Ahead of 2010 Olympics, Violence Stalks Vancouver

In this March 6, 2009 file photo, weapons seized during several gang-related arrests are displayed...

In this March 6, 2009 file photo, weapons seized during several gang-related arrests are displayed during a police news conference in Vancouver, Canada. Even as Vancover prepares to host the 2010 Winter Games, its crime rate is going up. Since January alone, there have been more than three dozen shootings in the region, 16 of them fatal. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck, file)

(AP)

With its spectacular bay and stunning, snowcapped peaks, Vancouver easily ranks as one of the world's most beautiful cities. But in recent months, the people of Canada's Olympic city have been living in fear.

Even as Vancouver prepares to host the 2010 Winter Games, its crime rate is going up. Since January alone, there have been 45 shootings in the region, 17 of them fatal. There were 58 murders last year in this region of 2.7 million people, up from 41 the year before, according to the regional Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

"It's terrifying," says Doris Luong, who lives near the scene of a double murder on March 10. "This used to be the best city in the world... I fear for my children." At a nearby elementary school, students' movements were immediately restricted as word of the killings spread.

The root of the problem seems to be drugs, or rather a shortage of them.

The Mexican cocaine supply line extends through the United States, especially Los Angeles, up to Vancouver, according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Pat Fogarty. But now the Mexican government of President Felipe Calderon has mobilized 45,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police to curb cartel activity. That has driven up the price of cocaine in Vancouver from $23,300 per kilogram to almost $39,000, Fogarty says, and gangs are killing each other.

"People are nervous ... and so are the police," says Fogarty, head of the regional gang task force. "The public's outraged. The government's outraged."

Vancouver social activist Jamie Lee Hamilton, who lives in Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside, says she no longer has much faith in the justice system.

"I'm really apprehensive about going out in the evening," Hamilton says. "We've turned into an American city."

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan recently called Vancouver the country's gang capital, and said the violence is the worst in Canada. Canada's largest city, Toronto, has seen only 11 murders this year in a population of 5.1 million, almost double that of the Vancouver region.