangs in B.C.'S Lower Mainland and often travel between the two provinces.
Several months later, Macleod said his team is continuing to see a high level of firearms on the street. Recently they found a car with a secret compartment filled with at least four guns. He said they are continuing to see people turn on one another, often looking to steal phones and clientele from rival drug dealers.
Macleod said without a doubt his team is now on the front line of fighting an evolving organized element of crime in a rising city.
“When I first joined Calgary, we were almost half the size of what we are now. We've literally doubled in size in the last 20 years,” said Macleod.
“There's this appetite for more drugs and there's more people and so with that, you know comes that supply and demand piece and wherever the supply and the demand is, so are the gangsters.”