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BLACK-SHEEP COMMENTARIES by LIKELY-HOOD OF COMPLICITY October 29, 2008 MOST children are taught to bring clean hands to the family table. Oft-repeated, it becomes an ingrained behaviour that stays with them through life. When their time comes to join other law-abiding citizens at the metaphorical community table, they know, instinctively, what is expected of them in personal and business matters: clean-handed freedom from guilt. That was British Columbia before we began spawning sly pawns used by organized crime in the production of BC Bud: electricians, technicians, truckers, equipment suppliers, landlords and house-sitters – all tainted as fringe conspirators in the drug onslaught on our young men and women. The RCMP estimates the annual B.C. pot trade to be worth $7 billion. The exported return can only be guesstimated, but it enables our local gangs to pay for inbound heroin and cocaine. No fuss, no muss, no currency exchange problems. Surely this enormous amount of cash requires investment necessitating assistance from lawyers, bankers, accountants and realtors. Are they another group of pawns pretending to hear no evil, see no evil and know no evil, oblivious to the fact that once a pawn always a pawn until death do us part? If we are a country with twisted values, then bedfellow corruption will soon infiltrate our true north. Not likely you say. Well let’s look at the little village of Likely, B.C. and see how easily clean hands are stained by the fool’s gold of proceeds of crime. This remote and tiny village long ago exhausted its gold mining potential and more recently it logged itself out of timber leaving it languishing as a tourist curiosity. However, in recent years Likely experienced an influx of people from Vancouver, self-described flower-growers, who bought into the community and hired local carpenters and electricians to renovate properties and turn them into grow-ops. In 2007, the RCMP Williams Lake detachment finally raided the Likely grow-ops and shut them down. The locals have differing opinions over their once vibrant underground grow-op economy that paid cash and boosted property values. Some shrug, some complain. Some have clean hands, too many have dirty hands. Nine men from Metro Vancouver have been charged with production of BC Bud, all having affiliation with one of our local street gangs. What’s wrong, you say, with a few people in little old Likely making a few bucks working for bad guys from Metro Vancouver. It’s wrong because every time a law abiding citizen stains his hands by doing installation and service work on BC Bud grow-ops or provides professional assistance in the investment of dirty money it chips away at our individual freedom and way of life. Worse still, to aid and abet production of BC Bud, crystal meth and other chemical drugs simply makes organized crime more virulent. Gangsters use violence and murder to resolve disputes and territorial claims and it’s your tough luck if you get caught in the crossfire. On Oct.18, 2007, while residents of Likely were debating the pros and cons of their own flirtation with organized crime, two innocent men, Ed Schellenberg and Chris Mohan were shot and killed in suite 1505 of the Balmoral Tower in Surrey after they had stumbled into a planned execution of four gang members, residing in the suite – Ed Narong, Michael Lal, Cory Lal and Ryan Bartolomeo. In 2002, Eddie Narong and Michael Lal were convicted of manslaughter in the beating death of a 16-year-old boy and received conditional sentences of 18 months. After release and until being murdered in 2007, these two vicious criminals were arrested and charged with 48 offences including drug trafficking, possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a restricted weapons, resisting arrest, and breach of recognizance. Narong was charged with 15 counts of breaching bail conditions, and on each occasion was yet again granted bail. In 2005, Michael Lal was convicted on several drug offences and breaches of bail and received another conditional sentence of 17 months. I have two strongly held opinions in all of this: Citizens of Likely who participated in the building of grow-ops ought to be investigated as parties to the offence of cultivating cannabis and deservedly risk prosecution. Aiding and abetting gangsters only increases the likelihood of violence and murder. Secondly, had a proper and lengthy sentence been imposed on Eddie Narong and Michael Lal in 2002 for the pitiless killing of a 16-year-old youth, then they would have been in jail and not in Suite 1505 on October 18, 2007 and two innocent men, Schellenberg and Mohan would be alive today. * * * Published by the North Shore News on October 29, 2008.
Contact Judicial
Gadfly at:
wallace-gilby-craig@realjustice.ca |
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