FOR all those South Asian youth who think joining a gang is glamorous, you’ve got another think coming!
That so-called glamour doesn’t last very long – neither do perceived loyalties and ‘friends for life’ crap!
That REALITY really hit gangsters and wannabes hard at this week’s Surrey Six murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver when Red Scorpion member Cody Haevischer’s former girlfriend, who can only be identified as KM, testified. She is a protected witness.
Haevischer and co-accused Matthew Johnson are charged with six counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A third co-accused, Michael (Quang Vinh Thang) Le, last week pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in the Surrey Six murder case.
Co-accused Jamie Bacon, who will be tried separately, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Corey Lal and, along with Haevischer and Johnston, conspiracy to commit murder in Lal’s death.
At the start of the trial two months ago, the Crown told B.C. Supreme Court that Red Scorpions gang members went to apartment 1505 of the Balmoral Towers at 9830 East Whalley Ring Road in Surrey on October 19, 2007, to kill a rival drug dealer Corey Lal because he had failed to pay $100,000 they had demanded from him for trafficking on their turf, and they killed five others to ensure that there would be no witnesses.
Innocent victims Chris Mohan, 22, and Edward J. Schellenberg, 55, of Abbotsford and four other victims who police said led criminal lifestyles – brothers Corey Lal, 21, and Michael Lal, 26, and Edward Narong, 22, and Ryan Bartolomeo, 19, were killed execution-style.
KM told the judge that she was “pretty stressed out” because she felt the police were looking for her. She said that after the murders, the gang became paranoid about police and things started to fall apart. The tensions and infighting within the gang intensified as they realized that police were watching them.
She said she really didn’t want to become a witness because the gang members were “my family and I loved Cody more than anything.” She “hated cops” because she felt she was a gangster herself.
But the fact is that the so-called family disintegrated under pressure. Where was all that big talk about being friends forever and so on?
This should wake up all South Asian males and females who think being gang members or hanging around with gang members is a pretty cool thing.
Let me tell you: It’s a PRETTY DUMB THING!