More anti-gang training for RCMP officers urged

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This article was published 01/10/2011 (5300 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FRONT-LINE Mounties need more anti-gang training, said one of the province’s top cops after a conference in the city this week dedicated to combating gangs and organized crime.

The conference attracted hundreds of police officers and other law enforcement personnel from Canada and the United States. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Bill Robinson said being a full-time member of a gang is a “horrific, brutal lifestyle.”

“It’s a terribly brutal lifestyle that oftentimes leads to the death of a child,” Robinson said.

He said the fact gangs are not only in Winnipeg but also in smaller communities means his officers require specialized training to deal with the challenges they are seeing on their rural beats.

“A lot of our officers come out of training and they have the general on-the-street type of training and they pick it up as they go.

“But there are specific training pieces that we can give our front-line officers to be able to effectively deal with this stuff,” Robinson said. “I think that’s an area where we could probably broaden out a little bit and do a little bit more.”

The conference comes on the heels of two recent homicides in Winnipeg motivated by streetgang tensions.

On Sept. 10, 15-year-old Clarky Stevenson was stabbed to death as he rode his bike near College Avenue and Aikins Street. Stevenson, who had told others he was a member of a street gang, was allegedly killed by a 14-year-old and and an 18-year-old now charged with second-degree murder.

This past Sunday, 20-year-old David Michael Vincett was shot to death on Boyd Avenue, allegedly by a 14-year-old now charged with first- degree murder.

“You have gangs that one group will run into another group, or an individual will run into another individual, and it could be about turf, what they perceive to be their own turf, it could be about some way one individual’s perceived to have dissed another person, whether it’s a girlfriend issue or so on,” Winnipeg police Chief Keith McCaskill said.

“And sometimes the reaction is very negative and very violent.”

McCaskill said young people who lack support can turn to gangs instead.

“I’ve said many times that policing is very important, but you can’t police your way out of this totally,” he said.

“You’ve got drugs that start at a higher level and start feeding back down to the street level. And so sometimes the lower-level gangs aren’t really clicking that they’re part of this whole organized-crime structure.”

Robinson said he didn’t have the number of gang associates currently operating in the province.

“I think it’s safe to say in every community in Manitoba you’ve got some gang activity, you’ve got some touching of gang activity,” he said.

The conference was hosted by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Manitoba (CISM), which has members such as the RCMP, the Winnipeg Police Service, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Brandon Police Service and Manitoba Justice — Corrections.

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca