Front Burner - Guns, gangs and racism in a Prairie city

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

Regina’s crime rate is nearly triple that of Toronto. The neighbourhood of North Central Regina is considered one of the most dangerous in the country. CBC’s Duncan McCue, along with the Fifth Estate, wanted to find out why. And so, this past autumn, he went to North Central and held a townhall, welcoming community members, grassroots activists and police. Today on Front Burner, Duncan McCue shares what he learned about the current impacts and root causes of Indigenous gangs in the Prairie city.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. North Central Regina is considered one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the country. There are drugs and gangs, gun violence is on the rise. In 2018, Regina's crime rate was nearly triple that of Toronto. My colleague Duncan McHugh wanted to know why. He went to the Prairie City to dig deeper into the issues afflicting the community. He's here with me today to tell me about what he found.

This is Frontburner. there and who don't know the city. Can you describe north central Regina for me? Absolutely. But before I do that, can I just emphasize something you just said in your intro? Because I want your listeners to understand this. The reason we ended up doing this documentary on the Fifth Estate was we wanted to do a story about gun crime. And we ended up in Regina because of the statistic that you just mentioned in the intro, which is that Regina's crime rate is triple that of Toronto. Right. It's an astounding figure. It is an astounding because Toronto sucks up a lot of the air when we have this discussion about gun crime in particular. And there have been some horrific and tragic gun violence in the city of Toronto. But when we at the Fifth Estate started to look into the statistics about gun crime,

we ended up at Regina because the rates of gun crime in a small city, a small prairie city like Regina, are astounding. They're astonishing. I mean, violent gun offenses up 25 percent in Regina over last year. The gun related injuries up 41 percent. And these are real people that are that are seeing an incredible increase in the amount of gun crime. I've been a cop for 11 years and this is my fourth year in the gang unit. You see the rise in gun violence as opposed to knives.

Just I mean, it's just changed. This is my fourth year in the gang unit. You see the rise in gun violence as opposed to knives. Just, I mean, it's just changed. Centred very much in one particular neighbourhood, North Central, which is what you asked about. Right, and tell me, like, when you went there, what did you find? When you go to North Central, I mean, it's a place that has a bad reputation. When you hop into a taxi and go from the airport and say you're going to North Central, the taxi drivers, they will say to you, hmm, be careful. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it has a reputation. Ten years ago, Maclean's did an article on North Central, and the headline was Canada's worst neighborhood. And that got people in Regina and North Central pretty upset, you know, that they were being maligned in that way. Central, pretty upset, you know, that they were being maligned in that way. But when you look at the amount of crime in the neighborhood, the sad fact is that it's still there. For Regina police, North Central is the hot spot. It's also, at the heart of North Central, it's street gangs. Right.

And in Regina and in Saskatchewan in particular, those are primarily indigenous street gangs. And how do these gangs operate? So it's interesting that we're not talking about high-level Hells Angels kind of organized crime here. In Regina, there are four main street gangs, the Indian Mafia, the Native Syndicate, Saskatchewan Warriors, and the Native Syndicate Killers. Okay.

And what's their main business? What are they doing? They're primarily involved in, as most gangs are, they're involved in drugs and prostitution. But the interesting thing about the indigenous street gangs of Regina and Saskatchewan is that many of the people that are involved in the gangs still live in the neighbourhood. They're still living in poverty, for the most part. They're not buying fancy condos and living in a different part of town,

driving extremely fancy cars. Many of them are like the residents of the neighbourhood. I mean, this is a neighbourhood where half the residents live below the poverty line, half the residents are unemployed. poverty line, half the residents are unemployed. So this is a neighborhood that's a troubled neighborhood. And unfortunately, children there are exposed to both violence and drugs at a very young age. Okay. And I know that you interviewed a woman named Teresa Gale. Her son was murdered in

North Central Regina. And can you tell me about what happened to her son, Joshua? north central Regina. And can you tell me about what happened to your son, Joshua? Teresa here told us her story for the first time. She had never spoken to media before. And hearing it, it's a heartbreaking story. Her son, Joshua, he was 26 years old back in 2016. And he went out to go to a home where there was a Native Syndicate-affiliated house. One of the gangs. One of the gangs. And Josh was wearing a red T-shirt. And red is not the Native Syndicate color.

It's a rival gang's color. And Josh was stabbed in the back and unfortunately died. He was killed because of the color that he was wearing. Because of the color he was wearing, because of a T-shirt, a T-shirt that his grandma gave him. North Central is a lot of territorial. Different gangs can't cross different gangs' lines. And so if you're wearing the wrong color and you're around on certain gangs' territory, then it's a problem.

He was wearing it for no particular reason. The police confirmed that he was not affiliated with the gang himself, but there were four men arrested as a result, three youth and one adult. And so hearing Teresa talk about the deep animosities and the violence in the neighborhood, it's gut-wrenching. I know that you also interviewed a man who actually had been in one of these gangs. And what did he tell you about his experience? So that was ryan varley and and speaking with with ryan uh sobering uh he he joined a gang when he was 11 years old wow uh and and so you you ask yourself and we asked him you know why uh he said you know, why? He said, you know, violence and growing up in North Central was just a part of life. To go out the door and head off to school or wherever else, he said, you got to be able to fight in this neighborhood. And so that was just how Ryan grew up. And he did

pretty well at it. I mean, he ended up climbing the ladder in the native syndicate, becoming one of the top, at the top of it all. He also paid the price. He spent almost 10 years in prison, everything from break and enters and assaults and unlawful confinements. But I think one of the things that you can't help but realize when you talk with someone like Ryan is going back to the history of why some of these young indigenous men and women. Join in the first place. Join in the first place. And so look at just as a statistical example, 80 percent of the children in Saskatchewan that are in care, in child welfare, are Indigenous. That's far higher than the national average.

And, I mean, Indigenous children in Saskatchewan are about 25% of the population. So what you have are kids who have grown up in foster homes who are looking for a sense of belonging, looking for a sense of identity, looking for a sense of love. And for a guy like Ryan, you know, he found that with his gang members. Right, like a sense of family. Up until that point, I was just kind of nobody. And so when you become a part of that, it feels like, you know, that's everything to you. Absolutely, a sense of family.

And so he talks about, you know, his bros showing love meant beating the crap out of him. But that's family. I guess for me, I was kind of used to violence growing up in a, you know, alcoholic home. And so when you start to recognize those historical issues that are pushing these young Indigenous men into that situation, you realize just how deep-seated this is. I want to talk a little bit more about the root causes of this. You know, I know that you hosted a town hall in Regina to talk about these issues. The police were there. The community was there.

And an audience member took the mic at one point. Okay. Some of you guys got something wrong. Very, very wrong. I listened and I paid attention. And he sounded really upset by the discussion he was hearing. This was a really powerful moment. He said the reason these gangs thrive is also because Regina is racist

and indigenous people have had a hard time finding work. But the thing is, none of these gangs would happen if their first resume was picked and they got the job. They keep on getting rejected. And now you know why we're all on welfare. Now you know why we go to crime. And we made these gangs because no one is gonna fucking hire us and what do you make of of his comments so we held we held a town hall as as part of our

fifth estate documentary and it was important for us to to bring the story back to the community we wanted to hear from the community when we were talking about gang violence and gun violence in particular and policing you know what their thoughts were and we had an enormous response uh to that evening we held it at a community center uh in north central and there were uh over 150 people turned out to to be part of that discussion what we heard from several people uh was that racism was part of the problem and what he was talking about was unconscious bias or in many cases you know explicit racism we heard that concern expressed by by young indigenous men who are not gang affiliated who feel that police are picking on them, whether they are being racially profiled or carded. That is an experience that they shared with us at the town hall. And Police Chief Evan

Bray was at the town hall, and he readily admitted that racism within the police force has been an issue. It is something that they are working to eradicate. And the police have been involved in cultural competency training, for example, working with Indigenous professors to try to educate the police officers about some of the historical roots. Right. Why people find themselves committing crime, why they find themselves in gangsta, what I was talking about earlier. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Let's talk about the police response here. You know, are people buying that, that they are making all of these moves to, you know, better relations? And that, I mean, there are, the Regina police will say that they have a street gang unit, which is working to gain information, that they have a street gang unit, which is working to gain information, that they have neighborhood patrols that work in North Central, getting to know the community,

that kind of thing. But let's go back to how we started this conversation, the gun crime that is happening, the incredible amount of methamphetamine use, and the response by the Regina police to the increased violence that they're seeing, gun violence in particular, has changed their policing. There's no doubt about it. And so let's use the SWAT team as an example. You know, we weren't deployed as much when I first started. There's actually a time where we went 18 months without a call for service.

In the SWAT team, NAL has some pretty powerful tools at its disposal. The Regina police purchased a $375,000 armoured vehicle. Right. These are like military armaments. It is a military, and they took us out on a training exercise to show us how the armored vehicle goes into action. It's a big piece of machinery, I'll tell you that. I'll also tell you that in 2016, the Regina police invested in carbine rifles for every single one of its cars. And so now every car that is called out has a semi-automatic rifle at its disposal. So there's no question that on the one hand, well, the Regina police say they are doing their best to connect with the community, to reach out with a handshake, as Chief Evan Bray says.

There's no question that they're also arming up in response to this increase in gun violence. And that's what's creating this incredible crossfire that's happening. An increase in dangerous incidents where police are responding with ever more force. And people in North Central are caught in the middle. Come on, Joe! Get your hands up! Oh, I'm getting out of this neighborhood. So now, it's enough of this. We talked earlier about the murder of Joshua Hardin,

one of the people at your town hall, Letitia Racine. She took action after his death. What did she do? The community really responded after the death of Josh Hardin. It was, I mean, it's just an incredibly tragic incident that a young man in the prime of his life, 26 years old, could lose his life over wearing the wrong color t-shirt.

And the community said, enough is enough. We have to start doing something. And so what the community response ended up being was the formation of a group called White Pony Lodge, led by an elder. of a group called White Pony Lodge, led by an elder. They now patrol the streets of North Central on Friday and Saturday nights to try to make North Central a safer place.

And so it's mostly women. They put on their vests, their glow-in-the-dark vests, and head out on Friday and Saturday nights saying hello to people. What's your boy's name? Jason. Oh, Dre.

Boy, you're handsome. Mama's boy. Yeah, cruising around with Dad. Boy, that looks fun. Yeah, he's fun. Aw. Ray, it's good to talk to you. But trying to identify dangerous items, picking up a lot of needles.

Again, I mentioned the high rates of meth use. So we went out on a couple of patrols with White Pony Lodge. And we were talking with Letitia Racine, who is one of the co-founders of White Pony Lodge. She herself has a difficult story. She is a part of the co-founders of White Pony Lodge. She herself has a difficult story. She is a part of the 60s Scoop. So she grew up in foster homes and at a very young age ended up getting addicted to morphine. She herself ended up getting involved in gangs,

experienced sexual abuse. And so, you know, on the one hand, Letitia is an example of the kind of both this historical legacy of the colonialism in this country, the kind of the living conditions that young indigenous men and women find themselves in, in a neighborhood like North Central. But Letitia also, you know, as a smile that just goes, you know, ear to ear, heading out, talking with members of the community, giving people hugs, you know, and with Letitia, as we were walking along, picking up needles, what you also got a sense of was that there is a sense of community.

Right. You know, the primarily women of White Pony Lodge are doing it to show that there is a better way, that there is a healthier way. And that perhaps connecting with traditions, for example, is a way that some members may be able to get out of the gang life. But what it did emphasize to me in particular is that it's easy to see all of the negative in a place like North Central. But there is a great deal of compassion and love in some of the families of North Central and a desire to change. What did the community tell you at the town hall about the response they want to see in the area? I don't think what we heard at the town hall was anything different than what you would hear in any community in this country.

They want their children to be able to walk to school in the morning and be safe they want their children to to get a good education so that they can uh go and and get work and and be proud of themselves they most of all want to to feel that that people in their city and people across the country aren't looking at them as being a problem, that they wish would just go away. But what they want is a safe and happy neighborhood, and they're saying that there are ways to accomplish that. Okay. Duncan McHugh, thank you so much.

Thank you, Jamie. That is all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. I'm Jamie Poisson. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.