Murder prompts investigation into how gangsters are paroled
Murder prompts investigation into how gangsters are paroled
BY KIM BOLAN, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 2, 2009 9:01 PM
The Correctional Service of Canada has launched an investigation into how gangsters are released into the community after the unprecedented execution of a parolee near a Vancouver halfway house this week.
“It is a serious incident and an investigation is required,” Brian Lang, CSC’s director of community corrections, said Friday.
Lang said B.C.’s 25 halfway houses are reeling after armed assassins pistol-whipped a staff member at the house Tuesday before catching up with their target, Raj Soomel, and killing him a block away in the middle of Cambie Street.
“We are not taking it lightly. It was a stunning development and I am just grateful the staff member was not seriously injured.”
The Vancouver Sun has learned that Soomel was not the only gang-linked resident of the Dick Bell Irving House at the time. Randy Naicker, who has rival gang links to Soomel’s, moved into the house at West 21st and Tupper when he was paroled in September.
The facility, which is across from a school and a daycare, is no longer accepting anyone with gang links, board member Carol White of the B.C. Borstal Association said Friday.
“This is just absolutely devastating. We have just been working around the clock to make sure that everything is safe and secure and that this never happens again,” White said.
“We will not take gang members because of this incident.”
She said staff were aware that Corrections officials had expressed concern to the National Parole Board in August that Soomel, 35 and convicted of attempted murder, could be targeted for “violent retribution.”
“I guess the assumption was that he wouldn’t be found and that was incorrect,” White said.
She said staff at the house, which has operated without incident for 40 years, called police four days before Soomel’s murder to report someone keeping the facility under surveillance.
“Our staff are very vigilant. They did see a car that was casing out the place. They phoned it in immediately so the police already had a licence plate number and they knew we had some concerns,” White revealed.
She said that Naicker, who police believe founded the Independent Soldiers gang, was removed to an undisclosed location after Soomel was killed.
Some of Naicker’s associates were suspected of a shooting at Soomel’s south Vancouver house in September 2000 in which Raj was wounded. The attack with AK-47s was the motive in a murder two weeks later for which Soomel’s younger brother Robbie is now serving a life sentence.
Raj Soomel pleaded guilty in March 2008 for plotting to kill a Crown witness in the case against his brother. That witness also implicated Robbie Soomel in a number of other hits, including the 1998 assassination of publisher Tara Singh Hayer.
White said the Dick Bell Irving House had no security camera. That is now being reviewed. Just one staff member was on duty when the killers invaded the home looking for Soomel.
She said staff believed Soomel was committed to turning his life around, but they could obviously not control “the guys that follow behind.”
It was the second shooting of a gangster resident of a Vancouver halfway house this year. Another man was wounded near a house in the 800-block of East 12th in February.
“I think there is going to be a huge amount of evaluation going on at every single level,” White said. “This is not just going to affect us. This is going to affect everyone across the country and I think that Corrections recognizes that. They need to be supporting us and they need to probably be changing their policies.”
Police, schools, courts and jails have all responded to B.C.’s epidemic of gang violence in recent years.
The province’s halfway houses also now will have to take action, Tim Veresh, president of the B.C.-Yukon Halfway House Association, said Friday.
Veresh said the umbrella group has told all provincial halfway houses to review their protocols in light of the murder and pistol-whipping.
“This whole gang involvement in British Columbia or the Lower Mainland is unprecedented. We have never seen this,” Veresh said.
The association may decide that gangsters — even if they want to leave the life — will not be welcome at the houses because of the security risks, Veresh said.
“If an individual has a perceived risk level or has an involvement in gangs, maybe they shouldn’t come to halfway houses,” he said.
“Maybe some of these individuals should — because of their affiliations and commitment to pursuing criminal lifestyles — need to be held incarcerated for a longer period of time.”
Veresh said banning gangsters from community rehabilitation would be antithetical to the goals of the halfway houses.
“You kind of look at it and say it is the only way that these incidents don’t occur at our facilities or harm our staff or people living in the community,” he said. “It very well may be that we say we can’t assume the risk so you are not coming here.”
Veresh, who works for the John Howard Society, said when the earlier shooting happened at their house in February, they didn’t even know the resident had gang links. The man survived.
“That information only came out after the fact,” he said. “There is often not a lot of information-sharing.”
Lang said that in his 30-year career, he had never encountered targeted hits directed at people in halfway houses until the two this year.
“There will obviously be another internal investigation, separate from the police investigation,” Lang said.
“It will help us develop our own approach to managing gangs and the retaliation that is going on.”
Lang said his branch has recently been given a security intelligence officer “to help us develop a capacity for gang management.”
The Vancouver Sun
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Murder+prompts+investigation+into+gangsters+paroled/2061051/story.html
