Pubdate: Mon, 10 Dec 2012
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 The Edmonton Journal
Contact: 
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134
Author: Brent Wittmeier

THE UGLY EVOLUTION OF WHITE BOY POSSE

Charges in High-Profile Killings Put Racist Gang Back in Spotlight

In the wake of recent high-profile killings, experts look at criminal 
gang behaviour

EDMONTON - A white supremacist gang may be linked to the random 
shooting of a 34-year-old Saskatoon mother and a decapitated head in 
a north Edmonton alley, but Mark Totten is hoping the killings don't 
inspire "moral panic."

"The White Boy Posse is not taking over cities in western Canada," 
says the Ottawa-based sociologist and social worker. "We need to be 
concerned, but we have to be realistic. We don't need to fan the 
flames and create a moral panic."

On Tuesday morning, RCMP and other police forces in Alberta and 
Saskatchewan announced that four men linked to the northern 
Alberta-based White Boy Posse face seven first-degree murder charges 
for their part in three high-profile homicides. Two Lloydminster men 
- - 22-year-olds Randy O'Hagan and Kyle Bauer - face multiple murder 
charges in the shooting of Lorry Santos, a mother of four killed 
Sept. 12 when she opened the front door of her Saskatoon home, and 
the death of 35-year-old Bryan Gower, found two weeks later in a 
rural area northwest of Lloydminster.

O'Hagan faces a third murder charge in the killing of Robert Roth, 
54, whose decapitated body was found in a ditch an hour's drive east 
of Edmonton on Oct. 20. Four days later, Roth's head was discovered 
in an Edmonton alley. Two other men - Nikolas Nowytzkyj, 32 and Josh 
Petrin, 29 - each face a charge in one of the killings.

The "incredibly violent" White Boy Posse stands out because of its 
racist ideology, Totten says. But the intent behind the hits - 
rivalry, discipline or debt-collection - hasn't been made public. 
Given its chaotic leadership structure, Totten's not sure the gang 
should be considered an organized crime group. He even preaches 
caution about their ties to other white supremacist groups.

"We're not really seeing any link between the White Boy Posse and 
other neo-Nazi youth skinhead gangs in the country," Totten says. 
"They're not just into white supremacy, they're into making money. 
And in order to survive and flourish and expand their territory, they 
have to have an economic base to do that."

Gang activity is a complex and multi-layered phenomena with varying 
degrees of sophistication, organization and violence. Edmonton police 
have previously linked the Alberta-based White Boy Posse to Nazi 
symbols, street-level drug dealing and affiliations with the Hells 
Angels, noting that their tentacles reach from Yellowknife to 
Saskatoon to Medicine Hat. But the Alberta Law Enforcement Response 
Teams, a group of about 400 investigators mandated by Alberta's 
Solicitor General to address serious and organized crime in Alberta, 
isn't saying much about the group beyond its name and connection to 
three highly unusual, violent crimes.

Totten, who has interviewed hundreds of gang members, says people 
join these groups to find meaning, protection or to make quick money. 
His research culminated in Nasty, Brutish and Short, a profile of 
gang life in Canada. Gang makeup and identities vary, but members 
often have similar backgrounds. Native gangs, like Redd Alert or the 
Indian Posse, often hail from remote reserves with experiences of 
deep poverty and tremendous home violence. Neo-Nazi skinheads, almost 
solely devoted to spreading racist ideology, are also poor, 
occasionally homeless. There are exceptions to the rule of deep 
poverty, like in B.C., where the Independent Soldiers, United Nations 
and South Asian gangs spring from relative comfort. The lure of fast 
money is universal.

In his interviews with several White Boy Posse members, Totten noted 
violent upbringings were a common denominator.

"The families that these guys grow up in are incredibly violent; not 
just physical violence, but sexual violence as well," he said. 
"They've endured unimaginable suffering. Now that doesn't let them 
off the hook, but it does help us understand how they come to be involved."

Violent gang activity spiked in Edmonton from 2003-06 during an 
economic boom that saw 42 gang-related homicides hit the city. In 
2007, Edmonton police publicly named the White Boy Posse as one of an 
estimated 18 or 19 groups. The gang killings weren't believed to be 
turf wars, they cautioned, but mostly internal discipline within the 
violent groups.

Nevertheless, police ramped up their efforts to target gang activity. 
Edmonton police and RCMP began partnering in 2005, forming the Metro 
Edmonton Gang Unit a year later. In late 2006, Edmonton police and 
RCMP jointly targeted the White Boy Posse in a case dubbed Project Goliath.

The White Boy Posse first hit headlines in a 2004 scuffle with the 
Crazy Dragon Killers, when Posse members began ramming cars of rival 
dial-a-dopers to disrupt their cocaine-trafficking operation. The 
Killers retaliated that October by kidnapping and beating two 
Devon-area members and a high-ranking Posse member. Eight members of 
the Killers were later convicted in the case.

Fifteen months into Project Goliath, police announced their first 
arrests. In March 2008 they claimed they had "handicapped" the gang 
with a series of raids around Edmonton, netting 17 members between 
the ages of 17 and 33, five more warrants, and various drugs and 
weapons. A half-year later, three more White Boy Posse members were 
arrested in southern Alberta while trying to establish trade in Medicine Hat.

The following March, police again claimed they had crippled the Posse 
after another 18 high-profile arrests, but admitted two months later 
that only one individual was affiliated with the group.

Tuesday's announcement broke nearly four years of police silence 
about the White Boy Posse.

"It's not what it used to be in the past, where you'd see street 
gangs that would wear colours," says Insp. Dave Elanik, in charge of 
ALERT's northern combined forces special enforcement unit. "There's 
no real allegiance to one group. They'll move from one group to the 
next, so that's where it's critical to take an integrated approach."

Gangs have been evolving, says Cathy Prowse, a criminal 
anthropologist at the University of Calgary who spent 25 years with 
the Calgary Police. Prowse's graduate research focused on Vietnamese 
gangs in Toronto where fluid, mobile membership initially stymied 
investigators and appears to have influenced gang activity in Canada.

At first glance, the White Boy Posse appears more "traditional," with 
tattoos and demarcated membership. Their highly "sensational hits" - 
like leaving a head in plain view - also strike a familiar chord, 
clearly intended to send a message.

"Obviously, it's a 'notice me, notice me,' tactic: they're message 
shootings and decapatations," Prowse said. "It's the old equation: 
violence leads to power, power leads to money. That's how you stay on top."

But that message could cause trouble. "Sloppy" shootings of 
unintended victims - like the Saskatoon woman - are not good for 
business for higher-level groups like the Hells Angels, who control 
weapons and drug flow through transnational networks. Street-level 
players like the White Boy Posse could find themselves cut adrift by 
their suppliers if they pick too many fights, Prowse said.

Instability triggered by the arrests, meanwhile, means the gang is 
likely at its most vulnerable to police investigation.

"This is when you hit them," Prowse said. "This is your best 
opportunity; you don't sit back, let them restructure."

Of course, gangs don't simply disappear when arrests are made. 
Rivalry is endemic in the drug trade. Groups restructure. Police 
begin gathering new intelligence. And gang members may be sent to 
correctional institutions where, Totten says, White Boy Posse members 
have been "very active."

"Many of our correctional facilities, prisons, jails, young offender 
centres ... they're gang-infested," said Totten. "It's a very violent 
place, and in order to be protected from other inmates, you have to 
join a gang."

He would like to see the conversation move beyond get-tough measures 
and mandatory minimum sentences to prevention.

"Treatment, really, is very difficult to do inside a correctional 
facility," he says. "If our main response to the gang problem is to 
lock people up, we're going to be having the same conversation five 
to 10 years down the road."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom