Barricades up outside gangsters' homes to deter drive-by shootings
By Katie Mercer, The ProvinceMarch 28, 2009Comments (107)
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More Images » The City of Vancouver has set up barricades on southeast Vancouver streets to deter the threat of drive-by shootings at two alleged gangsters' homes.Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, The Province
Vancouver police are deterring drive-by shootings by setting up cement barricades outside of gangsters' homes.
The temporary cement blocks sit in front of two houses in southeast Vancouver in the 1200-block of East 63rd Avenue and the 900-block of East 54th Avenue.
Const. Jana McGuinness confirmed the barricades are to prevent drive-by shootings.
They were set up as part of Project Rebellion, which has police concentrating on the city’s most violent gangsters.
The barricades are meant to slow down people driving by the homes, deterring them from firing shots and speeding off.
City engineer Murray Whiteman, who is responsible for street operations, said the barriers are a cost-effective way to curb gunplay.
“It’s just the cost of loading the truck and moving them there,” he said, adding he believes there are only two locations currently set up.
Citing the ongoing investigation, McGuinness declined to comment further on why the locations were chosen. But The Province has learned the targeted residences are home to Udham Singh Sanghera, 58, and Gurpreet Singh Bains, 23.
Sanghera is the alleged patriarch of the Sanghera crime group, who police say is at war with the Buttar gang. He was arrested Feb. 23 through Project Rebellion and is facing several gun and ammunition charges.
Also arrested from the crime group was Robert Gordon Taylor and Sanghera’s son Bobby, who police say was wearing a bulletproof vest and had three guns in his car when he was taken down “in hunting mode.”
Both Sanghera and Taylor were denied bail on March 16.
A man who answered the Sangheras' home phone Saturday hung up when questioned by a reporter about the barricades.
Likewise, Bains covered his face and went back inside his parents' home at 996 E. 54th Ave. when a reporter approached him in his driveway on Friday.
Bains, who is allegedly a member of the Independent Soldiers, has been the target of drive-bys at least twice before. His house was shot up in September 2007 and again last November.
Just four months before the last shooting, Bains had an attempted-murder charge and several weapons offences against him stayed.
The charges stemmed from a July 6, 2006, shooting at another south Vancouver house that targeted a teenager charged with impaired driving causing the death of Sukhvinder Singh (Bicky) Dosanjh, the leader of the Independent Soldiers.
A young woman who lives in the Bains’s residence told The Province that she didn’t know the reason for the blockades. She refused to comment on why there are surveillance cameras mounted on the house.
But residents in the neighbourhoods aren’t fooled. They say they knew immediately why the barricades were set up.
“It’s to stop shooting in between the houses and it’s a way to slow down traffic,” Amber Atwal said. “It’s a nuisance and a problem for parking for the whole neighbourhood, just because of them, but it’s working.”
kmercer@theprovince.com
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