Why are gang killings so tough to solve?
Even when police have a strong sense of who did it, a gangland slaying poses investigative challenges that are hard to overcome.
Twenty years ago, a judge sentencing Vancouver teenager Phouvong Phommaviset for a drive- by shooting at a city school called gang violence “a very dangerous and very unhappy development.’’
Eight years later, Phommaviset’s charred remains were found by the Fraser River in Richmond — at 26 a victim of the same violence he used on others.
Phommaviset, whose body was found Jan. 2, 2002, is the first case in The Vancouver Sun’s comprehensive database of unsolved Lower Mainland murder files from 2002 to the end of 2013.
And as a young male gangster, he represents the largest and most challenging demographic in our unsolved archives — the victims with links to the drug trade or organized crime.
At the time of his slaying, Phommaviset was a suspect in the abduction of Ned Mander on Oct. 9, 2001. Mander’s remains were never found, but Mander’s close friend Rick Bhatti was shot to death the same day, minutes after Mander called a friend who was with Bhatti.
Police have not publicly identified a suspect in Phommaviset’s murder — one of 184 unsolved murders linked to drugs or gangs over the 12- year period researched in The Sun’s investigation. The gang and drug cases make up 63 per cent of all unsolved homicides in the same period.
Police across Metro say gang cases pose investigative challenges that are difficult to overcome, even when they have a strong sense of what happened and who did it.
Abbotsford police Det. Andrew Wooding, an expert on gangs, said witnesses to these slayings are often others involved in organized crime who see police as the enemy.
“Most often, these crimes are committed by people who are involved in the drug or gang subculture. And the victims are also involved in the gang or drug subculture, and any potential witnesses are usually involved in the drug and gang subculture. And therefore, they all sort of have an interest in protecting their lives,” Wooding said.
They’re also invested in continuing to earn their livelihood by illicit means.
“As harsh as that sounds, some people really weigh it out and say there is nothing for me to gain financially by sharing information with police.”
Their fear is also tangible, Wooding said.
“There is a very real belief that they will be killed for ratting out or breaking the code. And when you are investigating in that type of an atmosphere, you can make offers of safety and witness protection and all those things, but when the other team, so to speak, or the other side of the equation, is threatening to kill you and those murders have been carried out — those are very real threats. It is very difficult to get people to cooperate under those circumstances.”
Wooding has seen the explosion in gang violence in the past decade in the Lower Mainland.
He was part of a team investigating the United Nations gang while it was waging war on the Bacon brothers and their Red Scorpion associates. There were dozens of tit- for- tat slayings at the height of that conflict.
Even when gangsters see their associates cut down in targeted shootings, they usually prefer to take matters into their own hands instead of calling 911.
“The rules of that subculture are that we look after our own problems and we don’t need law enforcement poking around,” he said. “People have what’s coming to them if they step out of line and that’s the way that group of people does justice.”
Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, of the anti- gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said all you have to do is look at the evidence coming out at the Surrey Six murder trial to see how difficult gang cases are for police and prosecutors.
Three Red Scorpion gangsters who had roles in the Oct. 19, 2007 slaughter of six people later cut deals with police to cooperate. Two won publication bans on their names for fear they would face reprisals in prison as “rats.”
“A prime example of what it might potentially take to crack these cases open is the Surrey Six trial with Person X and Person Y and Michael Le. Those are the kinds of things that often have to happen in order for gang murders not only to be solved, but to go to trial,” Houghton said. “You have to have people coming to you.” And even when cops cultivate the co- operation of co- conspirators, they need corroborating evidence because of the unsavory nature of their criminalized witnesses. They may develop agents — civilians willing to collect evidence using a recording device on their former associates. They will also likely get wiretap authorizations and warrants, as well as conduct surveillance on suspects for lengthy periods. “You are talking the entire spectrum and resources and tools that are at the disposal of police,” Houghton said. “Gang crime in general in that world is so hard to investigate because the world is so hard to penetrate from a police perspective.”
Supt. Kevin Hackett, commander of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team that investigates most murders in Metro, said B. C. is home to many sophisticated organized criminals who have found it a lucrative place to do business. “The more sophisticated gangs can afford to communicate in a way that makes it difficult for us to intercept them. They have encrypted communications. That is a sophisticated operation. So the things we would normally do to infiltrate and obtain evidence become that much more complicated,” Hackett said.
He agreed that suspects or their friends “can intimidate and put fear into potential witnesses or associates. And then any kind of moves that we would make, whether it would be the use of witnesses protection or something like that, becomes very expensive.”
There’s also the very real possibility that today’s suspect in a gang murder could become tomorrow’s victim, meaning charges would likely never be laid.
Delta police Deputy Chief Lyle Beaudoin said unsolved murder cases remain open even when suspects die before they can be charged.
“You still have to keep that file open because it hasn’t gone through that really, really strong scrutiny that you would have in court,” Beaudoin explained. “And you never know, someone could come forward later on and say ‘ you know there was another person with them.’ ”
He said witnesses could end up murdered, too, because they’re involved in organized crime.
“I have always maintained with these investigators — just keep the file open and we will just keep chipping away. “Obviously they start to slide down the priority rung when your witnesses and/ or your suspects are no longer with you. Obviously they are not the priority unless you get that over- thetop tip or that new development in science or technology that can assist you, because many of these cases are conspiracies. And it may not be just the one person up front. It is going to be the people in the background.”
Several of the gang- linked victims in The Sun’s database were suspects in other murders when they were slain, including No. 1 Phommaviset.
Beaudoin wouldn’t comment on information from sources that Ricardo Scarpino, gunned down in Vancouver in January 2008, was the prime suspect in the 2004 Delta murder of trucker Karmen Johl.
And when Sukh Dhak and Manny Hairan were executed in November 2012 and January 2013, respectively, both were suspects in the August 2011 Kelowna murder of Jonathan Bacon.
Sometimes information about uncharged suspects comes out in unrelated court cases.
At the Surrey Six trial, Person Y testified that Red Scorpion leader Jamie Bacon bragged about killing Herman Dhillon and Phil Hothi at a Vancouver residence in 2004. But Bacon has not been charged in either murder, both of which remain on the VPD’s unsolved list.
Y, who is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty for murders in 2001 and 2003, has admitted to other killings for which he’s not been convicted.
Public gang murders with multiple victims also tend to go unsolved. Three people were killed in Vancouver’s Loft Six nightclub in August 2003, when rival gangs opened fire. No one has been charged. Among the dead was Mahmoud Alkhalil, a 19- year- old member of a prominent gang family.
Alkhalil’s brother Robbie was later charged in the January 2012 murder of gang boss Sandip ( Dip) Duhre, who was at the Loft Six during the 2003 gunfight and the man that Person Y testified ordered the 2004 Dhillon/ Hothi double murder.
And in August 2007, two men were killed and six people wounded at Vancouver’s Fortune Happiness restaurant. No one has been charged.
One of the wounded, Hung Van Bui, 27, was shot to death in Vancouver several months later. His murder is also unsolved.
Houghton said that when gang murders happen in public places “there is an inherent fear that many people have about coming forward and talking and potentially having to give statements or testify against the perpetrators.”
“Right or wrong, people may feel afraid to come forward and I think that’s understandable,” he said. “Police go to great lengths to alleviate that fear and provide support and comfort and get people through the process. … If a person who has critical information is reluctant to come forward, it could potentially stall that case forever.”
Time isn’t always the enemy of police in unsolved murder cases. Acting Staff Sgt. Paul Dadwal, who’s in charge of IHIT’s cold case team, says sometimes going back to marginal players or witnesses in a gang murder case years later can lead to a break.
The person may feel unresolved guilt. Or they have moved on with their lives and no longer be connected to their one- time criminal associates. They may also fear being prosecuted and are willing to make a deal.
“Let’s say three people were involved. If one of the persons happened to be there but maybe they were just the driver or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time … they could probably be prosecuted for it. But maybe there is no other way to solve the file. So what we do is we examine … a deal with this person, a limited agreement deal.”
Before any such deal is struck in an unsolved case, investigators always ask: ‘ what would the public think of this?’ he said.
“Would the public interest be for us to solve this, but maybe make this person a witness for us to enhance our investigation?” Dadwal said.
Any deal has to be approved by the B. C. deputy attorney general.
“Obviously in these gang murders, a lot of evidence lives within the group. It is very hard to do other investigative techniques on these people. And the evidence lives within those people. Those people were solid. They were tight,” Dadwal said. “They were loyal to each other. The evidence lives with them in their own minds and their own heart and now it’s our job to extract it from them.”