Frustrated with comments like “The bullets fell from the sky,” police agencies are hoping cash will root gangsters’ guns out of Metro Vancouver.
Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit spokesman, told The Province an arrogant gang member had refused to co-operate with police in the wake of a horrific nine-week spree in April and May in which there were 30 shootings in Surrey and Delta.
Cops believe at least half those shootings were tied to two groups thought to be competing over the street-level drug trade.
Houghton said the young suspect had been shot during a shootout, but had no interest in telling police who did it or where the guns came from.
However, Houghton said, the cops obtained “specific information” that led to a search warrant to enter the suspect’s home and car.
There, they found several weapons.
There has only been one shooting since that raid.
“Even though it’s just one incident, one search warrant, one bust … we can’t downplay the potential impact it has in terms of disrupting, suppressing, giving these people who are allegedly involved pause for thought,” he said.
“The disruptive effect is huge.”
That day in May, cops knew which garage at which residence to search.
That is the kind of information police are targeting with the new Cash for Guns campaign, led by metro Crime Stoppers, with the support of Lower Mainland law-enforcement agencies.
Launching Thursday, Crime Stoppers’ Cash for Guns campaign is the first of its kind in B.C., said Linda Annis, executive director of metro Crime Stoppers.
“We’re really trying to bring it to the forefront … with all that’s been happening around the Lower Mainland,” Annis said.
“We feel it’s time for the public to realize the importance of getting these guns off the streets and taking some action.”
Cash for Guns isn’t a gun-amnesty program, Annis explained, though both programs aim to get guns off the street.
In the periodic gun-amnesty programs of recent years, British Columbians were encouraged to safely surrender their unwanted weapons and ammo to police, but the amnesty didn’t apply to weapons that had been used in a crime.
But the new Cash for Guns program targets information that will lead not only to gun seizures, but also to arrests and charges.
Crime Stoppers will offer cash rewards of up to $2,000 for tips about illegal guns. Such tips could come from neighbours, concerned friends and family or even gang members informing on each other, Annis said.
“There’s been a lot of … use of guns over the past few years, in particular over the past few months, and a lot of the people that are using these guns are being very brazen about it and innocent individuals could easily be hurt,” Annis said.
The Crime Stoppers program has the enthusiastic support of metro law enforcement agencies, who see this as a chance for community engagement and crime prevention, said assistant commissioner Dan Malo, the commander of the RCMP’s Lower Mainland Regional Police Service.
“It’s not a success for us to just continually throw bad guys in jail. We need to be proactive and preventive, and that’s really what these kinds of campaigns are,” he said.
B.C.’s illegal guns come from almost anywhere in the world, Malo said.
“They’ll come through all the different accesses that drugs would — they could come in from marine transport, from land borders and from the air.”
