Police not forthcoming about gang activity

Giuseppe Valiante, writing for CP, cites a retired police detective complaining that police don’t release enough information about gang shootings. The Journal recently counted 16 killings related to gangs in the urban area this year; this piece says 17 killings, but only 3 were on the island of Montreal, crime having moved to the suburbs. Some of the journalists following this world try to tell us what the killings “mean” in terms of gang warfare, but it’s only a guess: their information, like that of the police, may well be from a biased source or be out of date.

Also cited here is crime writer André Cédilot, who brings up another theme: with no strong godfather in place, the situation’s fluid. Nobody has a big picture. For all that we tried to destroy the mafia, there was some stability in its structure, something we could sort of understand via the movies and myths. Now there isn’t.

The cops may not be talking because they don’t have a coherent story to tell. Or if they do know stuff, they don’t want the crooks to know what it is they know. It might not make sense for them to put all their cards on the table in the name of transparency.