Pubdate: Thu, 14 Mar 2013
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Kim Bolan
Page: 4

PROBABLE VICTIMS OF DRUG WAR DUMPED ON ROAD

Two Bodies Found Tuesday on Remote Colebrook Road Bring Total to Four 
in the Last Six Weeks

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says closed-circuit cameras and special 
lighting will be installed along Colebrook Road after four bodies 
were dumped in the rural area in just six weeks.

Watts met Wednesday with Surrey RCMP Chief Supt. Bill Fordy and area 
residents to discuss her concerns about the disturbing discovery of 
the latest two murder victims - a man and a woman - on Colebrook near 
125 A Avenue at about 2 a.m.

After two other murdered men linked to the drug trade were found 
along the same stretch of road in January and February, police 
stepped up patrols in the area.

It was one of those patrols that made the grisly find early Wednesday.

Sgt. Jennifer Pound, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, 
said officers have not made links between the four murders. Nor had 
they released the identity of the latest two victims.

A spike in murders in Surrey this year is believed to be part of a 
violent power struggle over the drug trade because of a vacuum 
resulting from high-profile slayings of members of the Dhak gang.

"When you have got the Bacon brothers put away, you've got Dhak, 
you've got (Jujhar) Khun-Khun, you've got these other people who've 
either been taken out of the game or they have been murdered 
themselves, then the jockeying goes on," Watts said.

She said dumping of bodies creates more investigative challenges for 
police who have to find the primary crime scene.

"That is very concerning, not only the murders but the fact that 
people are dumping them," Watts said.

Watts met with some residents from the area to address their concerns 
over the bodies being dumped. And she said city staff will be meeting 
with more people in the affluent area of view homes and horse properties.

"We are just going to have a conversation with more neighbours in the 
area and let them know and get some feedback from them," Watts said. 
"We are putting together a plan in the area. We are looking at 
lighting, additional patrols, as well as cameras."

Watts drove by the crime scene Wednesday morning and said she was 
"absolutely without a doubt" alarmed by the number of murders in 
Surrey this year.

"I just wanted to see where it was. I am just going to go get some 
information," she said.

"It's problematic. We are seeing something here that is very 
concerning to myself."

IHIT officers were at the dump site with a forensic identification 
team through the day Wednesday. An Abbotsford police cruiser arrived 
late morning.

Colebrook Road is a perfect dump spot. Surrounded by farmer's fields 
and train tracks, it has few houses or witnesses.

Area resident Shari MacFarlane said she has lived just off Colebrook 
Road for 11 years and feels completely safe.

"I am here alone, no dog. I feel safe. It is a very peaceful area. It 
is a wonderful place to have lived," said MacFarlane. "There is a 
real sense of community here." She said police stopped by after the 
January and February slayings to ask if she had heard or seen 
anything. She hadn't.

"They are people involved in bad activities and this just happens to 
be a remote spot to dump. But it's very eerie," she said. "No matter 
what, when people start messing with gangs, you never get away."

MacFarlane regularly rides her horse down Colebrook and through the 
neighbourhood parks. She has seen drug deals and couples looking for 
an isolated spot. But the worst irritant to area residents has been 
the garbage dumped along Colebrook.

Balbir Gellen, who lives on Panorama Ridge, was on his daily walk 
when he learned from reporters Wednesday that the road was closed 
because of two more murders.

"If it is happening, cops have to put some sort of camera or 
surveillance or maybe only allow residents to drive onto that 
street," he said. "That is police job. They have to control all that 
and catch the people who are doing it. The people living in the 
neighbourhood can't stop it and they have no control over it."

The man's body found Wednesday was in the exact spot where 29-yearold 
Delta resident Amritpal (Paul) Saran was found burned and dumped on Feb. 24.

Saran had numerous run-ins with the law, including a charge of 
assaulting a peace officer. He was known to police, but not thought 
to have any gang affiliations.

The body of another homicide victim, Jaskaran Singh Sandhu, was also 
found a on Colebrook Road on Jan. 28. Before he was killed, Sandhu 
had survived a Coquitlam shooting and had gang links Surrey has had a 
violent beginning to 2013.

Earlier in February, the body of Vimal Chand was found in a car 
across from an elementary school, just days after his family had 
reported him missing.

On Jan. 15, longtime gangster Manjinder (Manny) Hairan was shot to 
death near 127 Street and 112B Avenue. Just two days earlier, another 
Dhak associate named Manjot Singh Dhillon was killed in a targeted 
shooting near 168 Street and 76 Avenue.

The same night two drug dealers John Edward McGiveron and Geordie 
Wesley Carlow, both 33, were shot to death in a parkade of an 
apartment complex at 9450 128th Street.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom