Pubdate: Fri, 17 Dec 2010
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Lori Culbert
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?216 (CN Police)

POLICE UNVEIL ANTI-GANG MEASURES

Initiatives Include Volunteer Citizens, Quick-Response Team and Plate 
Speedreader

Vancouver police are promising that 100 new sets of eyes and ears 
will be monitoring the streets in the new year for gang activity -- 
though they won't belong to trained, armed officers, but rather to 
volunteer citizens.

The number of Citizens' Crime Watch volunteers will be doubled, and 
participants will be provided for the first time with licence-plate 
numbers from known gangsters' cars. They will be asked to call police 
if they spot those vehicles outside certain restaurants and bars.

"The volunteers will create an invisible net around high-profile gang 
hangouts and report to police when they spot a licence plate from the 
list," Chief Const. Jim Chu said.

Police announced a handful of new anti-gang initiatives Thursday, 
less than a week after 10 people were shot on Oak Street in what 
police described as a "personal attack" on the city.

No update on the high-profile investigation was offered Thursday, 
except that three more of the victims have been released from 
hospital, leaving five -- three men and two women -- still being 
treated for gunshot wounds.

Deputy Chief Const. Warren Lemcke admitted the Best Neighbours 
restaurant outside which the shooting spree happened had not been on 
the department's radar screen before last weekend, but insisted, 
"With 100 extra eyes and ears out there ... and with participation of 
restaurant owners and bar owners ... we have a much better chance of 
preventing things from happening."

A second initiative announced Thursday was the creation of a "gang 
quick-response team," a group of dedicated officers who will target 
gangsters with checks on the streets, and in restaurants and bars.

The members of this new team -- Lemcke would not say exactly how many 
officers will be involved -- will decide whom to target and where 
based on police intelligence, and also on tips from citizen 
crime-prevention groups such as Restaurant Watch, Bar Watch and 
Citizens' Crime Watch.

The new unit will augment the VPD's existing gang-related teams, such 
as the firearms interdiction team and a squad that works on the 
weekends in the entertainment district.

A third initiative, Lemcke said, is the expanded use of a device 
called an Automatic Licence Plate Reader, which can scan thousands of 
plates and identify ones owned by gangsters. The device will now be 
deployed at impaired driving roadblocks and other "strategic locations."

Insp. Brad Desmarais, head of the VPD's gang and drugs section, said 
the licence-plate readers "will give us an unparalleled opportunity 
to track these people moving through our city and identify areas 
where they congregate. We may not know that there is some 
hole-in-the-wall restaurant on Main Street where these guys decided 
to set up shop."

Const. Oscar Alvarez, who is in charge of the decades-old citizens' 
group, said the gang file is a new area of focus for the volunteers, 
who in the past have been involved in initiatives such as patrolling 
for stolen cars and suspicious activities.

The group has 117 volunteers, but Alvarez says more than 100 people 
are on a waiting list to join.

He has now been given funding to expedite the security clearance, 
interviews and selection process so new recruits will be in place in 
the first few months of 2011.

Volunteers would, for privacy reasons, only be given basic 
information about what to watch for outside gang hangouts, such as a 
colour of a vehicle and its licence-plate number, but not its owner's name.

Alvarez maintained it will not put these unarmed volunteers at risk 
by asking them to monitor gangsters, despite the escalating gang 
violence in the city.

Volunteers will be anonymous and will work in teams out of private 
cars, and when they see a gangster's licence plate they will phone 
police -- not approach the target on their own.

"They will not get out of their vehicles," Alvarez said. "Anonymity 
is the key to this."

However, Prof. Robert Gordon, head of Simon Fraser University's 
criminology department and a former RCMP officer, cautioned gangsters 
are more dangerous than common property offenders, and said most of 
them "are not stupid."

"Is there a risk? Yes. I think there is a risk with any citizen 
patrol situation, but when you are dealing with these guys the risks 
are higher," he said.

Gordon was unconvinced the new measures would curb the region-wide 
gang activity, which is fuelled by the lucrative drug trade.

"I think it's optics and I don't see it as really making a dent in 
the main problem," he said. "I think it is indicative of the level of 
desperation there is at the moment in the city on how to handle this 
outburst from folks in drug trade."

But, Desmarais said, police are excited about these new measures.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom