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Wednesday,
October 20, 2010
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Low-lying clouds and precipitation mix with the well-known sight of Prince George pulp mills on Tuesday afternoon.
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Crimes of all kinds
Breaking down the Maclean’s numbers
Bernice Trick Citizen staff
The latest edition of Maclean’s magazine, hitting newstands this week, estimates that British Columbia has 133 organized crime groups with some 800 members, as well as at least 30 street gangs.
“Almost all draw much of their revenue from the drug trade. Violence — including homicide, contract killings, kidnapping, vicious ordered assaults, extortion and arson — continues to be the hallmark of all levels of the drug economy,” says the RCMP briefing material written in June, 2010, that Maclean’s used in the story.
In their crime rankings for 2009, Prince George was ranked No. 1 among the 100 largest cities in Canada 2009.
In the article, Prince George RCMP Supt. Brenda Butterworth-Carr says the problem, as Prince George is painfully aware, isn’t limited to B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
Co-ordinated anti-gang strategies in cities like Vancouver and Abbotsford helped drive gangs to new profit centres, concedes But-terworth-Carr.
Rather like the pine beetle, which has thrown the Prince George area forest economy into turmoil, gangs are parasitic, voracious and highly mobile. The result in Prince George is an unsettling mix of sophisticated gang activity and thuggish violence, as gangsters sort out the local pecking order.
“The scale can be massive,” says Maclean’s.
“In May, RCMP raided a rural marijuana grow operation with 18,000 plants in 20 greenhouses, an operation clearly financed by gang money. Assaults and home invasions are common to intimidate and collect drug debts. One young man almost lost an arm this summer when he was attacked with a samurai sword.”
Although Prince George, with its population of about 74,000, is ranked No. 1 as the most dangerous city in the nation, it is not No. 1 in any of the five crime categories used, but ranks in the top 10 among 100 cities in breaking and entering
(fourth), sexual assault (sixth) and murder (seventh). Prince George ranks 14th in auto theft and 20th in robbery.
Here’s how the top five cities in each category ranked.
** Breaking & Entering, the Canadian rate is 610 properties broken into per 100,000 population. Prince George’s percentage difference with the national rate is +66.62.
Chilliwack (104.28 per cent) was No. 1 followed by Brome,
Que, (89.70), Burnaby (70.46) Prince George (66.62) and Victori-aville, Que (61.70).
** Sexual assault: the Canadian rate is 62 assaults per 100,000 population.
Prince George ranked sixth with a +71.83 compared to the national rate. The top five cities are Cornwall, Ont, (153.72 per cent), Saint John, N.B. (86.50), Fredericton, N.B. (85.37), Belleville, Ont, (74.57) and Brantford, Ont. (72.48).
** Auto theft: Canadian rate is 321 vehicles stolen per 100,000 population. Prince George ranks 14th with 87.68 percentage difference with the national rate.
The top five cities are Fort Mc-Murrray (208.95 per cent), Joli-ette, Que (200.84), Surrey (175.98), Kelowna (140.17) and Brantford (132.40).
** Robbery: The Canadian rate is 96 robberies per 100,000 population with robberies including everything from bank hold-ups to purse snatching.
Prince George ranks 20th with 20.69 percentage difference with the national rate. Winnipeg is No. 1 with 249.03 percentage difference with the national rate. Following is Saskatoon (151.80), Regina (144.16), Montreal (130.03) and Victoria (115.49).
** Homicide: Canada’s national rate is 1.8 murders per 100,000 population. Prince George ranks 7th with 121.24 percentage difference with the national rate.
Abbotsford tops the list at 270.59 percentage difference followed by Thunder Bay (182.08), Medicine Hat (159.96), Surrey (154.43) and Winnipeg with a 143.47 percentage difference with the national rate.
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Staged shakedown key to gettingRatte’s confidence
Mark Nielsen Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Undercover police staged a shakedown of a “rogue girlfriend” in a Winnipeg motel room in the process of gaining the confidence of Denis Florian Ratte, the jury of the Prince George man’s murder trial was told Tuesday.
Posing as high-level criminals, they pretended to track down the woman — actually another undercover officer using the fictional name Jose — on the pretext she was causing problems for an associate
named Wade.
Once in the room, they used choreographed moves and fake blood to play out a violent scene.
“I knocked on the door and Jose answered,” an undercover officer testified. “I pushed my way into the room and grabbed Jose by the throat and dragged her over the first bed forcing her onto the floor.
“I told Denis to check the room to make sure nobody else was there and then I pinned Jose
“I told Denis... that was why he was doing this job with me. I said that I had guys who were big and tough but that I didn’t need that. I said I needed someone who’s smart and calm and could watch my back.”
- Unnamed undercover RCMP
OFFICER, DURING DENIS RATTE
murder trial on Tuesday
up against the wall and hoisted her up off her feet by her neck.”
Ratte kept guard, wedging his foot against the door and peering out the blinds occasionally, while the officer made threats.
“I asked her who she thought she was dealing with and I asked her if she thought she was going to rat on Wade and on us, then I dropped her and I told Denis to go outside, which he did,” said the officer, whose identity is protected under a ban on publication.
Ratte was then asked to come back in and the officer grabbed the woman by the hair and told her to keep her mouth shut.
“I said that we had found her once, we will find her again if she did,” the officer told the court. “She spat up blood and she said she would (keep quiet). I then threw her off the bed and Denis
and I left the room.”
At this point in the testimony, the officer was asked to give details on how the scene was staged. He said it was rehearsed earlier that morning and was carefully choreographed so she would know what to expect and at what time, “so she wouldn’t resist, so that she would just kind of flow with the movements, so that it would look good without her actually getting hurt.”
While Ratte was out of the room, they made noises to sound like the beating was still occurring and she swallowed some fake
blood stashed in the room, which she spat out upon Ratte’s return.
Earlier the same day, the officer noted, Ratte mentioned that he never panicked and that as a truck driver, he was always calm in contrast to a colleague who always panicked when he saw a deer on the road.
“I told Denis that I liked that, that I liked that he was calm, that was why he was doing this job with me,” the officer testified. “I said that I had guys who were big and tough but that I didn’t need that. I said I needed someone who’s smart and calm and could watch my back.”
Ratte remained true to form after the shakedown, the court heard.
“In general, he was calm, cool and collected as usual,” the officer said.
The shakedown was played out on Sept. 18, 2010, the day before they were to take Ratte out to a high-end restaurant in Winnipeg to celebrate his birthday. In early December, Ratte, now 58 years old, was charged with the murder of his wife, Wendy Ann Twiss Rat-te, 44, who went missing on the morning of Aug. 18, 1997, more than 13 years ago.
The trial before a 12-person jury began Oct. 4 and is expected to last six weeks.
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