News

When a police official in Vancouver was asked recently how many agencies, units and task forces have an active role on the policing side of the war on gangs in B.C., he started to count.

It didn't take him long to get to 11. There are more, but he stopped there.

The list includes the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, the B.C. Integrated Gang Task Force and the Uniform Gang Task Force.

There are federal agencies such as the Canadian Border Services Agency and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. Then there's the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which looks at homicides outside Vancouver, Delta and West Vancouver, and has lately been very busy with gang-related cases. And gang units within Vancouver's municipal forces such as the Vancouver Gang Crime Unit.

The list goes on and on.

Not surprisingly, a number of observers are speaking out about this multiple-team approach, calling it ineffectual.

As gang violence rages, so too does the debate about the need for a regional police force that, supporters say, would offer a more co-ordinated approach in a province with 11 municipal forces and 126 RCMP detachments - more than a dozen police forces in Metro Vancouver alone.

But critics are also taking aim at the large web of players who deal specifically with gangs, suggesting, in essence, that the good guys are spread too thin among too many teams against an army of gang members linked to 33 shootings - 15 of them fatal - across the region since the beginning of the year.

Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh was B.C.'s attorney-general in 1998 when he announced the creation of the Organized Crime Agency of B.C. as a separate police unit to tackle organized crime. The move followed the disbanding of the venerable Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit that was shaken by allegations a Hong Kong police officer recruited to work for it had passed police information to Asian gangs.

In 2005, after Mr. Dosanjh had left provincial politics and became an MP, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit was created as a province-wide unit to take on organized crime.

Mr. Dosanjh supports a regional police force, but suggests going further. "Once you have that, that would lead to reducing the number of these task forces you have," he said in an interview, referring to the list of parties to the gang fight.

"The system is not working, whether it's the intelligence-gathering or the task forces galore," he said.

"I am sure they are able to disrupt some gang activity, but if they had been able to disrupt much of it, we wouldn't have so many murders in such a short time. Therefore my view is we should have a push in the province towards a regionalized police force and towards actually integrating and harmonizing these task forces."

Rob Gordon, the head of the criminology school at Simon Fraser University, says he has heard from officers in the field who raise concerns about the current model.

"[They] tell me, for example, there are problems within this integrated system - these information-sharing problems, organizational problems," he said. "I don't think it's police officers just simply bitching about their working conditions. It's individuals genuinely concerned."

Proponents of the current approach can claim there is co-ordination and sharing of information, but Mr. Gordon said, "I would think that it would be obvious to a Martian anthropologist that this is not the best way of going about dealing with organized crime groups."

Logic suggests, he says, that there would be better lines of communication, information sharing, and co-ordination with a single organization responsible for organized crime suppression and detection.

"You create a single organization with the responsibility for dealing with organized crime. That organization is dedicated solely to organized crime-related activities wherever they may occur and whatever they involve." The head of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has heard the complaints, but respectfully disagrees.

Superintendent Doug Kilo, whose unit's role is to disrupt and suppress organized and serious crime, says each party to the fight has special responsibilities. "They're all divided by the different responsibilities within their names," he said.

He said there has already been a move toward some amalgamation among his operation, the Integrated Gang Task Force and the Outlaw Motorcycle Group. The three share vehicles and store exhibits together, among other things.

And, speaking to a larger issue, Supt. Kilo recalls last week's announcement by Vancouver police that the municipal force had arrested five suspects as part of its Project Rebellion effort to, as Chief Jim Chu put it, arrest gangsters "on any and as many crimes as we can."

He said police in the Lower Mainland essentially agreed to divvy up the campaign against gangs. "Without going too far, there's totally different levels of investigation. The level of investigation we do out of [the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit] is going to take much longer than Rebellion; is going to take much longer than sort-out-a-search warrant and go in and seize a kilo of cocaine and couple of rifles or something like that," he said.

His group, he said, is focused above the "unorganized and riff-raff street-level crime on the mid-level of criminal organizations.

"Our files will go into Japan, Australia, the United States, South America, Central America, Mexico - all those."

Asked about the issue, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson called for greater cohesion. "With the integrated units, there is still a void between street-level enforcement and the higher-level work undertaken by the provincial agencies," he said in an e-mail, noting the Project Rebellion effort by Vancouver police addresses the "enforcement gap" in the battle against gangs.

"We can't just be dealing with gang shootings after the fact. They need to be prevented."

With a provincial election looming, it will be up to whoever wins power to resolve these issues over the long-term.

Mike Farnworth, the NDP's critic on public-safety issues, says a review of how all the agencies work together should be part of a study on the regional-policing concept.

Solicitor-General John van Dongen says he's looking to B.C.'s newly appointed public-security commissioner, David Morhart, to address the issue of co-ordination as part of his responsibilities. To date, co-ordination has been among the duties of the police-services division within his ministry.

Mr. van Dongen is mindful of the criticisms.

"While there are imperfections, I do believe the integrated teams are serving us relatively well," he said.

He says he has heard of differences of opinion over strategy.

"I have certainly heard that comment from different players, who say that 'Well, I think the strategy that the CFSEU is following should be modified,' but in fact, these integrated police teams have regular meetings."

Asked about " imperfections," he refers to varied personalities and different points of view, which are inevitable.

"You're always going to need specialized teams to do specialized things, and the integrated police teams are an example of specialized teams that are dedicated to work across municipal borders and even across regions to pursue gang and gun violence, but I think, having said that, you need effective co-ordination."

ibailey@globeandmail.com

Strength in numbers

As gang violence rages in the Lower Mainland, these are some of the police and government agencies that have combined forces:

Combined Forces

Special Enforcement Unit

Formerly Organized Crime Agency of B.C., the unit's role is to "facilitate the disruption and suppression of organized crime which affects British Columbians." It is comprised of RCMP officers and seconded officers from all municipal police forces in British Columbia.

B.C. Integrated

Gang Task Force

The task force was created in October, 2004, to address gang violence within the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and the province. The force brings together resources from Vancouver Police, RCMP, Abbotsford Police, Delta Police, New Westminster Police, Port Moody Police and West Vancouver Police.

Integrated Border

Enforcement Team

IBET was developed by authorities in British Columbia and Washington state in the mid-1990s and has since expanded to include 15 locations across the country. It is comprised of both U.S. and Canadian law enforcement who are poised to catch drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, organized criminal members and terrorists. The five core agencies are the RCMP, Canadian Border Services Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Office of Border Patrol, U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Coast Guard.

Integrated National

Security Enforcement Team

The INSET is led by the RCMP, and its federal partners include the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Located in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, the role of INSET, according to the RCMP, is to "detect, prevent, disrupt and investigate terrorist targets and ultimately bring terrorists to justice prior to serious, violent, criminal acts being perpetrated in Canada and/or abroad."

Integrated Proceeds

of Crime Unit

A federal inter-department initiative, the IPOC unit's role is the "disruption, dismantling and incapacitation of target organized criminals and crime groups." Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada regularly evaluates the initiatives and provides policy co-ordination. Partners include Canada Border Services Agency, Canada Revenue Agency, Department of Justice, provincial and municipal police forces, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, Public Works and Government Services: Forensic Accounting Management Group - Seized Property Management Directorate, and the RCMP.

The B.C. Civil

Forfeiture Office

The office was created to penalize those who profit from crime. The Civil Forfeiture Act was brought into force on April 20, 2006.

Canadian Border

Services Agency

The agency acts as a front-line response and defence against the import of drugs and weapons, which could be used by gangs. It also gathers intelligence on groups in Canada exporting drugs to the United States.

Gang Crime Unit

The unit within the Vancouver Police develops intelligence and conducts investigations on criminal street gangs.

Uniform Gang Task Force

The task force began its work in late 2007 and is a joint effort of the RCMP and Vancouver-area police departments to try and cut down on gang activity in the Lower Mainland.

Integrated Homicide

Investigation Team

The team probes homicides, police-involved shootings and in-custody deaths outside Vancouver in the Lower Mainland. It is policed by the RCMP, Abbotsford, New Westminster and Port Moody police departments.

Vancouver Major

Crime Section

The section within the Vancouver Police department includes the homicide squad, the robbery/assault squad and the missing persons squad.