No major street gangs in West Island

Though there are 20 major street gangs with about 500-600 members spread throughout the Island of Montreal, you will not find many of them on the West Island, according to police station 3 (serving Pierrefonds, Ile Bizard and Ste. Geneviève) community relations officer Dan Maheu.

"What we have here are more of the young, disorganized kids," he explained. "They could gang together, but it could be for something as small as stealing someone's hat."

At a downtown press conference yesterday morning, Montreal police revealed 14 of the 41 homicides that occurred on the island of Montreal in 2007 were street gang-related, a slight increase over the 12 out of 42 in 2006. However, Mario Plante, assistant director to Montreal police and head of the "street gang" file, pointed out that crime against individuals went down by 5.7 per cent this year. Ten out of the 14 homicides involving street gangs occurred at the beginning of the year, according to a public police document, suggesting that the situation has improved over the last 12 months.

"None of the victims of street gang homicides were innocent victims," Plante also said. "They were all street gang members."

Despite this, Plante added there is little evidence to suggest Montreal is in the middle of gang warfare. "In one case, it was just an argument between youths. In another, there was a love triangle involved," he explained about some of the homicide cases.

According to Plante, police places street gangs into two major categories. There are emerging street gangs, which are usually just groups of youth that engage in minor crimes, and major street gangs, composed of adults that almost mirror motorbike gangs in their activities. Drug trafficking, debit and credit card fraud, as well as prostitution are some of the activities these groups engage in.

Maheu said there are only small remnants of emerging street gangs in the West Island. "Police knows who and where they are, they're well-surrounded," he added. The Ruff Ryders, one such group that used to be prevalent in Pierrefonds, is now all but finished, he said. "Their members are either dead or in jail. Or they left."

Plante said 1322 arrests were made on the Island of Montreal last year in relation to street gang crime, but would not comment on their exact location, nor on the names of any gangs operating in the West Island. "They gain a lot of recognition when we name their organizations and that's why we don't do that," he explained.

Station 4 (serving Dollard des Ormeaux-Roxboro) community relations officer Chantale Castonguay estimated there is no particularly high street gang activity in the West Island when compared to other parts of Montreal. "What we do as neighbourhood police is go to schools and talk to children in order to prevent this problem, rather than have to correct it later on," she explained.

Montreal police and the City of Montreal are asking for $40 million over three years to the Quebec provincial government in order to help them fight street gang crime, Plante and Montreal executive committee vice-president Claude Dauphin said at the conference.