The Normalcy Of Guns And Shots

I just received a Crimespot email with a notice of a shooting on Bannatyne. That was the shooting of a 19 year old outside of a night club yesterday. It took me a minute, then I remembered I had already heard about the incident on the news the previous day. And my thought was, oh right, it was just at a night club.
What does that even mean? Is it becoming so common place that I can pass it off as a regular occurrance at a downtown nightclub? We have already had our first murder of the year, and we have already had our first youth caught with a loaded machine gun, and now we have had our first nightclub shooting of the year.
I had asked my husband a few days ago about the North End, and how long he felt it had been so bad. His answer was that 10 years ago Selkirk Avenue had stores. It was not full of boarded up businesses and rows of community service organizations. And just today, he added that there were no guns, or if there were, they were shot guns.
But now we have handguns and machine guns. And a person being shot at a nightclub is not as horrific an incident as it was a few years ago. How many people were shot last year by guns in Winnipeg? A lot. Wasn't it 10 years ago when there were a few drive by shootings that involved gangs going after each other? That's when we heard about shootings. But not now. Now it is so common place that we seem to just brush it off. It's just another day in the hood, or just another day at a nightclub downtown.
We cannot let guns and shooting become the normal for Winnipeg.
This is not the Winnipeg I want to live in, where guns are found in the hands of youths, and people are being shot at nightclubs. I don't want to have a Winnipeg where people are dying in their homes by those weilding guns. And I don't want the sound of a shotgun to be a normal sound in my neighbourhood.
This is our city, and we need to take care of it. We are not 'rats' or 'squealers' if we protect and take care of what is ours. And Winnipeg is ours. We should be taking care of it.

Police Offer Retailers NO COST Training On Meth Lab Purchases

I just received a police release, where Winnipeg Police are offering a No Fee training opportunity for Retailers to learn the signs of Meth Lab purchases. Police say as they shut down the wholesale end of Meth ingredient purchases, more retail purchases occur.
Check this out:

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

 

WINNIPEG METH WATCH PROGRAM

 

Clandestine meth labs place residents in neighbouring houses and apartments at great risk, as well as emergency personal responding to events related to meth labs.

 

Fortunately for now, very few meth labs have been identified within the City of Winnipeg. Despite this fact, one lab is far too many. The chemicals used to manufacture crystal meth are toxic and explosive when combined and heated, making meth labs extremely dangerous.

 

Methamphetamine can be manufactured using cough and cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine and other common household products, including rubbing alcohol, drain cleaner, acetone, starter fluid, matchbooks, lithium batteries, rock salt, coffee filters and glassware. The vast majority of methamphetamine production in Canada comes from so-called “super labs” which generally obtain these items in bulk at the manufacturer or distributor level. However with new regulations and a bulk of the procurement increasingly under control, it will make the purchase of bulk precursors of the key ingredients increasingly difficult. Evidence from other jurisdictions, particularly the United States, shows that when this happens, home labs supplied with products stolen or purchased at the retail level become much more common.

 

Unless proactive measures are taken, we can expect these home labs to become much more common in Winnipeg and, with that, we’ll see all the environmental damage, the community safety issues and the additional drain on law enforcement resources.

 

The Winnipeg Police Service would like to acknowledge a new initiative which is aimed at preventing anyone from becoming involved in the production of crystal meth. This program will provide all members of the public with information regarding the signs of a potential meth lab. With this insight, police will in turn be provided with valuable information regarding individuals purchasing a substantial amount of precursors (household products) common in the production of Methamphetamine. 

 

The Meth Watch Program is an approach to curtailing the purchase or theft of over-the-counter cold remedies and other household products, for the purposes of methamphetamine production. The program’s main focus is on training retail employees to recognize suspicious purchases and to report these toWinnipeg Crime Stoppers at 786-TIPS (8477).

 

 

The program will also include additional in-store measures aimed at reducing the theft of these products for methamphetamine production. Retailers have a huge stake in the health and safety of the communities we serve, the seriousness of the methamphetamine problem merits this investment in the training.

 

Winnipeg Meth Watch Program objectives:

 

1.                  Increase awareness by retail employees and management of methamphetamine production and how precursor chemicals are diverted from legal products into illegal manufacture of methamphetamine.

 

2.                  Promote co-operation and teamwork between retailers and law enforcement professionals.

 

3.                  Reduce methamphetamine production without disrupting the availability of legal products.

 

If you are a retailer in the City of Winnipeg and would like to enrol in the Winnipeg Meth Watch Program, please contact the Winnipeg Police Service Community Relations Unit at 986-6322. There is no cost to the retailer or merchant and all associated costs and materials are supplied by the Winnipeg Police Service.

 

Further information regarding methamphetamine can be obtained by visiting the Consumer Health Product Canada website at www.methwatch.ca

Lets Get Together

I am one person, trying to make a difference in my neighbourhood, and on my block. There are many other people in the North End, Inner-City, and Winnipeg in general who are doing the same.
We all do things to make our part of the City a better place.
Who are all the people making a difference in their part of the city?
Tell me who you are. Let me know what you are doing. And I would like to know how it is working. Maybe we could share ideas, and help each other. Or maybe we could just support each other in our efforts.
Leave a comment, or send me an email at butcher@raespace.com.