Recently, Vancouver people are getting more frightened and scared as time passes. Who wouldn’t be! With all the gang-related shootings and killings that happened this year, even the bravest ones probably wouldn’t dare to come out their houses.
It was estimated that there have been 15 gang-related murders just in this year of 2021. Recently, three steady incidents were reported within a one-week span. Two are confirmed gang related, and the last one is still under investigation.
The very first incident happened outside of Caradero’s Restaurant in Downtown Vancouver. A 31-year-old Abbotsford Local Hapreet Singh Dhaliwal was shot dead at around 8:30 pm, Saturday, 17 of April. According to the investigation, Mr. Dhaliwal and his two other brothers are linked to the infamous Brothers Keepers Gang as members. The two brothers of Hapreet were nearby when the incident happened. His older brother Barinder who saw his lifeless corpse was in agony as he screams and tries to approach his brother’s dead body. However, the police had to stop him from coming in closer to the body as they were under investigation.
Three days after the murder of Mr. Dhaliwal, another incident happened outside of Sportflex in Langley. 46-year-old Todd Gouwenberg was also shot dead in the morning of Wednesday, April 21. The investigators later found out that Todd was an MMA fighter as they saw a 9-year-old interview posted in social media featuring him as a fighter. Police has also discovered solid evidence about his connection with the United Nations Gang of the lower. They found out that he was with the gang for almost 20 years. Since they are still in the early stage of the investigation, Assistant commissioner Many Mann of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. (CFSEU) said it is still unknown to what the reason and motives of the killing.
The last incident happened at a busy park in Coquitlam last Monday, April 19. About 6:30 afternoon, 20-year-old Bailey McKinney was shot dead during a basketball game in the Town Center Park of Port Coquitlam. Although it is not fully confirmed, police believed that the killing was connected to the gang war that is recently happening. A couple indefinite evidence were discovered upon the investigation. One is that they found a court record showing someone with a similar name and age and was filed with a bunch of criminal charges. The guy was supposedly needed to go to court as he was scheduled on April 20th, which makes sense since it was the day after the killing happened. His mother Lianne McKinney also said something happened when he was 15 years old, during an interview.
“This kind of started at 15, You don’t want to be 15. You want to be a man. You want to have some with power. Guess he found a group of people who made him feel powerful.” – Lianne McKinney
With the investigation run by the CFSEU, they’re insisting that the reason of why gang-related attempted killings is at its peak is because of the concerns and tensions of previews gangs against new groups that could join the plate. The tension was said that it started about a decade ago, more specifically in 2008. Older gang groups such as United Nations, Red Scorpions, and The Wolf Packs are feeling aggravated by new and upcoming gangs because of their gradual incline of power. It is said that the new groups are quickly changing the gang world.
With new players being present, new competitions occurs over drug lines, and other illegal businesses. New and quickly changing alliances are also happening and making new rivalries. This causes backstabbing, quisling, snitching and disagreements. To clean up the mess caused by the movements, they probably needed to put down unwanted people such as the three mentioned a while ago.
The killing was found having a trend each time it gets attempted. First, police said that normal civilians should have little to no worries about the killing since they are just only targeting specific people and not the actual places. However, it is still concerning since innocent people might be present during the killings and could still be accidentally get harm or killed by lost bullets, not to mention the trauma you could get by seeing a person get shot especially if you’re a kid.
One trait that the three killings have in common is, they all happened in public places with a heavy number of civilians around. People say that public executions related to gangs are rare occurrences. It’s an abnormal decision since they usually do the killings as silent or as clean as possible. My theory is that the killings is a message to be delivered to the members of the gangs. Some members probably don’t want to get involve in the war anymore. During Lianne McKinney’s interview, she mentioned that she noticed Bailey was trying to change and started to hangout with his family more often. I could be wrong, but this is a sign of a member who wants to be out of the war. He was probably taken out because he might spill out something in the public. Another possible theory is because the ongoing war is incredibly fast paced, there are no time for clean ups and cover ups.
Another trait is every time there’s a killing happened, burnt cars are found in areas relatively close to the incidents. The authority says the burnt vehicles might be connected to the drive by shooting that is happening in the lower mainland. They said that the burnt vehicles match the descriptions of the cars involved in the shootings.
Consequently, the CFSEU are doing its best to protect and prevent anymore killings. They put up a tighter patrol to roam the lower mainland day and night for any suspicious activity. They made a stricter rule to limit any gang illegal activities. They are also willing to cooperate with the public for any witnesses and with other gangsters.
“It’s very, very important that we get cooperation from the public, we get cooperation from the other gangsters and their families. They have information and they need to come forward with that information so that we can advance with our investigation.” – Many Mann
The community is also trying to prevent any gang empower in the whole lower mainland. Last month, The City of Surrey Community Safety launched a website build to support parents and trusted adults to minimize gang involvement to youths. The website called “Empower Surrey”, gives everything that is needed to know about Surrey’s gangs, including tricks and tips for youth prevention. According to Community Safety manager Brian Aasebo, Gangs in B.C. targets children as young as 10 years old from a variety of demographic, geographic, and socio-economic environments. This is not the only activity that Vancouver did for prevention, there are more, and hopefully will decrease the gang movement in the city.