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July 3,2012 Tri City News


Port Moody Police are reassuring residents and visitors alike that the City of the Arts is safe, despite two recent high-profile gang murders.

On Monday afternoon, Burnaby resident Randynesh (Randy) Naicker, a founder of the Independent Soldiers gang, was gunned down outside Starbucks at St. Johns and Queen streets.

Less than a month earlier, on May 30, Surrey’s Gurbinder (Bin) Singh Toor, who had connections to the Dhak/Duhre gang, was shot on a Wednesday evening in the PoMo recreation centre parking lot; he later died in hospital.

“Like everyone in the Lower Mainland, we have gang members living here and we have gang associates living here, and some just come to town to do business,” said PMPD Deputy Chief Const. Chris Rattenbury.

The PMPD’s gang initiative, together with the department’s crime analyst, is monitoring at least 40 known gang members and associates living in Port Moody.

A PMPD press release stated: “While we cannot control who lives in or drives through town, the PMPD are actively working to ensure that Port Moody remains one of the safest communities in the Lower Mainland” through its participation in the Integrated Gang Task Force, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and the Bar Watch program.

The PMPD also works with Coquitlam RCMP’s Drug and Gang Suppression Team, and the agencies work to identify and target gang members and associates involved in gang and drug activity in the Tri-Cities.

In 2009 the PMPD took the unusual step of warning residents when gang members Jonathan Bacon and Dennis Karbovanec were living in PoMo, saying the pair posed a “significant threat to public safety.”

Karbovanec was later arrested and is now serving a life sentence for murdering three of six people in the Surrey 6 killings in 2007 while Bacon was killed last summer in Kelowna in a targeted hit.

“No matter where you live in the Lower Mainland, there are going to be bad things happening but overall we do fairly well here,” Rattenbury said.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Mayor Mike Clay applauded the Port Moody Police and their efforts to keep the community safe.

“Crime exists in the society we live in and crime is not unique to this city,” Clay said. “It’s very fortunate that we didn’t have innocent bystanders injured last night [Monday], and as despicable as these events are, it’s no reflection on Port Moody but on the randomness of these people and what they do.”

A friend of Randy Naicker who spoke to talk show host Simi Sara on CKNW Wednesday afternoon said the 34-year-old Burnaby resident was doing “everything he could” to untangle himself from the gang life.

He had recently completed a five-year stint in prison after being convicted in the 2005 kidnapping of a Surrey gangster. His friend, who was not identified, said Naicker “wanted to fall in love, he wanted to have a family and he wanted to live a quiet life but unfortunately, his past caught up with him.”

The friend said Naicker had worked to surround himself with “regular people with jobs and families” and had legitimate business ideas he was pursuing at the time of his death.

“We saw the good in Randy, the person who wanted to make a better life for himself,” his grieving friend said. “It’s very tragic.”

• PoMo Police are encouraging anyone who witnessed the crimes, or simply feels the need to talk about how the shootings have affected them, to call victim services at 604-937-1313.

spayne@tricitynews.com

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