Former Hells Angel gets one day for selling crack

Joseph Calendino, 44, pleaded guilty in November to one count of trafficking crack cocaine. He was sentenced to one day in jail with one day credit for time served. He walked.

He sold crack to an undercover officer near Surrey Central SkyTrain station April 2008. Point granted it was a small amount, but crack dealers only carry small amounts with them at a time so they don't get jail time. They have runners going back and forth with more. The point is he was a member of the Hells Angels and he got caught selling crack at Surrey Central.

Kinda like what I've been saying all along. Only I've been saying I saw Hells Angels enforce for the crack dealers at Surrey central. I didn't actually see any Hells Angels selling the crack. Yet here we have a conviction.

I'm not even going to talk about the freaky letter a police officer wrote to the court in his defense. Much. He brags about being a former member of the Hells Angels and having been a drug addict and talks to kids in school about the dangers of gangs and drugs. It sounds nice but I sure wouldn't want him talking to my kids.

"I can't say that I remember much from that time in my life," he said, breaking down in sobs. "I was an addict." Calendino, who left court with a smile on his face, declined to comment on the sentence. Was he crying when he and his Hells Angel pal assaulted a guy in a Kelowna casino?

Isn't that pathetic. Just like the two other Hells Angels associates who cried in court when charged with selling date rape drug.

I believe there should be mandatory minimum sentences for selling crack even if a small quantity. Not for using crack but for selling crack. If this guy was sincere, he could have served three months in prison.

Woman gunned down in Abbotsford

A 22 year old woman was gunned down on the side of the road in Abbotsford early Wednesday morning. The police believe the shooting was targeted and linked to the street-level drug trade.

“The community needs to be outraged by this, and young people have to begin to realize that this lifestyle is extremely dangerous, often leading to death. Certainly we can agree that nobody deserves this fate.” Cpl. Dale Carr

What outrages me, or what really confuses me is why the police will not confirm or deny rumors that her boyfriend was connected to the Red scorpions.

The Port Moody police department had no problems issuing public warnings about Dennis Karbovanec and the Bacon brothers. The Abbotsford police department has promised us a gang web site. Why would the police hush up the boyfriend's association? Just because it was a different department?

They admit the woman was known to the police but state the boyfriend was far more well known to the police having 50 interactions with the police in the past 5 years.

"When you have two people at a location, and one is alive and one is dead, you have to go in with a thought at least that maybe one person caught it and shouldn't have, and the other person was more the intended target," Abbotsford police department Const. Ian MacDonald said.

I don't understand why Cpl. Dale Carr of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is withholding information from the public. I sure hope he's not the one from IHIT that said everything was fine until they started cracking down on the Hells Angels. Whoever it was that said that from the IHIT is out to lunch and a security breach.

Who knows, maybe that was the one who had an affair with Karbovanec's ex girlfriend. After all, those guys trade girlfriends like hockey cards. She's the one who used to be with Jamie Bacon before she was with DK.

Pickton's appeal turned down

Well Robert Pickton lost his appeal but it still does leave unanswered questions. Pickton's appeal was based on the premise that the presiding judge erred when giving instructions to the jury. But the Crown said that even if the judge made a mistake, it wasn't serious enough to require a second trial.

The question rose with the instructions given to the jury. The judge said they could convict Pickton even if he hadn't acted alone but if he was an active participant. I agree with the decision. Pickton should not get another expensive trial. However, the whole issue of accomplices has not been dealt with.

His brother Dave was said to have been a Hells Angels associate and was convicted of sexual assault on the same farm prior to the murders.

Were the Hells Angels Robert Picton's accomplices? It looks like now, we will never know. The Hells Angels pig farm in Australia case was never resolved either.

Hells Angels Winnipeg clubhouse finally seized

A blog reader just posted this. Turns out the Hells Angels clubhouse in Winnipeg was just finally seized.

Can’t say I’m sorry to hear the news. Perhaps their endorsement of the Zig Zag crew and Famous Amos being caught on video cutting crack cocaine for the Hells Angels might have something to do with it.

No wonder the Surrey Shadow club wants to keep their association with Gus a secret. The Anarchy Bikers aren't so bright. They posted their affiliation in their charter.

Hells Angels smuggled drugs into US on jet ski

"Walters made statements to other co-conspirators that he was being paid $30,000 per load to smuggle drugs for the Hells Angels organized crime group in Canada," the Justice Department said.

Walters said he needed to kill the witnesses against him. When an inmate offered to help him he said that's OK because the Hells Angels knew where one of the witnesses was living.

All these guys get caught smuggling drugs for the Hells Angels, yet no charges are laid against the Hells Angels as an organization. That is absurd.

At the trial of contract killer Mickie (Phil) Smith the court was told one of his murders was done for the East Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels. Smith killed Paul Percy Soluk at a crack house in Surrey and said a man he called Yurik helped him chop up and dispose of the body. Smith said "Yurik's not an Angel but he works with the Angels. I know he's done a lot of hits."

So here we have numerous cases of "individuals" selling drugs and committing murder for the Hells Angels and the Hells Angels are never charged for any of those crimes. Something is very wrong.

The Surrey Shadow Club Revisited

I already wrote a bit about the Surrey Shadow club after Kim Bolan reported on it. Yet it would appear the shadow club is bolder than ever with it's new huge sign and it's new spy camera. That sure looks like the same spy camera to Java's Palace in Langley.



The fact is the number of drug convictions against the Hells Angels is outrageous. The fact is the Hells Angels are aggressively creating puppet clubs all over the country that use and exploit the reputation of the Hells Angels like Brachus and the Zig Zag crew.

The Jesters and the Outcasts denied having anything to do with the Hells Angels even though evidence was found proving they did. The very location of the Surrey Shadow club is suspect and letting them thrive during a gang war is just plain wrong.

What's with that big ass faring anyways? What ever happened to riding against the wind? You might as well be riding a Goldwing or a car.

Anti Gang Legislation

Harper met with local victims of crime and held a press conference about his introduction of anti gang legislation February 2009. He used Eileen Mohan as a human shield and double dared the opposition to oppose it given the public outcry during the Vancouver gang war.

Although I am cynical of all the political parties exploiting our misfortune, something needs to be done. After the meeting Steve Brown expressed frustration with the enormity of the task stating it's hard to know where to begin. Yet at another rally he spoke very clearly on what needs to be done. Judicial reform.

Eileen Mohan is right. We need to change the legislation and introduce mandatory minimum sentences that will bind the judges. Steve Brown is also right. Judges in BC make judgements that differ from the rest of Canada on the same existing federal legislation. Minimum mandatory sentences for violent crime is one step, making our bad judges accountable is another.

We have anti criminal organization legislation in place. The judges in BC will not enforce it due to corruption or stupidity. Those are the only two possible motives we are left with. Ontario and Quebec have a huge list of drug convictions for the Hells Angels. That has become their primary business. In BC if someone is caught selling cocaine for the Hells Angels they get house arrest. In Ontario they do real time because they are selling it on behalf of a criminal organization.

As a result those provinces have successfully applied their anti criminal organization legislation to the Hells Angels and every time they commit a criminal offence. BC has failed to do this. Part of the problem is Peter Leask a defense attorney who helped pedophiles get off. He was appointed by Paul Martin's government.

Yet Peter Leask is not the only bad judge here. They all think they are above the law and untouchable. The BC judges have absolutely no public accountability. Perhaps following the US model and electing judges would be a solution. Right now there is no mechanism in place to fire a bad judge.

When the courts hear that a convicted murder was hired by the Hells Angels to commit murder and that he knows another murder who has been hired to commit many murders for the East Vancouver Hells Angels and the court does nothing to the East Vancouver Hells Angels as a criminal organization, then those judges should be replaced. That testimony is an automatic criminal organization legislation case.

Mandatory minimum sentences for violent crime yes. Not for pot. We don't have to legalize pot but we shouldn't impose mandatory minimum sentences for the possession of pot. Mandatory minimum sentences for swarming or other acts of violence as well as for selling hard drugs like crack, meth or date rape drug. We need to draw a line between pot and crack and we need to increase the consequences for selling those drugs not for being addicted to those drugs.

Minimum sentences for drive by shootings is important. Drive by shootings put the public at risk. Not all gang related murders should be first degree murder but any gang related murder that puts the public at risk or injures a member of the public clearly should be first degree murder. We need to follow the legislation and take the amendment so it will pass.

Remembering Chris Mohan

Ed Schellenberg and Chris Mohan were innocent victims killed in the crossfire of a gang execution known as the Surrey Six. It wasn't just a matter of being hit by a stray bullet. They stumbled into the scene and were executed as potential witnesses.

It was a shock to the community because of the heartless brutality showed to innocent bystanders. Some had said they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time but Steve Brown, Ed Schellenberg's brother in law said that was not true. They were where they were supposed to be.

Chris was at home. His home. He stepped out of his hallway to leave for a basketball game and he was shot dead. Ed was at work. He was installing gas fireplaces and was installing a fireplace at the home of the gang members who were being executed. Ed had no idea he was installing a fireplace for gang members and Chris had no idea he was living next to gang members.

As a result, Chris' mother, Eileen Mohan, made a public appeal for a website to identify known gang members so the public would know what dangers to avoid. I was at a memorial service at Beer Creek park where they released doves in their loved one's memory and she spoke publicly about her idea. Eileen was asking the police to make a gang web site. The Abbotsford police have recently said they plan to but we haven't seen it happen yet. I think most forces are worried about testing the legality of such a web site. When I heard Eileen speak I thought to myself, I could do that. She is the reason I made this web site and blog.

I didn't want to pretend to be connected to the family in any way and exploit their loss but things have quietened down about the shocking murder and I just want us to remember it. No doubt it will return to the public eye when the case comes to trial. Kim Bolan has done some pretty impressive coverage of the sad event. She was the one that named the Red Scorpions and did an inside interview with Anton Hooites-Meursing who had an epiphany in Rio and turned himself in to the police agreeing to testify against his co accused.

I was always of the thought that if it was Red Scorpions who were murdered in the hit like Kim claimed, that it was someone else who murdered them. Jamie Bacon has been charged in the murder as a result of Person X's testimony. It's hard for me to conceive of the thought that Jamie could be guilty and his other two brothers were not involved. It's a shame everyone involved can't be tried. The theory is that the Bacon brothers killed the old leadership of the Red Scorpions in a bid to take over the gang.

At the time the Red Scorpions were affiliated with the UN. After the murder, everything changed. The Red Scorpions under the Bacon Brother leadership became enemies of the UN and became affiliated with the Independent Soldiers and the Hells Angels.

One has to wonder why charges have never been laid in the second most brutal gang execution in Surrey where a mother was gunned down in her car with her young son in the back seat. She was affiliated with the UN and the Red Scorpion who owned the suite that was attacked in the Surrey Six and later gunned down in the Guildford parking lot.



After listening to Eileen speak about the loss of her son, it was clear she was deeply grieved. Chris was a really good kid. On May 31 2008 Chris' family held a Memorial Mass for him on what would have been his birthday at the grave site in which many MP's attended.

February 3rd 2008 was the Public Safety Rally at Bear Creek Park in Surrey. February 22 2009 Eileen Mohan and Steve Brown both spoke at the Rally Against Gang violence along side the Surrey Mayor and various other political leaders. Right after that rally Stephen Harper used Eileen as a human shield to introduce anti gang legislation. We are still waiting to see if Harper will take the amendment to get the bill passed.

Both families have launched an annual golf tournament in their loved one's memory and in 2009 Eileen Mohan was named Leader of the Year in Surrey.

The Spirit of East Van

I will note in the video of the police officer shoving the disabled woman to the ground, we saw a passerby quickly come to her aid and help her up. We used to hear a lot that East Van protects their own. In some ways that is true, in other ways it is false.

I remember sitting at the traffic light at Main and Hastings not long ago. An older male on a scooter was crossing at the light on the cross walk. As he was coming back onto the sidewalk his scooter tipped over. Instantly several people came to his aid to help him back up again. That was refreshing to see.

In other areas of town where videotaping beating homeless became trendy like on the Granville bar strip, East Van always boasted that the homeless were safe in East Van. To some extent yes, in other ways no.

I remember reading about how the police used movie make up artists to go undercover and pose as an elderly man in East Van. Then they videotaped young thugs robbing him. Obviously those young thugs were not taking care of their own.



I remember taking a group of teenagers into East Van handing out food, jackets and gloves during winter in blood alley. The kids were shocked. When they first approached the homeless, the homeless would cringe and ask them not to hurt them. When they said they were there to give them some food or jackets the homeless were very surprised and grateful. This simply shows that the homeless in East Van are used to getting beat up which is tragic.

There is no doubt much of the crime committed by prolific offenders in East Van is to pay for drug addictions. When someone in a big house overlooking the lake in Kelowna profits from the sale of crack in East Van, they are ultimately responsible for the crime and violence addicts commit to pay for those drugs.

East Van has always been a place of addiction. Back in the day the cheap high was aftershave. If you didn’t have brain damage before drinking aftershave, you certainly did after. Yet the number of homeless has skyrocketed. Cuts to social programs and housing have been criminal. We can’t close Riverview, throw all the mentally challenged on the street then walk away and say it’s not my problem. It is our problem.

From my observations, a crack addict is far more violent and invasive than a heroine addict. Handing out free crack pipes and turning safe injection sites into safe inhalation sites is absolutely insane and clearly socially irresponsible. We might as well send those tax dollars directly to the Hells Angels in the form of a cash donation. It would save a lot of misery. Yet I’m not suggesting we do that.

If we got all the crack and meth off the streets in East Van and just didn’t make a big deal about the pot, we would see an instant transformation in the violence and health of that community.

Have you ever noticed the stain glass at the Carnegie Centre on the East Hastings side? I don't know how many times I've walked past it and never noticed it. All I saw was all the crack dealers and their enforcers standing out side. It's easy to miss but worth seeing. The beauty in that location is surprising. Now all we need to do it get rid of all the crack dealers standing outside.

Vancouver police push disabled woman

Well this is the video everyone's talking about. It was all over the news. I'm not going to try and rationalize what happened, just put it in perspective.

First, I don't think the woman swore at or was rude to the officers. Although there is no sound in the video, the body language says otherwise. Nor do I believe it looked like she was reaching for his gun. I think those claims are dishonest.

I will say that I think the police should definitely walk the beat in East Vancouver. Walking the beat in any high crime area is important and few forces do it. The RCMP tried it at Surrey Central but that was short lived.

I don't understand why they walk in threes. The RCMP did the same thing at Surrey Central. Two groups of two separated by some distance is far safer and covers a much larger area. Three tend to take up the whole sidewalk which is the case in the East Van video.

The street was busy, three large men take up the whole sidewalk. The woman with cerebral palsy limps when she walks. She was trying to walk past the police officers, was confused which direction to go and was pushed to the ground. Yes it's sad and disappointing. I think walking in pairs instead of threes would help.

Walking the beat for a police officer is not an easy thing. It is a daily challenge. The name calling and animosity are prevalent. Having a crack addict or someone with Aids bump into you with open sores and scabs is not a nice thing. Having anyone bump into you is unsafe as it could lead to be shanked in the back or simply poked with a dirty needle. The police need to establish a safe distance around them.

That does not include pushing disabled women to the ground. Although there are a lot of addicts in East Van, there are also a lot of disabled. If we spent more time getting rid of the crack dealers there would be a lot less social problems to clean up and sift through.

I will note that one media outlet claimed the police officer who pushed the disabled woman to the ground had only been with the force for one year. Clearly that is not the attitude needed to police anywhere not to mention East Van.

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I've been thinking about this story and it's hard to get out of my mind. The fact that the other two officers did nothing speaks volumes. The fact that the VPD have this guy still walking the beat in East Van speaks volumes as does the other incident where two police officers beat the tar out of a guy in a domestic dispute call but got the wrong door and beat up the wrong guy.

Making a mistake and getting the wrong guy was bad enough but giving someone the boots and caving in his eye is really shameful. I remember arguing with an extremist about police brutality and he cited Pivot's submission on police brutality so I had a look. I thought to myself it was likely going to be filled with crackheads taking sh*t.

To my surprise, the first witness in the affidavit was that of an under cover RCMP officer. I thought to myself, well that has a bit more credibility than I originally thought. What happened in that instance was an under cover RCMP officer was in East Van. The police shouted at him as he was jay walking and being under cover, he gave them the finger. That's when the officers beat the tar out of him.

There clearly does seem to be a problem with arrogance and bullying within the VPD in East Van. Point granted they have to put up with a lot but do they really. I mean do they put up with it or do they take the bully approach and just don't take anything from anyone.

Pushing a disabled woman to the ground or beating up a crack addict really does nothing to earn respect in the neighborhood. It just perpetuates bitterness and abuse. Why don't they turn that anger onto the drug dealers? Yes it must be insanely frustrating to have to deal with insite and idiots who claim that free drugs is good science and heath care.

That is absolute nonsense and is a good part of the reason our city is going down the toilet fast. The free drugs experiment has failed miserably. The anti prohibitionists are just a vocal group of spoilt brats that throw temper tantrums demanding more and more. Those are the ones that should get their asses kicked. Not the addicts themselves. Those that profit from their exploitation.