BACK on April 3 we published a piece titled “Expect shootings to continue day and night in Surrey!” in RATTAN’S RUMBLE.
Well, that’s exactly what has been happening since then!
For weeks and weeks, I had been REALLY AMAZED that not a single person had been killed in spite of all the crazy cowboy-type shootings in Surrey: vehicles chasing vehicles with guys firing at each other even in broad daylight with no respect for the public or fear of the police.
How could things get any worse!
Well, they did on Sunday morning when one guy was killed. And he happened to be the nephew of Surrey MLA Harry Bains. Arun Paul Singh Bains, 22, was fatally injured when he was shot at 126th Street and 88th Avenue on April 19 and passed away in hospital.
Police told the media that he was known to be associated to the people connected to the street level drug trade conflict.
What a senseless tragedy!
What a waste of a young life!
The young man lacked nothing. His dad, community leaders told me, was one of the most decent people you could come across and the family was known as a loving and popular one.
But they were evidently unaware of their son’s clandestine activities, those close to the Bains family told me.
Or is it that they chose to be ignorant of what their son was up to?
It has become a joke in the community of parents claiming that they didn’t know what their kids were up to until they saw their dead bodies.
I have seen this happening since the days of Bindy Johal and brothers Ron and Jim Dosanjh.
Same old, same old.
Band-aid solutions of cops organizing community meetings with parents and gurdwara leaders and others do definitely help – but only to a certain degree.
It was the same at Tuesday night’s public forum at Surrey’s Tamanawis Secondary School where Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, Surrey RCMP Chief Superintendent Bill Fordy and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. Chief Superintendent Kevin Hackett, among others, tried to give hope to the hundreds of anxious residents.
It is great reaching out to the community – but it’s definitely not kosher to try and blame them for the failures on the part of the mayor and the police force.
And this is the same mayor and police force that oppose the establishment of a single Metro Police force.
Yet the past few years have clearly shown that from Vancouver to Surrey to Abbotsford, South Asian young men have been out of control. Just access all those stories about the South Slope and Abbotsford and now Surrey on our website, and you will see that ugly reality for yourself.
And then there are a host of other gangs, far more powerful than “petty drug dealers”, who also do not recognize any city limits.
UNFORTUNATELY, as I had expected, the conduct of these South Asian youths has sparked off racism on mainstream radio talk shows, giving all those “I-am-not-racist-but …” types a chance to once again attack non-white (“ethnic”) communities.
Some of these racist and /or ignorant scumbags, including some cops and politicians, are talking about a “code of silence” in the community. One of those well-known idiots was on Radio CKNW on Thursday morning.
Excuse me, but isn’t there a code of silence when it comes to the Hells Angels, the mafia and other crime groups where the majority are white guys?
If the police forces are such a bunch of incompetent goofs that they lack sources within the different communities, then they should start doing something about their lack of intelligence and stop passing the buck!
There is nothing wrong with appealing to the South Asian community (or any other community) for more cooperation or tips, but to place all the blame on them is totally unconscionable and despicable.
FOR years I have been fighting for a Metro Police force that will be able to do what all the so-called integrated units have failed to do.
Neither the provincial government nor the NDP opposition have the guts to change the system, always placing the onus on the mayors, who are too petty-minded and want to cling on to their own fiefdoms. Just a bunch of spineless characters!
Anyway, let me repeat what Simon Fraser University’s well-known criminologist Dr. Robert Gordon told The VOICE in the April 3 piece:
“QUITE clearly the Surrey RCMP and the associated RCMP gang units are not really having a great deal of success in controlling this activity and I am sure this is a great disappointment to the police officers that are involved and I am sure it’s a great disappointment to the Mayor of Surrey but the fact of the matter is that they are just not dealing with the crime issue in Surrey as a regional problem – they are dealing with it on a parochial basis and so long as they do that – we don’t have unity among police services across Metro – this sort of stuff will continue,” [Gordon told The VOICE].
In other words, as The VOICE has been pointing out for many years now, quoting experts such as Gordon and former solicitor general Kash Heed, unless we have a unified Metro Vancouver police force from West Vancouver to Abbotsford, it will be impossible to deal effectively with such incidents. So-called integrated task forces are no substitute for a SINGLE police force like the one they have in Toronto.
And as The VOICE has reported in the past the much touted increase in RCMP officers that we have been promised is NOT going to have any real impact for the obvious reason that they have no experience.
Gordon bluntly noted yet again: “It wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. The problem with the incoming police officers is that they are all fresh out of the Academy. They will not have the street smarts.”
He added that there was no pool of police officers experienced in dealing with gangs who can be moved into Surrey from elsewhere.
Gordon added: “But that still doesn’t get around the problem which is the lack of a coherent regional approach to policing, not just gangs generally, but to policing as a whole. Obviously the provincial government and the electorate in Metro Vancouver are not concerned about that otherwise that would change. Politicians are not providing leadership.”
He said all that politicians were doing was “attaching band aids, on the one hand, and shifting deck chairs around the Titanic, on the other. … So it’s not going to change at all, unfortunately.”
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