Project Rebellion- The best prevention is to put as many of the gangsters in jail as possible, for whatever charge we can lay.

Vancouver, March 6, 2009

Chief Constable Jim Chu made a statement about Project Rebellion:

Thanks you, Mayor Robertson for joining us. I am pleased to announce that we had arrested the head of the UN gang. At that time I promised that I would soon be telling you about more arrests.

There is a gang war and it’s brutal. What we have seen are new rules of engagement for the gangsters. They are now shooting each other when they don’t have to. The truth of the matter is that when one gangster targets another gangster it is difficult to prevent, and difficult to prove in court after the fact.

One of the battlegrounds in this war is the southeast sector of Vancouver where two gangs, the Sanghera Group and the Buttar Group, are killing each other for profit and territory.

Today I’m pleased to tell you that we’re sending more gangsters who operate in the southeast sector of Vancouver to jail.

These arrests are the result of Project Rebellion, which is led by Inspector Mike Porteous. I will ask him to fill you in on the details in a moment.

The focus of Rebellion is to concentrate on the people we know are doing the killings, the gangsters who pose the greatest threat to the public safety, the one who are the most violent.

Frankly, we’re prepared to arrest them on any and as many crimes as we can.

As long as it gets them off the street and into a jail cell, where innocent members of the public can’t be hurt, we’ll continue to pursue them this way.

As we said earlier this week, it is difficult to take credit for or even discuss incidents that have not happened but we know we’re making a difference.

Project Rebellion has been costly and complicated placing a substantial drain on VPD resources.

We are even more convinced now that to effectively target these gang members, you need large teams of officers with the right strategies and resources.

We will continue to share our strategies and work in a coordinated manner with our partner police agencies.

I promised you earlier that we will be announcing more gangster arrests. In addition to the ones you will learn about in a moment, we will announce more substantial charges when they are laid over the next few weeks.