OFF THE WIRE
CALGARY – Police will be watching closely when slain gangster Jonathan Bacon is laid to rest, a spokesman for B.C.'s gang task force said Wednesday.
No funeral plans have been announced, but there will be a heavy police presence during the service, said Sgt. Shinder Kirk of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
"There will be police presence for obvious reasons: One, to allow mourners that are attending the service to do so in peace, and the other is to dissuade anyone who may wish to create an issue."
However, police aren't expecting violence at the funeral, said Kirk.
"I certainly haven't seen that in my experience, but we are always conscious that we do have to be prepared for any eventuality," he said. "Any time you have a high-profile gang member that is killed and associates injured, it does become an issue of concern to us."
Bacon, 30, a notorious member of the Red Scorpions street gang, was gunned down outside the ritzy Delta Grand Okanagan Hotel in downtown Kelowna, B.C., on Sunday afternoon.
A gunman sprayed more than 30 bullets at the Porsche Cayenne SUV Bacon was riding in with four other people in front of horrified witnesses.
Larry Amero, a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gxxg's White Rock chapter, was hit five times and remains in critical condition in hospital.
Another man, who police said may be a member of the Independent Soldiers street gang was hit, according to witnesses, and fled the scene, but has not been identified.
Two women, identified by friends as Lyndsey Black and Leah Hadden-Watts, were also hit.
Friends said Hadden-Watts underwent seven hours of surgery to remove a bullet from her neck, an injury that left her a quadriplegic.
Althoug h he was well known for his ties to the Red Scorpions along with younger brothers Jamie and Jarrod, Bacon was not a major player in the B.C. criminal underworld, said Kirk.
"It's very difficult to say what their rankings were," he said. "To say they were high ranking, I wouldn't go there, but they were certainly high profile."
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/17/heavy-police-presence-planned-for-gangsters-funeral
