Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
The Canadian police say May's operation to capture Christopher 'Dudus' Coke in Tivoli Gardens, west Kingston, and the tumbling of the headquarters of the Shower Posse have had a far-reaching effect on law enforcement in Toronto.
William Blair, chief of the Toronto Police, told The Gleaner yesterday that since the incursion, Shower Posse operatives in Canada have gone quiet as their supply of drugs and guns has been disrupted.
"I am certain that the work that was done here in May, in west Kingston, had a definite impact on certain organised crime groups in continuing their operation. It disrupted it," Blair said.
The Tivoli Gardens manoeuvre resulted in the deaths of more than 70 civilians and the seizure of more than 100 guns in that section of the capital city. The security forces were in pursuit of Coke, whom the United States has accused of being the mastermind in the trafficking of guns and drugs. Coke, who is also said to be the head of the Shower Posse, has been extradited to the United States and is currently awaiting trial in a New York court.
Speaking exclusively with The Gleaner yesterday, Blair, a more than 30-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, said both the effort to capture Coke and the massive police crackdown on the Shower Posse in Toronto have been to the benefit of Jamaica and Canada.
"Through the destruction of their criminal organisation and through the disruption of their networks, I am certain that as a result of that hard work, it is more difficult for organised crime groups that have connections to criminals here to continue to bring drugs and guns in," Blair said. "It has had an impact in not only making the communities here safer, but it does have an impact in our city as well."
Three weeks before the Tivoli Gardens operation here, Toronto police arrested eight persons and seized 20 guns during a massive operation in Ontario.
"Big-fish suspects and small ones were caught in the mix, but at the centre, however, are dozens of alleged Toronto gangsters. At their centre, about a dozen alleged members of the shadowy Shower Posse," the policeman said.
Yesterday, Blair said the raids conducted in Toronto "were not directly related to the operation here, but there were vulnerabilities created by the operations in both countries and the sharing of criminal intelligence information".
He told The Gleaner that the Shower Posse in Ontario operated an organised network through which it supplied drugs and guns to young men on the streets of Toronto.
"Following the arrest and dismantling of two street gangs in Toronto, and cutting off that pipeline that was being facilitated by the Shower Posse in Toronto, we saw a significant reduction in violence and some of the street-level activities," he told The Gleaner.
Blair said the Shower Posse was not directly involved in the selling of drugs on the streets of Toronto but, instead, has a sophisticated, well-established network that supplied drugs to street gangs and smuggled guns from the US.
Although the Shower Posse has been crippled in Jamaica and Canada, Blair said it was important that the countries ensure that these gangs neither get a strong base nor reconnect the network for the supply of drugs and guns.
