The mother of an innocent victim recounted horrifying details of her son's shooting death as she pleaded for an end to gang violence.
Eileen Mohan told a hushed crowd at a forum on gang issues Wednesday that the last moments of her son Christopher's life haunts her the most.
"As Christopher left our apartment that afternoon heading towards the elevator to play his basketball game, he was snatched from the hallway, taken to the suite next door and executed for what police believe (was) for being a potential witness,'' Mohan said in a wavering voice.
The details of the young man's murder have never been released and a crowd of about 200 people who attended the forum listened in rapt silence.
"What angers me most, is my son had no chance to escape,'' she said.
Police have said that Christopher and Ed Schellenberg, a gas repairman, were both innocent victims killed along with four others in a gang execution in a Surrey, B.C., high rise last October.
Mohan called for a gangsters website, complete with mugshots and identification of suspected gangsters.
She said if law enforcement officials know who these people are, then so should the public
"When these gangsters murdered my son did they think about Christopher's privacy or his civil liberties,'' Mohan asked.
Last October's murders were the start of what seemed to be a spasm of gang violence that left numerous known gang members and innocent victims dead.
The violence also forced police to set up an anti-gang unit made up of officers from the RCMP and several other Vancouver-area police forces.
Less that two weeks ago two men were shot to death in front of dozens of people on a busy Vancouver street.
Steve Brown, Schellenberg's brother-in-law, told the forum that much more leadership is needed to prevent these types of murders.
Brown also relives the horror of the moments before his good friend died.
"He was kneeling in front of the gas fireplace doing his job,'' Brown stated softly.
Brown said his family knew Schellenberg was in the building that day and they had an agonizing wait before it was confirmed.
"Ed's wife Lois . . . she was baking Ed's favourite pies, expecting him to come home,'' he told the crowd.
"His daughter Rachel was continually phoning his cell phone to hear his voice.''
Brown said it's obvious that something needs to be done to prevent more of these murderers.
"We need to show leadership. We need to be doing more.''
West Vancouver's Police Chief Kash Heed is equally frustrated.
"Well, certainly there are no signs of it improving,'' he told reporters at the forum.
While there have been pockets of improvements, Heed said, they're still picking up dead bodies and responding to shots fired around the Lower Mainland.
Heed said there isn't enough leadership fighting the problem.
"That's where I'm frustrated . . . I come here, I speak from the heart about what needs to be done to deal with this issue.''
He said that would take political will.
B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal, who also attended the forum, said the problems will never be solved by police, courts or anyone else alone, and only a collaborative approach will stop the violence.
Oppal said he was concerned that the gang task force hadn't made any arrests in the murders in the Vancouver area, but suggested that police get little help in solving them.<
"These types of crime are unique, in that the people usually exact their own form of justice,'' Oppal stated. "The real problem here is that there are innocent people who from time to time get caught in the crossfire.''
