Edmonton police chief Dale McFee says gang activity is one of the many reasons homeless encampments are not safe.
“We know that they’re in there,” McFee said. “Those encampments, as they are today, for the reasons of fire, for the reasons of health, for the reasons of drugs, for the reasons of gangs and for the reasons of inclement weather, are not safe, period. End. Stop.”
The police chief, as well as social agency officials, say those involved in organized crime are taking advantage of some of the city’s most vulnerable people.
“There’s multiple,” McFee told Global News in a recent year-end interview. “You’re seeing a lot of Redd Alert and ASAP, absolutely, down in the encampments, but we have more than two gangs.
“When I went down there and worked, when you can see where there’s an encampment (that) has burned out, there’s a Redd Alert painting with their symbol right on the sign beside it.”
He says gangs infiltrating encampments increases social disorder.
“It’s the fibre of what a gang does. It’s through fear and intimidation and violence, and it’s generally around drugs or some other type of commodity,” McFee said.
McFee says police have also heard reports of gang members controlling access to city-supplied water fountains and charging homeless people to use them, but officers haven’t caught anyone doing it.
The police chief says gangs world-wide have increased their involvement in the drug trade, are more closely affiliated with larger organized crime groups and are using more violence.
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“You’ve seen them infiltrate encampments, which is obviously really hard to control because there’s so many of them,” McFee said.
“So when you get that, and that fight for the drug trade and fight for money, this is what you get. And if you don’t have accountability when you pick someone up … it compounds it.”
He says while many people seeking shelter in temporary camps aren’t involved in the justice system and don’t need to be, there need to be legal consequences for people participating in criminal behaviour — often repeatedly.
“We need to have accountability back in the system,” McFee said. “This is not OK. The gun violence is a direct result of gangs and organized crime, but it’s also a result of nobody actually having any consequences for their actions.”
Violent individuals are operating in public spaces in Edmonton, he adds, and encampments.
“You lead with empathy and accountability,” McFee said. “You have to have both. Empathy, connecting people early on who don’t need to be in the justice system — probably need to be in the health system — that’s why we formed PACT (police and crisis response teams) and HELP (human-centred engagement and liaison partnership unit) … try to get them out of the cycle they’re currently in, obviously deal with the trauma.
“But on the violence side, that’s why the justice system was built. The justice system was built to protect us from the people we’re afraid of, not the ones we’re mad at. And unfortunately, we as a community tend to think this is all the same thing and they’re not. They’re totally different things and they need different solutions.”
Jordan Reiniger, the executive director of Boyle Street Community Services, also warns against lumping everyone together.
“There’s often a narrative out there that anybody experiencing homelessness is dangerous or involved in criminal activity, but just reminding everybody that they are often the victims of crimes — the ones that are most put at risk by it.”
Reiniger says the people gangs are victimizing are also often being recruited by those very same gangs. He says it’s a complex and nuanced issue.
“There are challenges for sure with gangs around, and in particular the challenge is that they end up preying on people who are in encampments … It’s a very complicated situation when you have very vulnerable people without the supports they need to be housed, to be secure,” he said.
“There’s a lot of different ways that a gang could be working on an encampment — from making people pay rent, for protection, to using it to deal with bikes.”
Reiniger says social agencies are very much in support of police efforts to dismantle and suppress gangs and gang activity.
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