By Bryn Levy

Ex-gang member reflects on Saskatoon gun violence

Mar 28, 2015 | 12:18 PM

It’s been a bad couple weeks for gun violence in Saskatoon.

Saskatoon Police Service spokesperson Alyson Edwards said it’s still too early to compare numbers with other years, but they have noticed a spike in firearms incidents.

“The numbers in the end may not be a whole lot higher. But certainly, we’ve had about half a dozen just in recent weeks and we’re very, very concerned by that,” she said.

Edwards said that drugs and gangs are thought to be behind the latest string of shootings.

Stacey Swampy is a former gang member who now works for Str8 Up, a Saskatoon agency devoted to keeping young people away from gangs.

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“Back then, there were no fancy names. They were just called ‘brotherhoods,’” he said during an interview at the Str8 Up office in the West End of Saskatoon.

He said gang life left him with a long list of regrets. As a prospect he said he was sent out on ‘missions,’ often involving robbery and violence.

One such mission saw him ordered to rob his own uncle’s sweater and hat while serving time at Alberta’s Drumheller Institution, all while others from his home community on the Hobbema First Nation looked on.

“My uncle looked at me and said: ‘well, I’m not just going to give them to you,’ so I hit him. You know, I beat him up. Took his cap and his bunnyhug,” he said. 

Swampy said it was one of the events that drove him to eventually leave gang life.  But not before his former brothers gave him a grisly souvenir.

As part of his initiation into the group, Swampy had been required to ‘do his minutes,’  a gang term for a group beating meant to prove a prospect’s toughness.

When he wanted to leave, the gang leaders told him he’d have to go out the way he came in. Swampy said they promised him no one would use weapons.

“After they beat me up, they picked me up and somebody from behind came, and I saw that knife and they were going to cut my throat.”

Swampy said he quickly tucked his head down to protect his neck, taking the blade across the face instead.

“They gave me 79 stitches, 29 inside and 50 on top,” he said, pointing to the jagged scar running across his upper lip and cheek.

But, they let him walk away to move on with his life.

Now, he said when he hears about shootings and violence, he knows that it’s driven by young men trying to prove their worth to a group that often serves as their only family.

“When you live that lifestyle – poverty, unemployment, no education, no I.D., no food, no natural income — you start to look at other avenues for ways and means of support,” he said.

Swampy said it’s common for violence to flare up with the start of spring. Warmer weather means there’s more opportunity for rivals to horn in on each other’s drug and prostitution turf. He said using guns is often about sending a message.

“Fighting and jumping and piling on and stabbing people’s not doing it — it’s not talking loud enough. So they’re bringing out the artillery,” he said.

panews@jpbg.ca

On Twitter @brynlevy