The Last Gang in Town

by Chapman, Aaron;

  “Some time went by,” Maitland recalls, “and Flaten came back on the radio and asked, ‘Where are you guys?’ We told him, and he said he was going to go into Clark Park alone and meet us at our corner. So we wait a couple of minutes when all of a sudden we hear this screaming coming from inside the park. We jumped out of our cars and ran up, and there was Flaten with a guy in each hand, holding them upside down. He’d apparently come out of nowhere and grabbed them. They must’ve thought they’d been attacked by a grizzly bear. It turns out they weren’t Clark Park gang people but a couple of young university students. Their parents didn’t like them drinking in their house, so they thought they’d grab a six-pack and drink it in the park. They were having a good time when Flaten grabbed them.”

  The officers apologized and explained that they were police on a stakeout, and that it was a case of mistaken identity. “[The students] apologized profusely for drinking in public, but once we explained things to them, they took it in stride and were fine. But they were initially so scared that they probably never went into Clark Park again. Heck, after meeting Big John in the dark like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if they never drank again.”

  By the fall of 1972, concerns were raised within the Vancouver Police Department administration that the continued activities of the H-Squad—and its very existence—were becoming an issue. “I got the feeling that the department was just starting to get too much heat over us,” says Constable Paul Stanton. It’s unknown how many complaints were filed against police that summer, but none were delivered to Joe Cliffe, the leader of the H-Squad; the sensitive nature of their existence meant that complaints went straight to police superintendents who either appeared to delay acting on them or perhaps ignored them altogether.

  Undercover surveillance revealed that Chuck Reid, various Clark Parkers, and some other local activists were seen meeting in the Gastown law office of Harry Rankin, the city’s legendary (and volatile) activist lawyer and noted alderman. Stanton believes they consulted with him for legal advice. Rankin had earned a reputation as a lawyer who was not shy about going after the police. He fought the case on behalf of Fred Quilt, an Aboriginal man who had allegedly died of mistreatment in 1971 at the hands of the RCMP. The possibility of Rankin’s involvement might have been almost enough on its own to halt the squad’s operations.

  While Harry Rankin’s focus on the Vancouver Police Department was of concern, as were public complaints to the VPD, the results of that summer’s provincial election also helped to spell the end of the H-Squad. In the August vote, the left-leaning BC New Democratic Party (NDP) under Dave Barrett had beaten the right-wing Social Credit government. Attorney General Leslie Peterson was turfed out of office, and NDP appointee Alex MacDonald was in. While Peterson had apparently been made aware of the H-Squad and given it his approval, the VPD might have believed MacDonald would not have equally approved of the H-Squad’s tactics.

  Complaints about police had increased in the East End, but the force also enjoyed the support of residents in the neighbourhood around the park. Constable Howard Corbett recalls being at the police station one afternoon when a mother brought in her son and said she wanted to file a complaint. “I overheard her yelling in the superintendent’s office—not about police, but about her son,” Corbett says. “She kept saying that he was a little shit and thief and hoodlum, and that other than being slapped upside the head, he wasn’t injured. She said that he had deserved some discipline for once.”

  On the streets and around the park, local residents were tiring of the frequent burglaries, bullying, and unending disturbances and hellraising that the gang brought to the park. While it’s certain some complaints about the H-Squad’s actions were brushed aside or not acted upon, some neighbours were pleased that there was finally a little peace in the neighbourhood. Today, some would state that the alleged rough tactics that the H-Squad employed were just as illegal as the methods used by gang members themselves. Others might welcome such an aggressive police attitude, and that the gangs were finally being dealt with so firmly. Whether for good or not, these were the unorthodox means to an end that Vancouver police used in the early 1970s when other strategies had failed to achieve results.

  In October of 1972, the H-Squad was officially disbanded; its members moved on to other departments with commendations. By and large, police believed that the squad’s tactics had worked—the gang no longer hung around in the park, and some key members had been put in jail. Police felt like they’d won and broke up the Clark Park network.

  While the police had made an impact, time made another. The gang was no longer hanging out in the parks, in part because many of them were now old enough to be admitted into east side pubs and bars. Riley Parkers and Clark Parkers seated at different tables on opposite sides of the room eventually, slowly, got to know one another. While they may have fought at times, they’d likely seen each other from days going back to juvenile detention, and while it didn’t happen overnight, in the bars they now began to socialize. The East Enders didn’t tend to go to downtown nightclubs, dinner and dance cabarets, or show lounges—greasers in mack jackets and jeans were not welcome in those upscale establishments. The park gang crowds instead frequented the hotel beer parlours and biker pubs in East Vancouver—the Eldorado Hotel, the Blue Boy, Lasseter’s Den—or headed to last call at the Biltmore.

  TEN: A SHOT IN THE DARK

  At 4:30 a.m. on November 25, 1972, a man named Kirk Brennan reported to the police that his 1964 light-blue Chevrolet convertible had been stolen from outside his home in East Vancouver. Later that night, a Mrs L. Matheson, who resided in southeast Vancouver, reported that her Admiral TV had been stolen from her home sometime between November 24 and November 28 when she’d been away. Neither robbery appeared remarkable—they were typical of the auto or property theft calls filed every day with city police. In 1967, police had responded to 40,000 calls—reports of crimes ranging from murders to fender-benders—and that number would double by 1972.55 No one would have guessed, looking at these mundane and seemingly unrelated thefts, that they would set into motion a series of events resulting in tragic circumstances, the consequences of which are still in the minds of some East Vancouverites today.

  The 1968 Chevy convertible stolen by members of the Clark Park gang.

  PHOTO: Vancouver Police Department, 72-64202_2

  “I can’t remember how we found the car,” says Gary Blackburn. “We stole so many of the damn things back then, sometimes three or four a day. But that was the big thing back then—you’d steal a car and then break into a house and grab a TV.” Blackburn, along with Paul Melo, Danny Teece, and another Clark Parker, Robert “Bum” Wadsworth, were all involved in both the car and TV theft that night.

  Wadsworth had escaped from Haney Correctional Institute earlier that summer where he’d been serving a two-years-less-a day sentence for a conviction on eighteen charges, varying from breaking and entering to stolen property to auto theft. He knew the other three men from stays in the juvenile detention home and other burglaries. “East Van was a tough neighbourhood,” says Wadsworth, thinking back on his adolescence four decades earlier. “The gangs hide out now, but everybody was out on the street back then.” Today, Wadsworth lives near the downtown eastside and is quiet and taciturn, leaving the impression that life over the years has not always been easy for him. Mac Ryan recalls how he got his nickname: “The hersheys [gang slang for upper-class collegiate types] back then would say something good was ‘mint.’ We called the opposite of that ‘bummy,’ so we’d called him ‘Bum.’”

  Paul Melo would later admit to authorities that he stole the car while drunk when he was by himself on November 25. Cars back then, especially Chevrolets, were relatively easy to steal; the ignition could be turned on without a key. While they could be stolen by a single person, television sets in the 1970s were large floor units, more like pieces of furniture and as heavy as some appliances, and often needed two or three people to lift and carry. The
four men recall little about the TV they stole on November 27 from Mrs Matheson’s home at around 6:30 p.m. that day. That kind of break-and-enter was simply too frequent an occurrence to fully recall.

  After they stole the TV, they put it in the Chevrolet and drove closer to the Biltmore Hotel pub, randomly choosing the underground lot of a small residential apartment building at 310 East 14th, just off Sophia Street, to park it. The apartment building, still there today, is situated in the quiet neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant. Although Main Street has evolved beyond recognition since the 1970s, the surrounding residential streets remain relatively unchanged, and are still lined with two- and three-storey apartment buildings built in the mid- to late 1960s.

  Entrance to the underground parking lot behind 310 East 14th Avenue.

  PHOTO: Vancouver Police Department, 72-6402_16

  The underground parking lot leading up to the alley behind East 14th and Sophia Street.

  PHOTO: Vancouver Police Department, 72-6402_14

  The thieves left the car in an empty parking stall, then walked three blocks north to the Biltmore to see if they could find a buyer for the television. As they walked, Blackburn remembers thinking that nothing was out of the ordinary and that the underground lot was a good spot for the car; it wasn’t likely to be seen, especially at that time of the evening. He figured they’d be at the bar for no more than a couple of hours. The four men entered the Biltmore at about 8:30 p.m., where they bumped into two other Clark Parkers, Rob Thacker and Doug Louacki, who were drinking and playing pool.

  Today the Biltmore is a live-music club, especially popular with young millennial crowds, and hosts bands, DJs, comedy nights, and burlesque. But in the early 1970s, its underground, low-ceilinged, smoky atmosphere lent it a dark sleaziness, and a rough East End clientele was known to frequent it.

  The Biltmore Hotel in 1963.

  PHOTO: Grant-Mann Lithographers, Vancouver, C-1203

  Over a few beers, the men scanned the bar as people came in and went out, checking for faces they’d recognize who might be interested in the stolen TV. But Gary Blackburn remembers sensing that something wasn’t right. They hadn’t been ID’d when they came in. He was still seventeen and looked young, and Teece, who was also seventeen, looked even younger. “I thought it was weird that we got in … We weren’t just hanging around in a corner either; we were there for a couple of hours, using the pay phone to call around. I knew a guy who bought TVs, and I finally got hold of him. Once we made the arrangements, we finished our beers just before midnight, and made our way out to drive over to him.” It all seemed straightforward—they’d hand over the TV, collect their money, and divide it up before they headed home.

  While Blackburn, Teece, Melo, and Wadsworth were at the Biltmore, the caretaker who lived in the building where they’d parked the car was busy reading out the license plate to a police dispatcher. He’d spotted the four men earlier, who were unfamiliar to him and looked suspicious as they left the underground lot. And when he went down to check on the parking area, he found the car that didn’t belong there. At approximately 9:30 p.m., two plainclothes officers were dispatched to check things out on the report of a possible stolen vehicle. In the patrol car was Constable Esko Kajander. Since the Fraser Street incident in June, Kajander, still working out of the District, had been posted to plainclothes duty. That night, he was working the evening shift with his senior partner Ian Battcock, who had joined the police department in 1965.

  The officers parked their unmarked car, and Kajander walked west down the lane. He went into the underground parking lot, saw the vehicle, confirmed the license plate, and spoke to the building manager. Kajander confirmed that the car had been reported as stolen; the officers radioed back to dispatch that it was the car belonging to Kirk Brennan and noted that a TV set was in the back seat. “What you did back then was sit on things and wait to see if anything would happen,” says Kajander, adding that had the stolen vehicle been found without the TV, it might have been towed to the police impound, but the TV made police suspect that the thieves would return shortly.

  Another patrol car was sent to assist Battcock and Kajander, carrying constables Brian Honeybourn and Bruce Campbell, who were also on plainclothes duty. A plan was made to wait until the thieves returned; once they drove the car out, the police would try to block them in the alleyway. The constables split up into pairs; Honeybourn and Campbell parked at the eastern end of the alleyway in front of Mount Saint Joseph Hospital on Prince Edward Street, and Kajander and Battcock parked at the west end of the alley on Sophia Street, closer to the entrance of the underground parking lot. At opposite ends of the alley, the men kept in contact via police radio—and waited.

  “I thought that whoever had stolen the car was probably in the Biltmore, probably looking to sell the TV,” Honeybourn recalls. “We all knew that the Biltmore was a rough place then, and fencing stolen stuff wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary there.”

  Police surveillance can be a mundane task. There are no set rules or traditions, though some insist that the last cop to arrive on location has to bring the coffee and rolls. Depending on the relationship with one’s partner, there’s all manner of small talk exchanged while sitting in a car—inter-office police gossip, local sports highlights, or jokes—to cut the boredom. Sometimes there is just silence, watching, and waiting. Time slows down in those moments. You can only look at your wristwatch so many times.

  Police investigation PHOTOgraph of the alleyway off East 14th Avenue.

  PHOTO: Vancouver Police Department, 72-6402_4

  After a while, they half-expected to be ordered away by dispatch to deal with another incident, but it was a quiet evening, and no other emergency calls came through. More than an hour went by. Battcock wanted to call off the surveillance and radio for a tow truck to take the vehicle to police impound, but the officers decided to wait a little longer.

  Eventually, Campbell got out of the car to have a look around. He had wandered down the alleyway when he heard a short tap of the horn from Honeybourn, so he ran back to their car. Honeybourn had heard from Kajander that four men were coming down Sophia Street and heading into the alley.

  It was about ten minutes after midnight when Blackburn, Teece, Melo, and Wadsworth walked back to the stolen car. “I sort of had a feeling the cops had staked it out,” Wadsworth recalls. “Before we went underground to get the car, I said something, but the others said to forget about it.” The air felt prickly to Gary Blackburn too. “Something didn’t feel right. I’d had those feelings before, but I just didn’t listen to my senses that night.”

  Wadsworth stayed on the street at the entry of the parkade to keep an eye out while the other three went to the car. They tried to cover up the TV with a blanket—four scruffy young males driving a good convertible around at that hour of the night with a large TV in the back seat would draw attention. But before they got into the car, Blackburn and Teece flipped a coin to see who would take the back seat. “We always switched up so we’d all get a chance to drive, and it was Paul’s turn. [The Chevrolet] was a two-door; you had to push the front seat forward to get into and out of the back. It was up to me and Danny [Teece] as to which of us would sit in the back seat]. I lost the flip and had to get in the back with the TV. Up front, Danny sat in the middle.”

  Several minutes after police had seen the men enter the underground lot, a light above the entranceway suddenly flickered and went out. It was difficult to tell in the darkness if someone had removed it or it had simply burned out—but it increased the tension for the police. Then headlights appeared, and Battcock and Kajander saw the Chevrolet quietly glide out of the dark and up the ramp where the man acting as a lookout got in.

  Kajander and Battcock radioed to Honeybourn and Campbell that the car had exited the lot and was headed down the alley in their direction. After a moment, in order to give the Chevrolet a short head start, Battcock turned into the alley to follow the car. At the other end, Campbell waited until t
he Chevrolet had almost reached them at Prince Edward Street to turn on the flashing lights, put the car in drive, and quickly turn into the lane.

  In the back seat, Gary Blackburn noticed the police car’s lights in the grill of the unmarked car behind them. “I turned back, someone said, ‘Police!’ and there was another car coming right at us,” Blackburn says. The doors to the Chevrolet flew open. “Everybody jumped out while the car was still moving. Paul and Bob got out of the front seat, but for me to get out of the back, I had to push the seat forward. I was third out of the car, and Danny was the last as he came out behind me.”

  The Chevrolet slowed and hit the front bumper of Honeybourn and Campbell’s car. Honeybourn jumped from the passenger side. Campbell quickly threw the police car in park, leapt from the driver’s side, and shouted, “Police, stay where you are!” He saw the thieves flee toward the adjacent carport at the back of Prince Edward Manor, a three-storey apartment building at 3075 Prince Edward Street. As Campbell shouted, he drew his gun from his hip holster and started to chase the men.

  It had rained in Vancouver in the two days before. Vancouver’s rainy season tends to be in full-swing in the month of November. There are dozens of wet-weather days in any given November in the city, but this one proved particularly unfortunate. It was almost as if the rain had left the roads, sidewalks, and alleyways just wet enough to conspire with Campbell’s decision to take out his gun, because as he chased the thieves, he slipped and lost his footing, and that’s when the gun went off.