Pubdate: Mon, 27 Sept 1999 Source: North Shore News (Canada) Copyright: 1999 by the North Shore News Contact: http://www.nsnews.com/ Author: Leo Knight, FINDING FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES While on the subject of leaders who deliberately ill-inform the public, can there be a sadder case than that of Edmonton police chief John Lindsay? In the spring, two veteran detectives charged that senior members of the police department leaked information to the Hells Angels, and Lindsay did little to investigate the allegations. The charges inspired an investigation by the RCMP. Lindsay, for his part, immediately filed a civil action in an attempt to limit the scope of the Mounties' investigation of corruption into his department. While circling the wagons, Lindsay was forced to pull his head out of the sand on the issue of gang activity in the City of Champions. With nearly 20 gang-related shootings over the course of the summer, Lindsay was finally forced to form a task force responsible for dealing with the street war for control of the lucrative heroin and cocaine trade. Last week, barely two weeks after the formation of the gang task force, Lindsay stood up in front of the media, and with a straight face, announced the gang problem was in decline. The bullets have been flying all summer in Edmonton. They are using weapons like Mac-11 machine pistols. One drive-by shooting resulted in a stray bullet narrowly missing a five-year-old girl in her bed. Another dealer was hacked open by assailants with a meat cleaver and there's the chief law enforcement officer for the city saying the problem is in decline. The Vietnamese gangs are duking it out with the Chinese. The native thugs like the Red Alert and the Warriors are struggling for recognition, while the West End Boys are doing their best to ensure Darwin's legitimacy and Lindsay says everything's all right folks. I spent an hour last week talking to a street cop who works out of Edmonton's West Division. He told me, officially, there is no gang problem in Edmonton. He then went on to tell me chapter and verse of the problems he and his colleagues have trying to keep the lid on a bubbling cauldron of organized crime wars trying to seize control of the lucrative drug trade in the gateway to the north. Considering every ounce of heroin or cocaine sold in Alberta originates in Vancouver and one of the shooting victims this summer is a suspect in a B.C. homicide, I'm thinking Lindsay had better extract his head from his anal cavity. Conversely, he may be trying to deflect attention from the allegations made by the two detectives who, like Read and McAdam, are just trying to do the right thing. Jim Fisher, the Vancouver Police sergeant recently gagged by the RCMP for doing his job, says the situation in Edmonton is identical, and with some of the same players, as Vancouver had five years ago. Organized crime is more prevalent in our cities -- all of our cities - -- than ever before. It affects each one of us whether you realize it or not. The soldiers in the war against the forces of darkness are being gagged, maligned or condemned. Some of the people at the head of our governments, police forces and civil service are protecting the bad guys and, frankly, I don't understand why we are letting this happen. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea