What's going on in Vancouver with gangs right now?
A: Over the last year, [we] have had a pretty violent gang war raging in the streets. There have been a lot of very public shootings, including at malls, including at the Vancouver airport right outside the international terminal, and outside busy restaurants.
So the public is rightfully concerned about what's going on. There are at least three different groups and some independent drug traffickers that are involved in this conflict, and this year alone, we've seen more than 20 dead and more than 20 wounded.
Can you give me a quick overview of who these groups are?
A: The older gangs would be the the United Nations gang, which has extensive links in Calgary with the FK there.
There is also the Red Scorpion Gang, people will recognize that name, going back more than a dozen years, because we had that terrible Surrey Six massacre here in 2007. The Bacon brothers were connected to the Red Scorpion Gang.
And we have a newer gang called the Brothers Keepers, and some of these people have had associations with other gangs previously, but the Brothers Keepers has been around and evolved in the drug trade for four to five years at this point.
Do we know what happened to cause this latest violence?
A: There is more competition through the pandemic for the drug trade. Lots of drug use is occurring, but sometimes it's tougher to get product because of the border being shut down, so it's obviously battles over drug lines and drug territory.
