The recent spike of violence that has plagued the Lower Mainland over the last two months continued on March 14 and 19. Laura Lynn Lamoureux, 36, was gunned down on March 14, and the body of Marc Bontkes, 33, was found on Mar. 19.
The two murders mark the second and third in Langley in the last two months. Kevin Leclair, 26, was also shot and killed on Feb. 6 in the parking lot of the Walnut Grove IGA grocery store. All three murders have occurred within five kilometres of the Trinity Western University campus.
Lamoreaux was found dead at the intersection of 202A St. and 50th Ave. Police speculate she was involved in the drug-trade, and the killing looks like a targeted hit, though such connections cannot be confirmed at this time.
In the early morning on Saturday, March 14, a patrol car responded to 911 calls of multiple shots fired around 5 a.m., and found Lamoureaux lying dead on the side of the road.
Corporal Dale Carr of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said, “At this point of the investigation, this incident appears to be linked to the street level drug trade and has the signature of being a targeted murder.” He also said she was known to police. As of this point there are no suspects.
The second body was also found on 50th Ave. in Hi-Knoll Park after a passerby noticed the body next to a car around 6 a.m. on March 19. Police responded to calls of shots fired around 3:30 a.m. but found nothing when they searched the area.
Carr said Bontkes appeared to have been the victim of a targeted hit, but police said he was unknown to them at the time of the shooting. Police have made no connections between this shooting and Lamoureux’s, or with the Metro Vancouver drug turf wars resulting in dozens of deaths since January.
“It is incredibly unsettling and frightening that such violence is taking place so close to home,” said Morgan Kenyon, a fourth-year TWU student. “It kind of seems like an innocent bystander could quickly become in danger at any point in time which adds a certain type of tension to our community.”
“You don’t really think of the Lower Mainland, especially Langley, as being a dangerous place. It’s kinda scary hitting so close to [campus],” said fourth-year Jon Eng.
Gordon Chutter, university sociology professor, who was interviewed concerning the drug-related shootings before the murder on March 19, stated that he believed this new spike in violence would continue. “As I understand it, the supply of cocaine from Mexico has been reduced due to Mexican law enforcement cracking down on drug trafficking. What you have now is different gangs competing for a smaller amount of product. The reduction of supply has intensified the competition to distribute.”
“The very huge nature of B.C.’s marijuana industry makes it a breeding ground for this. Vancouver is in play in all of this because the marijuana export industry in B.C. is worth $6 billion. That`s as much as all other B.C. agriculture combined. This has been a sleeping giant, and when you have the giant disturbed by something like factors to the south, you start seeing this type of thing,” Chutter said. “Once violence like this starts, it is very hard to stop, especially given the profitability of the B.C. drug industry. The violence will perpetuate. You see the same type of thing in Northern Ireland – when the violence starts, it becomes very difficult to just stop.”
Police are changing their tactics with the hopes of reducing the amount of violent crime in Metro Vancouver.
“The truth of the matter is that when one gangster targets another gangster, it’s difficult to prevent, and difficult to prove in court, after the fact,” Vancouver Police chief Jim Chu said. Instead of waiting until they have built a case on serious charges, police have started charging gang members for less serious crimes, Chu said.
“Frankly, we are 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 will continue to pursue them this way,” he said. “As police, we’ve always been told by media experts to never say or admit that there is a gang war. Well, let’s get serious. There is a gang war and it’s brutal.”
