ONE METROPOLIS, ONE POLICE FORCE

'If Canada was under attack," former Vancouver police chief Bob
Stewart demanded in February, "would our armed forces be under one commander?"

Vancouver is not at war. But residents of the city and its
surrounding area may well feel under siege. This past Saturday, hours
after police had announced charges against members of the Red
Scorpions gang in the 2007 murder of six people in Surrey (including
two innocent bystanders), a man was killed in East Vancouver in what
police called a "targeted shooting." There have been about 50
gang-related shootings in the Lower Mainland since January, 18 of
them fatal. For many, the killing of a jogger in a park may have been
the last straw.

Metro Vancouver's murder total rose from 41 in 2007 to 58 in 2008,
and is on pace to be much higher this year. No wonder recent polls
have suggested that crime is second only to the economy among British
Columbians' concerns.

There is no immediate solution. A complex network of gangs are
fighting turf battles over the country's biggest drug trade. In the
short term, police investigations are likely to lead to more
violence, not less. (There are fears that the court appearances of
the accused in the "Surrey Six" murders may lead to additional
outbreaks, as retribution is sought against those co-operating with
police and the courts.)

But if the region is to mount a successful long-term battle to
reclaim streets that have been taken hostage by feuding gangs, it
needs the sort of central leadership that Mr. Stewart had in mind -
not the most patchwork policing system in the country.

At present, there are about 16 different police jurisdictions in the
Vancouver area - some of them individual municipal forces, others
RCMP detachments. Integrated teams and task forces are supposed to
help them work with each other, but it has been widely observed that
they continue to work mostly in isolation. It has been suggested that
this lack of cohesion helped allow the crimes of serial murderer
Robert Pickton to go undetected for as long as they did. Now, it is
significantly impeding the investigation of gangs.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Jim Chu, the chief of the
Vancouver Police Department, have both advocated a single force for
the region. Other local police chiefs object that it would detract
from community policing, but there is no reason why officers with
strong knowledge of local communities could not continue to serve
them under a united force. As it stands, the region's police appear
to be suffering from turf wars of their own.

That is no way to protect a city under siege. Gang violence is a
regional problem. It will be curbed by a regional defence, not 16
different forces fighting separate battles.