Mr. Chairman and committee members, I'd like to speak today with a little more concentration on the city police and the street-level focus of organized crime, with a particular focus on firearm aspect.
On the gang demographics a little bit in the Vancouver area,it's a very popular area for gangs, ranging from highly structured international criminal organizations such as the Hells Angels, to lesser known or less obvious gangs, such as Asian Triads, Indo-Canadians, Persians, and the like.
We have approximately well over a hundred Hells Angels within the greater Vancouver area. The other gangs range anywhere from just under a hundred to several hundred members. What we're finding more and more is an ever increasing conflict with respect to the drug distribution network and turf wars, and even clashing on the street just with respect to egos. The levels of violence that we're experiencing are also significantly on the increase. Never in my career have I seen it the way it is becoming in the city of Vancouver. The elicit drug trade amongst these organized crime groups is driving the violence levels through the roof. We're seeing shootings on a regular basis. It's commonplace in the city of Vancouver to go out to nightclubs on any given weekend and find gangsters in the nightclubs, wearing bullet-proof vests. Even the doormen and the staff at the nightclubs are starting to wear body armour just when doing their job in a nightclub, due to the indiscriminate firepower that's on the street and the shootings that have taken place in the city of Vancouver. Of particular concern and interest to us is the new firearm legislation from a city and a street-level point of view.
I'd like to give a couple of examples of some of the recent shootings that we've had in Vancouver, just so you can grasp what is going on in Vancouver. A nightclub in Vancouver called Loft Six, a busy nightclub in the downtown core, was full of patrons on a particular night it, at about two to three in the morning. A conflict erupted between the Hells Angels and Indo-gangsters. On that particular night, there was a shooting between the two gangs. We had nine people shot, six of whom were innocent. We had three people killed and one crippled for life. One of the individuals who was killed and the crippled individual were innocent people caught in the crossfire. Three handguns were used. We recovered two handguns, neither of which were used in the shooting, so there were at least five handguns involved in the nightclub on that particular evening. Of note is the fact that all three suspected shooters from that night are now dead from other shootings. It's just proliferation.
Purple Onion is another Vancouver nightclub, located very close to Loft Six. Again, it's a very busy nightclub, usually full of patrons. A dispute among Asian gang members erupted outside the door. What happened was that a gun was drawn and a young lady stepped between the combatants to try to quell the situation. She ended up getting killed. That night there was one handgun used. Seven people were shot, including three innocent people, with two people killed.
The most recent example was in the greater Vancouver area, in what I would describe as an urban park surrounded by multi-family dwellings, condominiums, and the like. It was a Persian gang conflict, and it was clearly an orchestrated shooting. On that particular night, numerous firearms were fired, including assault rifles and handguns. Approximately 150 rounds were fired in this little melee. Three people were shot and injured. The surrounding townhouses took the brunt of the rounds that were fired, with shots going through people's homes, given the high firepower of the assault weapons. One narrowly missed an infant in a crib.
I can't explain enough the seriousness of the firepower that's being used in Vancouver. I'm not sure if the messages or the media are getting back here with respect to what's going on. In British Columbia last year, we seized over 2,300 firearms. Almost 80% of the shootings were in public places, coming at the cost of human lives, those of innocent people and bystanders. It's not just the gangsters. The gangsters don't seem to be able to shoot that well. Like I said, at Dover Park, 150 rounds were fired and nobody was killed, but three people were injured. There's just indiscriminate firepower out there on the west coast of Canada.
With respect to organized crime legislation, I think Deputy Commissioner Bourduas laid things out very clearly. We agree with everything he has spoken to. As a member of a municipal police department, I can say that these types of large and lengthy investigations are difficult and costly for us to undertake. In British Columbia, we undertake the integrated model that was spoken of. One in particular was focused on the east end chapter of the Hells Angels, Project EPANDORA. That was a partnership led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Vancouver Police Department, and the combined forces special enforcement unit.
This investigation was about a two-year investigation. At the culmination, we ended up seizing what I would describe as the war chest of the east end chapter of the Hells Angels, which included dynamite, blasting caps, hand grenades, fully automatic weapons, silencers, and handguns. The criminal organization legislation was used to its full extent, with the cooperation of the Department of Justice and the regional crown counsel. In that investigation alone, 39 charges of gangsterism were laid, between facilitating, participating, and directing. It's very useful legislation. It's very helpful. But as I say, from the street officers' point of view, we're very concerned with the firearms.
On Bill C-10, the proposed firearms legislation, we're very optimistic with respect to the minimum mandatory sentences that are proposed. I know there are all sorts of studies from all over North America with respect to jailing people for longer periods of time. Does it really help? I think the studies go in both directions. I know from the street level and from the public safety level that if you take the guys who are out there doing the crime off the street for three years for the first offence and five years for the second offence, those are individuals who are not going to be shooting people any longer.
I also think there's a huge deterrent factor when it comes to the younger people who are looking at the gang situation and are trying to decide if they're going to go down that path in life. When one of their brothers goes away for three or five years, I think it does weigh heavily on their thought process.
Again from a street officer's point of view, one thing I would like to suggest or put on the table is a tool that's commonly used by the police, and that's the ability to search an individual when the police officer can illustrate articulable cause sufficient to justify the search, based on the need for preserving the safety of both the individual and the officer involved.
This concept of articulable cause arises out of a peace officer's common-law powers of search and is based largely on case law. The threshold necessary to perform a search of an individual based on articulable cause is reasonable suspicion, which is significantly lower than that of reasonable and probable grounds, as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada. It is still respectful of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The frailty of this is the fact that it's based on case law and not legislation.
As we know, case law has the ability to change dramatically and rapidly, and it can have a sweeping effect through the Canadian court system. It would be interesting and highly beneficial to see Parliament create legislative authority that recognizes the greater good of protecting society over protecting the rights of an individual. This can be accomplished by lowering the threshold to legally search a person of a notorious character and his immediate surroundings, such as an automobile, for a firearm or a weapon dangerous to the public peace, from “reasonable and probable grounds” to “reasonable suspicion”.
In proving reasonable suspicion, numerous factors can be considered, including the individual's previous violent background; gang involvement; location; documented associations with other know violent criminals or gang members; the individual's actions at the time of the investigation; and other relevant information and intelligence. To illustrate this, I would point to one of the enforcement models that we use in the city of Vancouver. On Friday and Saturday nights, we use what we call a firearms interdiction team because of the number of shootings and firearms in Vancouver now. Simply put, this is SWAT members and gang squad members going out and hunting down gangsters, trying to take guns off the street.
One of our biggest tools in this area is articulable cause, where we embark on some type of investigation or lawful detention, such as a Motor Vehicle Act offence or anything, and using articulable cause, we will then search the person and his vehicle. Like I say, it's a valuable tool, but it's based largely on case law, which could be taken away at any time and it would affect officers across Canada.
What would be very valuable is to have it codified by legislation, allowing us not first to need another type of law, such as the Motor Vehicle Act, to initiate the search and work within the laws of Canada. What would be very valuable is to identify this person of notorious character as a gangster, and someone who's most likely got a gun on him or in his vehicle, and that would be good enough for us to initiate the search for guns. Because that's what we're trying to do in the long run, get these guns off the street so they don't kill innocent people.
With respect to the Hells Angels and the effects of the gangsterism laws on these criminal organizations, I would suggest that in Vancouver, the greater Vancouver area, the Hells Angels are really the only ones that are concerned about the gang legislation, as it stands. We all know, and I'm sure you're all aware, that they have a national fund, they call it the C-95 defence fund. They put money into a fund to fight the actual legislation itself. Every member participates, contributes, and that's what they do. They've identified it as a definite threat and they put money towards fighting that threat.
In British Columbia, we have very media-savvy Hells Angels. They're very concerned about their public image. They've actually changed the name of their C-95 defence fund to the West Coast Freedom to Associate Society. It sounds very nice, but basically it's a fund to fight the organized crime legislation.
We find in our Hells Angels trials.... We had a Vancouver police investigation where we convicted two members of the Nomad chapter, Hells Angels, in British Columbia, of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, trafficking cocaine, possession of proceeds of crime. A lot of times the Hells Angels aren't concerned about being found guilty or not. They are under the gang legislation. But we're also finding that their biggest concern is they want to find out how we did things, who was the rat, that type of thing.
And they are masters at delaying the court process. To give you an example, a very short example, of the delay process these guys do, in this case it was a 1996-97 investigation, arrests were in 1998, they were convicted in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison. They launched an appeal to the B.C. Court of Appeal, and subsequently the Supreme Court of Canada, and these individuals eventually went to jail for four and a half years, commencing November 2005. Eight months later, on a 55-month sentence, one of these individuals is out on parole already. So the time and money spent by the criminal justice system on these individuals is phenomenal. And it was a relatively simple case, nothing like a criminal organization case. That is just to give you an idea of another type of battle that we fight out there with these criminal organization groups, who are masters of delay in the court system.
In summing up, I would just like to say thank you very much for having us here. It's an excellent opportunity to get our point across. As I said, I talked to the fellows at work, and I really wanted to bring a street perspective to the committee, as opposed to the large criminal organization investigative perspective, because I knew that our compatriots here would certainly cover that area and I felt it was important to get more of a street-level perspective. I know all the large cities across Canada are dealing with these similar firearms issues.
Thank you very much.