Getting Away With Murder
Every few
weeks there’s a gang murder in Vancouver.
The victim is usually
Indo- Canadian. The murders are rarely solved.
Getting Away with Murder, looked at why there is so much killing.CBC
NEWS:CANADA NOW aired the stories in two parts on October
8th and 9th. The National ran the story in its entirety on October
9th, the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Ned Mander,
a man with no known gang connections.Many
believe Mander was used in a disturbing murder plot to lure two
other men out of hiding so they could be shot.
In a six-month investigation,
CBC News discovered that 65 young men were killed in an escalating
gang war that started in 1990.
By building a database,
I discovered that many of the killings are linked in a complex
web of revenge, retaliation and contract killings. Wanting to
know what the gang war was really about, I started looking into
the story March, 2002. I had no idea it would be six months before
we could put a piece on the air.
Because the topic
was so complex — the murders had been going on for 12 years —
I was overwhelmed with the volume of documents stored in court
files and CBC archives.The database allowed me to organize the
information.
During my research
on the story, I traveled to San Francisco to attend an Investigative
Reporters and Editor’s class on Access, the most commonly used
database manager. But in addition to using Access, I found a use-friendly
new piece of software called Intelladex that was developed in
Vancouver. It made it easier and much faster to customize the
database.
Two weeks of data
entry produced a file of murder cases. I was able to sort the
cases by jurisdiction,date, age or any other field I saw fit to
include. Intelladex let me design a database based on my specific
needs.Each murder contained fields such as murder method,motive,whether
charges were laid, witness details and news clippings.
I electronically linked
incidents if they were related and I rated the information based
on whether it was confirmed or single-source. This was necessary
because I was dealing with endless theories and gossip, all of
which had to be checked out.
For each person in
the database I was able to electronically link people and identify
how they were connected. The ability to establish links is a powerful
tool.The database allowed me to build a three-dimensional web
of murders and in the process became my memory.
Building the database
forced me to mentally process the information and understand it.
In all, I looked at 80 murders. By talking to witnesses and police
sources, I acquired new information: 65 of the murders were gang-related.
At that point, police were still insisting that there might be
50 Indo-Canadian gang murders.
My information demonstrated
that the problem was much worse. Building a database was the easy
part of this story. Getting gangsters and their family members
to talk on TV was harder.
Because the database
made it easier for me to get a good handle on the situation,I
could then start making contact with individuals who were either
directly involved in organized crime or related to people in organized
crime.
Over time people slowly
started telling me things. Eventually,others who had never spoken
publicly agreed to appear on camera.
The fact that so few
people are ever willing to testify against them has kept many
of them out of jail for years. Even when murders happen in public,
witnesses evaporate.
In one case the highprofile
Bindy Johal was killed. Three hundred people were at a nightclub
when someone put a gun to his head. Yet no one saw a thing.
At a wedding before
Christmas, four people, including the bride and groom, were shot.
Again, no one co-operated. Consequently, no one was charged.
It is common for reporters
who work the organized crime beat to get threats. As both producer
and reporter on this project I received plenty.But it’s also important
to remember that journalists are not police officers. My
job is not to solve the murders, or expose individuals, but to
tell a story that might explain why the violence continues.
Protecting sources
was crucial. I did not keep any records of unnamed, protected
sources. These are the people who were invaluable and told me
information that could put them in jeopardy. Even the database
is secured and password-protected, in the event police ever tried
to seize my computer or someone broke into our newsroom.
In addition to meeting
with gang members and their friends, we got to know members of
Vancouver’s Gang unit who eventually took us along as they hunted
down some of the 1500 hardcore gang members they say operate in
the Vancouver area.
That’s why the project,
originally slated to last one month, turned into a six-month assignment.
I realized why no one had ever tried to tackle this story for
TV.
The killing started
more than 10 years ago with a man murdered for dating a gangster’s
sister. The violence escalated to include machine-gun ambushes,
abductions and executions.
Bodies began turning
up under bridges on the Lower Mainland. Young men met their fate
at movie theatres, nightclubs,weddings — even hair salons
. The young killers
carrying military assault rifles and earning an average of 10-thousand
dollars a week are the disciples of high-profile gangsters who
made headlines in the early 90’s.
Essentially, it’s a
story about gangs that are really just small crews named after
their leaders. There are no crests. No colors. However, there
are rules — and turf!
They call themselves
the Punjabi Mafia, which may be more accurate than calling them
gangs. In terms of organized crime, police say the East Indian
gangs are small players who get a lot of attention only because
they are so brazenly violent.
For instance, unlike
the Hells Angels,who maintain a low-profile, these gangsters get
into shootouts on the street regularly, sometimes over nothing
more than a dirty look or a love triangle.
The database helped
me see patterns such as the fact that only 11 of the 65 murders
ever led to charges. Hence, the title of our series: Getting Away
with Murder.
As one young man told
me in a secret meeting, “who would testify against me?”
Threats, involved.
We were also on the scene soon after the man suspected in that
murder was gunned down two months later. That cycle became the
opening scene of my documentary.
We also gained access
to a drug counseling session with a 16-year-old gang associate
that would prove to be the most telling interview of the piece
because he was the most candid about the culture of silence and
fear in the Indo-Canadian community.
A database isn’t something
you build and then you’re done. It’s a living document. Every
bit of information gets entered, from serial numbers found on
gang members’ car loans to video and jpeg files of their photos.
Those serial numbers can then be cross-referenced with insurance
claims. In B.C. anyone who owns or leases anything can be located
in a public records database. Building
your own database is rarely a one-project endeavor.
In Vancouver this
story will continue to unfold. As long as the database is kept
up to date, it will be an asset for my newsroom for years to come.
Databases are ideal tools for complex projects. If you are overwhelmed
with information over a long timeline that can be organized in
terms of people, incidents and organizations then you need a database.
Getting Away with Murder
can be seen at CBC’s website at http://cbc.ca/national/videofeatures/
For more information on the Intelladex software go to http://www.ucora.com/
Natalie Clancy
is a CBC Network News reporter based in Vancouver.
