This article is part of a Global BC series focused on the B.C. gang conflict.
No child is born a criminal.
That is one of the mottos at B.C.-based KidsPlay Foundation, one of several non-profit organizations that works to keep kids away from drugs, gangs and violence.
Amid the ongoing B.C. gang conflict, and the dozens of homicides and brazen shootings over the past few years, police say work being done to educate and prevent children from joining gangs is the most important work that can be done.
Vancouver police officer Kal Dosanjh, who spent 15 years as patrol officer in the Downtown Eastside, created KidsPlay in 2015.
“It was during my time on the streets as a patrol officer that I was noticing a steady stream of kids entering the open-air drug market,“ Dosanjh told Global BC.
“These kids were engaging from using to selling. (They) were coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds, subsidized housing and were never really offered opportunities to engage in positive outlets or had any type of positive mentorship in their lives.”
Dosanjh said many of these kids ended up spending time in the youth criminal justice system before being “spewed back out onto the street to re-engage in a perpetual cycle of violence.”
The then-beat cop said he took a hard look at how the actions of Vancouver police, at the time, were not helping these young people but, in fact, were adding to the problem.
“I just felt it was disturbing because we were not part of the solution — we were part of the problem,” he said.
“We were perpetuating this continuous cycle and it just occurred to me that if we could provide these kids with alternatives and positive opportunities, we could perhaps change the trajectory of their paths.”
That is when he and a few other officers decided to create the KidsPlay Foundation.
At first, KidsPlay used sports – such as hosting large soccer tournaments – to engage with youths and connect them with positive role models. The program quickly grew to a large-scale operation spanning many B.C. municipalities.
The non-profit organization now provides a number of services and opportunities for young people.
KidsPlay still uses sports to connect with students but now it also has summer camps, counseling services, art classes, mental health classes, drug and gang education classes and more.
One of the main functions of KidsPlay is how they send speakers to schools around the province — speakers with first-hand knowledge of B.C.’s gang life.
Global News spoke with two of those speakers, former high-profile B.C. gangsters Stanley Price and Shane Knox.
Price was a drug and gun trafficker with the Redd Alert gang for 15 years, while Knox was a United Nations drug dealer in the mid-2000s. Both operated in the Downtown Eastside, where they had regular run-ins with the law, especially with VPD beat cop Kal Dosanjh.
“Kal would be on patrol in the Downtown Eastside and he would pull up and park his car near where I would sit. I would have a few hand gestures for Kal, not respectable hand gestures,” Price said.
“He would get out and try to chat with me. I was not a very nice guy to Kal. I would tell him to f**k off.”
Knox and Dosanjh’s relationship started off on a similar foot.
“When I was like 20 years old, around eighteen years ago, when I was involved in the drug trade in the Downtown Eastside … Kal was a pain in the ass. He was always hindering me and trying to disrupt my sales,” Knox told Global News.
“He was someone I just really did not like.”
Knox said he had many conversations with Donsanjh, some nice, some not so nice, with Dosanjh offering Knox a liferaft to exit gang life many times.
“We had a few incidents and we had a few conversations,” Knox said.
“(Kal) gave me hope that if I ever wanted to quit that lifestyle (he would help me).”
It took him thirteen years to take Donsanjh up on his offer. For Knox, it was a near-death experience that pushed him to leave his life in organized crime.
He was living in Calgary at the time, drug trafficking and running an escort business, when an armed gunman entered one of his apartments.
Knox was hiding in one of the bedrooms when the gunman pulled out a firearm and threatened to kill a girl working for him. Knox was able to intervene and wrestle the gun away from the gunman, according to court records.
During the fight, the gun discharged and a bullet struck the girl in the arm. Knox ordered the man to leave at gunpoint.
When Knox went down to the ground floor to look for the girl, who fled after being shot, he ran into five associates of the gunman. One pulled out a submachine gun, while Knox brandished the handgun. A brawl ensued, during which Knox smashed the submachine gun, rendering it useless.
“I really never found out if the (gunman) was sent for me or sent for her,” Knox said.
“It was a fight-or-flight situation. I tried to pull the trigger at the time to kill them, but fortunately, the gun jammed.”
Police were called and arrived, but the group of gunmen fled the scene. Knox said he ended up serving a few months in remand, two years of house arrest and two years of probation for drug trafficking charges.
“You get a lot of time to think about the things happening in your life, especially with what happened in the condo, to sit behind bars because of warrants for drug trafficking,” Knox said.
“I then moved back to Vancouver and said, ‘Hey man, I don’t want to be in this lifestyle anymore. I am done.’”
Fast forward to 2023, both Knox and Price have established new careers as speakers with KidsPlay. It is something that they find gratifying – they say it brings them fulfillment.
“It’s really good. Being part of KidsPlay … it’s a sense of good, positive things in my life. For all the bad things that I have ever done and the harm that I have done — this is a really good opportunity for me,” Knox said.
“As long as I can share my story and there is at least one (kid) that relates to my story, that is what counts.”
According to Price, after he took up Dosanjh’s offer of help to get out of his gang, they quickly became good friends.
“He is like my brother. He has given me a platform and a second chance at redemption,” Price said.
“I very much enjoy any speaking session I can with the young kids. I get to make that connection and I get to be raw and real. These kids remember. I get recognized and talk to someone later about a life that I have touched.
“It is very satisfying to do that and, (it’s not lost on me) I am super fortunate to be sitting here. If I (stayed) in that lifestyle, I would not be here right now.”
Both now travel around the province sharing their knowledge with students, warning and educating them of the dangers of gang life.
KidsPlay is not the only proactive program that aims to educate B.C. youth.
In Abbotsford, police created the Pathways program in June 2020. It is designed to offer services to youths and young adults who have been identified as being at risk for gang participation.
It has a three-pillar approach — community engagement, prevention and intervention.
Community engagement means connecting with community leaders at the grassroots level. Abbotsford police have regular meetups with several focus groups that have diverse community members.
Prevention is focused on educating parents or guardians to understand how to prevent and respond to risk factors before their kids choose the wrong path.
Intervention is more of a hands-on, personal approach. Once individuals are accepted into the program, officials will work with at-risk people for months, sometimes for more than a year. It works closely with immediate family members to create a personalized support system.
“The goal of our gang intervention team is to assess what life circumstances led a youth to this stage, which can mean looking at their whole life history to make a proper assessment,” Harpreet Jhinjar, Abbotsford police’s gang prevention coordinator, said in an email.
“Once we have determined what led the youth to this stage, we start planning how to address the identified risk factors.”
Another initiative is the B.C. government and anti-gang task force’s End Gang Life program.
End Gang Life is a multifaceted program that includes awareness campaigns, intervention work, education and school presentations, and community events.
It was created by Staff Sgt. Lindsay Houghton, who works with B.C.’s anti-gang task force.
Houghton offered some red flags for parents and guardians to look out for if they are suspicious their kids may be involved in unlawful activities:
- Unexplained cash
- Coming and leaving the home at strange hours
- Disengagement at school and pro-social activities (like sports teams or clubs)
- Unknown older friends
- Ziplock baggies and drug paraphernalia
A more comprehensive End Gang Life guide can be read online.
It is not lost on police that parents and guardians may not want to report their loved ones to the police if they suspect they’ve been involved in criminal activity. But Houghton said it is better to contact the police and begin the process of intervention than to have their loved one incarcerated or killed.
“We’ve had many, many conversations with parents who admit to us that they don’t want to call the police on their child,” he said.
“We are quite blunt, we’d rather have you call us (for help) than come knock on the door at midnight to tell you your son or daughter has been killed.”
Pathways, End Gang Life and KidsPlay all are geared toward prevention first. They all talk to kids as young as Grade 6 or 7 as it is the time when kids are most easily influenced, officials said.
Program contacts:
- To contact CFSEU- BC’s gang intervention and exiting program call 604-897-6023 or email gangintervention@cfseu.bc.ca
- To contact End Gang Life email inquires@cfseu.bc.ca
- To contact KidsPlay, call 778-320-6540 or email contact@kidsplayfoundation.com
- To contact Abbotsford’s Pathways program call 604-864-4898.
This article is part of a new Global BC series focused on the B.C. gang conflict.
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