Police in Metro Vancouver Seeing New Gang Fashion – Armored Vehicles

As if police don’t have enough difficulty combating the ever growing arsenals of street gangs…. Vancouver Metro police are now reporting that gang members there are equipping their vehicles with bullet-proof glass, armored plating and high-tech surveillance cameras.

Police in Metro Vancouver have had their hands full for years trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to control gang-related violence and killings that make Vancouver look like Chicago in the Al Capone era.

Last week, they found something they hadn’t seen before – street vehicles outfitted with armour, surveillance cameras and bulletproof glass.

Police forces in the city have had little success in arresting and charging people involved in the dozens of murders in the past several years.

And it appears they won’t have any greater success in curbing these fortified vehicles.

It’s not illegal to outfit your vehicle with bulletproof glass or surround it with armour as long as it’s inspected and passes safety regulations and Insurance Corp. of B.C. licensing requirements.

“That’s pretty much what we’re left with from what I can see at this point,” said Sgt. Shinder Kirk, a member of the Abbotsford police department and the spokesman for the Integrated Gang Task Force.

“Our enforcement opportunities with respect to this issue lie strictly with the motor vehicle regulations that prohibit this type of modification.”

The anti-gang unit, set up in November after a rash of gang-related murders, has begun to make more traffic checks as well as frequent the bars and nightclubs where police say gang members hang out.

Recently, the unit seized seven guns, body armour and two vehicles equipped with bullet-proof glass, armour plating and high-tech surveillance cameras.

The vehicles were impounded because they failed inspection standards for the Insurance Corp. of B.C.

But police are handicapped because outfitting the vehicle is not illegal. It’s also not illegal for a body shop to do the work.

“If a vehicle is modified from the original, then that vehicle, before it is insured and put into service, must be re-inspected to determine if the modifications are in keeping with safety standards in the province and the Motor Vehicle Act,” said Kirk.

People buy various vehicle accessories all the time.

“They are not illegal to sell and illegal to put on your car. But for that car to then operate on a public street, they must meet the same safety standards as any other vehicle.”

An SUV is not designed to carry the type of weight that’s going to be added, he said.

Last month, police stopped a luxury SUV and found the vehicle had been fitted with bullet-proof windows and it also had a secondary rear gate that police described as having “ballistic integrity.”