Media revels in stories of Native gang violence

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It's a frightening image: Four people, minding their own business, are suddenly swarmed by a vicious gang. The violence is swift and brutal. When the police arrive and the assailants flee, three people are battered and Jim David Milliken, 23, is dying from a knife wound to the heart.

The next morning, the Sunday version of the Edmonton Sun has a headline blaring Cops Hunt Gang Teen: Early-morning brawl involving 16 people ends with man stabbed to death.

The next day, Jason Riley Laronde, 19, who was referred to as "a known gang member" turned himself in to police and charged with second degree murder and possession of an offensive weapon.

Immediately following the story, the public called for the police to crack down on "The North Side Boys" a "mostly-Native gang." Fear had been on the increase since other violent incidents involving the teens in this "gang" had been reported in both the daily newspapers of Edmonton. In one of those incidents a young white male was supposedly jumped by members of the North Side Boys. Charges for that incident were dropped when it was discovered that the "victim" had provoked the fight and hadn't been the victim of a random assault.

Even so, these facts weren't reported and some of the residents of northeast Edmonton were begining to worry that a vicious Native gang was running loose. Milliken's death turned that fear to calls for vigilante action, if the police weren't going to crack down on the gang.

But the Edmonton Police Service remains adamant that there is no gang problem in Edmonton and feels that the media created a problem where one didn't exist.

"The Edmonton Police Service does not consider Native gangs, or any gangs, a reality in Edmonton," said Annette Bidniak, a spokesperson for the service. "We really don't have a street gang problem."

In the Milliken death and the earlier beating incident, the media failed to report that the "victims" and the assailants knew each other.

"This was not a random attack," said Bidniak, referring to the Milliken case. "The victim was a willing participant in the fight."

Const. Aaron Nichols, who works in the Beverly Heights area in north Edmonton, feels that the media has overblown this case.

"We don't have a youth gang problem," he said. "We have a youth crime problem."

Nichols is the founder of the Youth Options Program and knows many of the so-called gang members.

They're just teens hanging out together who have known each other a long time, he said.

Helen Tavares, president of the Abbottsfield-Beacon Heights neighborhood patrol, strongly states that the North Side Boys are not the problem and laughed at the fears some of her neighbors have expressed about them.

"I don't fear them. I've known most of them since they were seven, eight, nine years old," she said. "I don't consider them a gang."

The name "North Side Boys" or "North Side" is something that was given to them and not something they chose, she continued.

Even though the media later started reporting more details of Milliken's death, the harm had already been done.

"Once the ball gets rolling, it's hard to pull it back," said Bidniak.

"If the media's role is to create fear and paranoia in a community, then continue what you're doing," said Nichols, referring to the sensational accounts of the death.