Former detective says B.C. gangs recruiting 'little soldiers' with 'no expertise' for smuggling, shootings

A former B.C. detective says the province needs to step up and offer more education to prevent young people from being recruited into gangs.

Doug Spencer, who now speaks at schools across the province about the dangers of joining a gang, spoke on CTV Morning Live on Friday in the wake of a targeted shooting on a residential street of White Rock. 

Police haven't identified or given any details about suspects in that shooting, but Spencer said he believes the shooting may have involved young people. Video of the incident shows one of two shooters firing dozens of rounds at an SUV as the driver tries to flee the scene.

"The only reason all of those guys didn't die is it's amateur hour," Spencer said on CML. "When these kids shoot – they're kids, literally – they're so scared that they just run and fire and there's no expertise, thank God, where'd you have way more homicides in the Lower Mainland."

Spencer, who gives his school presentations with Odd Squad Productions, said it appears young people are being lured into gangs in a familiar way.

"History has repeated itself," he said, explaining that students were recruited into gangs in Vancouver schools in the 1990s. "What they get told by the groomers and recruiters is a bunch of lies."

Spencer also suggested these young recruits are crucial to gang operations on the ground.

"They need little soldiers. They need feet on the ground to do their killings and all the bad stuff for them, because the gangs themselves, they're not willing to do it," he said. "They get these young little minions to do it and they take all the risk."

But Spencer said it's not enough to dismantle gang activity in the field.

"You've got to stop the recruitment. Stop the kids willing to smuggle guns and do shootings and stuff," he said, adding the province should ensure there is yearly gang-awareness programming for youth.

"You have to educate the kids, give them the knowledge that gangs are a dead-end road … then the kids have that ammunition and knowledge to stay clear of that and stay clear of substance abuse and all these bad things."