Pubdate: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 2008 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66 Author: Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) HOW TO FIX HOBBEMA When I picked up my paper Monday morning to read about the latest senseless murder on the Samson First Nation -- the third in four weeks -- I wanted to bang out a column demanding that the federal and provincial governments send more RCMP officers to the reserve to restore order. The latest victim was young mother Delena Dixon, 20, who died after her house was peppered with bullets late Saturday night. It was the second attack on the house. The night before, a man in the same house was shot, but in his case, the bullet only grazed his arm. RCMP say both shootings were gang-related. There are now 39 officers with the Hobbema detachment, with some of the heaviest caseloads in the country. With Samson community residents describing their reserve as a war zone filled with terrorists, my gut response was to suggest we should send in the army, if necessary, to clean the place up. But would more cops, more boots on the ground, make a difference? Not according to Fred Lindsay, Alberta's solicitor general. "We've already got twice as many police officers there as in any other community of that size," says Lindsay. "I'm convinced that if we sent in 15 or 20 more officers, it wouldn't do anything." The gang violence that plagues Hobbema, he says, is fuelled by the drug trade. "People in that community need to shape up their lives and stop using these drugs. If they do that, this problem will go away." Sound politically incorrect? As if we're blaming native victims for their own woes? I might have thought so, too -- if I hadn't also spoken with Hobbema RCMP Const. Perry Cardinal. Cardinal is aboriginal himself, though he grew up in northern Alberta, not in Hobbema. Cardinal says gun complaints have spiked in the Hobbema area in the past month. Instead of just handguns and rifles, the RCMP are now seeing more rapid-fire weapons and high-powered assault rifles. Still, he doesn't think assigning more officers to the reserve would help. "I'm not sure what we can do differently," says Cardinal. "It's almost like we're spinning our wheels." It wasn't supposed to be this way. In April, after two-year-old Asia Saddleback was seriously wounded in a gang-related drive-by shooting, the Samson community rallied to try to bring violence on the reserve under control. The RCMP instituted special "suppression group" patrols, dispatching an extra four officers every evening to patrol the reserve and watch for trouble. On Aug. 1, the province began a firearms amnesty program, which allows people to turn in weapons and ammunition without fear of being charged with possession of unregistered or unlicensed weapons. The Saddleback shooting was supposed to be the turning point, the wake-up call that galvanized a community to heal itself. But apparently the young gangsters who plague the reserve didn't get their copy of that fairy-tale script. Cardinal says there are at least 13 identified gangs operating in the Hobbema area, gangs fighting over the crack cocaine market. But he's not talking about big-time "organized crime." "It's more like a five-and-dime program. Nobody out here is getting rich, as far as I can see. "A big percentage of the people here are customers," he says. "At least 20 per cent or more use. Every time they buy drugs, they support the gangs." The vast majority of people on the reserve aren't using drugs, aren't involved in gangs. There are hundreds of people from Samson working hard to raise families, get through school or build careers. Still, Cardinal says it's not easy for the RCMP to get those law-abiding residents to help them. Some are too afraid to talk to the police, afraid of gang reprisals. Others subscribe to what Cardinal calls the code of silence. In a tight-knit community of 12,000, where almost everybody is related to everybody else, it isn't easy to convince people to "snitch." "The code of silence has to change. People in this community have to take responsibility. They have to step up. Enough is enough. "There are lots of good people here," Cardinal says, "but the dangerous people aren't the ones who commit the crimes. They're the ones who sit back and let it happen." Perry Cardinal is right. Outsiders can't fix the Samson First Nation. Only the community can heal itself -- by taking responsibility for its own problems. Arguably, flooding the reserve with more officers might only breed resentment and make it harder than ever to break that code of silence. Yet, let's recognize that drug addiction is more than just a poor lifestyle choice. It's a sickness. The Samson crime crisis is rooted in a great mental health crisis that spans generations. And while problems on the Samson First Nation are far more extreme, at some level they are merely a reflection of a culture of drugs and violence that permeates the province, that crosses all cultural boundaries. It's a little too sanctimonious just to tell people to stop using drugs. If we want to stem the gang violence at Samson and across Alberta, we, as a province, need comprehensive drug treatment and addiction prevention programs that work. And at the same time, we as individuals must take more responsibility for the health and safety of our communities. None of us can afford to sit passively by and let drug trade violence spread around the province. We must put boots to the ground, all right. Our own. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom