The Last Gang in Town Read online

  Burton admitted that he arrived late to the hearing, so his damning piece on the judge’s decision, without having heard all the witnesses’ testimony, left his reporting open to considerable criticism. However, many East Enders, no matter what evidence was presented or what the newspapers said of the case, found it difficult to believe that two Vancouver police officers had separately and accidentally discharged their weapons that night. Those around Clark Park, especially Danny’s friends, did not believe the shooting had been an accident.

  “They said it was ‘a horrific accident,’” says Rick Stuart. “Two accidental shots in one night? Isn’t that amazing? How did they come up with that? To this day, when I see cops beating the shit out of people or shooting somebody, I think, These people don’t learn their lessons. This has been going on for years.”

  In many ways, neither the preliminary inquiry nor the ruling mattered to Danny’s family and friends. They had already formed their opinions. After the charge was laid but before the hearing had taken place, Danny’s family and friends had gathered to bury him at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. The family had requested that the headstone read: “Danny Teece, Murdered at Age 17 by the Vancouver City Police.” But the cemetery management refused to use that wording and asked them to change it to: “Danny Teece, Killed at Age 17 by the Vancouver City Police.”

  Friends and family of Danny Teece gathered at Mountain View Cemetery on December 5, 1972.

  PHOTO: Courtesy of Wayne Angelucci

  Bradley Bennett, Dennis Magnus, Lyle Rye, and Mark Owens visit Danny Teece’s grave, 1973.

  PHOTO: Courtesy of Bradley Bennett

  Three days after the verdict, Brian Honeybourn was back on duty. “There was no counselling in those days. No debriefing. It was, ‘Get back to work.’ The department was good to me, but that’s what it was like,” he says. For a few weeks, he stayed at a desk job before being sent out on patrol to rejoin partner Bruce Campbell. “I never asked Bruce why he took his gun out,” says Honeybourn. “I can’t ask him now [Campbell is deceased], and I wish I did. To this day, I don’t know why he drew his revolver. I’d never have drawn my weapon had I not heard that first shot.”

  The reaction to the court ruling in the East End raised concerns about the threat of revenge from the Clark Park gang. “A girlfriend of one of the Clark Park gang members told her father that there was a plot to kill my wife, “Honeybourn recalls.” Her father walked into the police station one day and told the story. A supervisor, staff sergeant Snowden, called me in and said, ‘You’ve got to get out of your house again.’ So they put a silent alarm on my house, and we stayed elsewhere for a bit while things cooled down.”

  Mouse Williamson was still in Oakalla where prison management let the Clark Parkers have a service for Teece. “There were certainly a few crazy guys in jail that might have done something if they’d been on the street,” Williamson recalls. “There was tension around Clark Park,” concurs Gary Blackburn. “There were a lot of angry people out there then, even a lot of angry parents, and others who weren’t even from the park mouthing off that they were going to do something.” But he believes they were “just saying it for the recognition.”

  During this time, police learned that an East End thug named Eddie Miller (name changed) had boasted that he was plotting to kill Honeybourn to avenge the death of Danny Teece. But, as one police source who cannot be named here said, “Miller was a big talker, and he wanted to make a name for himself, but it was [later] learned that there was truth to his plan.” It was enough of a legitimate concern at the time to apparently bring two members of the H-Squad, who had been working on other assignments, back to their old posting. The squad members surveilled Miller for a period of time, then paid a visit to his residence one night. They allegedly told Miller that “if Honeybourn so much as caught a cold from him, he’d be in trouble,” then roughed him up before bidding him goodnight. Afterward, Miller left his life of crime behind and became a successful local car dealer.

  For Gary Blackburn, the death threat that Flashlight, the police officer, uttered in jail the night of the shooting still hung over him like a black cloud. His mother feared that police would make good on it. She made arrangements to send her son to Latchford in northern Ontario, a town of just a few hundred people where she’d grown up and still had family. Blackburn would stay there for five months after the trial. “I didn’t like the idea of being shipped off, but I understood. I got tired of it after a while—half the town is related to me one way or the other! So I came back.”

  Protest posters like this one began to appear around East Vancouver in the wake of Judge Winch’s decision in the preliminary inquiry.

  SOURCE: Courtesy of Wayne Angelucci

  One thought followed Blackburn from Vancouver to Ontario and back again and stays with him still: he can’t forget the coin toss that decided whether he or Danny would take the back seat. “Had I won the toss, I would have been the last one over the wall that night instead of him,” he says gravely. Blackburn knows that there were other factors that night that resulted in the tragic outcome. He knows that life does not come down to a single moment on its own. But he still can’t help but think of that night, that moment. “The flip of that coin saved my life and killed Danny. I’m probably why Danny died.” There would be one final chapter in the shooting of Danny Teece. A year after his death, Danny’s father and grandmother sued not only Brian Honeybourn, but Bruce Campbell, Ian Battcock, and Esko Kajander for damages. The Teece family’s lawsuit was to cover not only the funeral costs for Danny, but also—under the Family Compensation Act—for special damages, as Danny was expected to be the provider for the family in future. Before the lawsuit was filed, in January of 1973, Arthur Teece, who was well-known to downtown beat constables for being drunk in public, broke his arm in an altercation during an arrest by VPD officers.

  The incident with Arthur Teece deepened distrust of the police in the East End where members of the community who had been upset by the outcome of the criminal negligence charge supported the Teece family’s lawsuit. Others criticized the family, saying they were motivated by financial gain. One caller to a local talk-radio news show accused the Teeces of estimating their son’s future earning potential as comparable to that of a brain surgeon.

  The Teeces’ case was not heard until June 1974. George Murray would return to act as Brian Honeybourn’s lawyer. The Teece family lawyer, John Laxton, argued aggressively that police had been irresponsible in drawing their revolvers, and their actions alone were responsible for Danny’s death. Once again, the events of that fatal night made the daily local news.

  And once again, the Teece family would leave the courtroom feeling justice had not been served. On July 23, 1974, the Supreme Court of British Columbia dismissed the charges against Campbell, Battcock, and Kajander altogether, as well as any claim for their son’s future earnings. The court also ruled that Danny Teece had been eighty percent responsible for his own death; Brian Honeybourn had been twenty percent responsible. The ruling also allowed the Teece family to recover damages against Honeybourn as the sole defendant for twenty percent of Danny Teece’s funeral costs. The amount was $48.00.

  56 Stan Shillington, “Youth, 17, Fatally Wounded after Stakeout by Police,” Vancouver Sun, November 29, 1972, 1.

  57 Ibid.

  58 “Candidate Criticizes Police in Shooting of Fleeing Youth,” Vancouver Sun, November 29, 1972, 5.

  59 “Was Danny Murdered?” The Grape, November 29, 1972, 3.

  60 R. v. Brian Honeybourn: Before Provincial Judge E.R. Winch: Reasons for Judgement. (Vancouver BC. December 14, 1972.)

  61 Ibid.

  62 Ibid.

  63 Jack Wasserman, “Column,” Vancouver Sun, December 15, 1972, 23.

  64 Rick Ducommun, “Was Danny Murdered?: I’ve Never Heard of Anybody Accidentally Killing Anything,” The Grape, December 6, 1972.

  65 Peter Burton, “Surprise Verdict in Case of Cop Who Killed,” The Grape, December
20, 1972, 2.

  TWELVE: EAST VAN ELEGY

  The death of Danny Teece signalled a change for the Clark Park gang, and some say the event marked the end of an era. “They murdered him. When Danny died, that’s how the [gang] broke up,” says Mac Ryan. “[We] would have broken up anyway, but Danny’s death hastened it. It wasn’t just that we weren’t hanging in the park anymore and instead going to bars. We were all getting older then too, entering our early twenties. A lot of people drifted off, got married, got jobs, became responsible adults!” he says with a smile. “But Danny’s death was a big deal. It was a pretty sad time.”

  For those who refused to believe that Teece’s death had been an accident, the ongoing police harassment had evidently grown beyond roughing up the worst troublemakers on the street; it appeared that police were now ready to kill them. Others in the gang realized that what had happened to Teece might have happened to any one of them, on any given night. Each man had to decide how much he wanted to continue a wild life of fights and burglaries. “When Danny died, people watched their backs more,” Ryan says. “I [tried to be] safer in things I did—it made me think twice. But [Danny’s death also] made people more intense and meaner. It made me meaner for a time, I know.”

  Gary Blackburn, 2016.

  PHOTO: Erik Iversen

  After Teece’s death, Gary Blackburn avoided further trouble. In 1975, he met his future wife and later went on to have three children. For a time, he worked at a fish-processing plant, and later he swung a hammer for Wayne Angelucci’s family-run roofing business. Blackburn’s wife passed away in November of 1998—the same month in which Danny was killed; with too many bad memories, he’s felt low during that month every year. He has not remarried. “When you had something as good as I had, you don’t fall into something again that easily,” he says wistfully. But he’s seen too much of life to give in to November’s depression—he’s already been through it all.

  Now in his early sixties, Blackburn works as a personal trainer. Although recent open-heart surgeries have slowed him down a little, he remains active and is upbeat. Today, when he thinks back on his younger life, he can see how his own story is also woven into the history of East Vancouver. The park-gang era, especially the mythology of the Clark Park gang, still contributes to East Van’s image as a bad-ass neighbourhood, and he takes some pride in that. But he isn’t saying that the gang’s criminal activities should be valourized. “I used to say, when I was younger, that we were going to create something, and good or bad, they are going to remember us!” Blackburn now says, laughing. He explains that it’s the sense of solidarity that he and his friends helped to plant in East Van that is the important legacy.

  “We changed the East End. At one time, everyone just looked out for themselves; everyone wanted to be king of the mountain. We brought all these guys who used to fight each other together to become friends. That created a family of people, hundreds of them, who stuck together. There was a real brotherhood that would go to the very end for you. It wasn’t based on money but just that we stuck together. People would come from everywhere if you were in trouble. Even people who didn’t know you had your back. People still say, ‘Don’t fuck with the East End.’ All that East Van graffiti and what it means—that’s because of us.”

  Police and other critics of the gang believe that their legacy is too stained with violence to be glamourized for its fraternal bonds. Many of the gang members are now not without regrets, but most believe that, however violent their youths, being in the gang strengthened their character and made them who they are today.

  “Sure, there are things I wished had worked out differently,” says Blackburn. “A lot of friends have died violently—alcoholism, drug addition, some were killed. I’ve lost as many friends as a soldier in war. There aren’t many of us left today. The only time we get to see one another these days is at funerals or at East Van reunions.” This annual invitation-only party is held at an east-side Legion hall. Old friends reunite to raise funds for charity over a night of beer and some classic rock, with Vancouver’s own Al Walker occasionally coming to perform. At the East Van reunions, the crowds get a little older every year, and most are now in their early sixties. To them, Danny Teece is forever seventeen years old. While there is a lot of laughter, jokes, drinking, and dancing at the reunions, tears are often shed for those no longer with them, and it’s easy to imagine, even after all this time, that a few of those tears are for Teece.

  Brian Honeybourn, 2016.

  PHOTO: Aaron Chapman

  He is still present in Gary Blackburn’s mind. Blackburn has never before spoken publicly about the shooting. “It’s something I kept bottled up for a long time. I still have bad feelings about it,” he says. “I still hate Brian [Honeybourn] over it—I don’t know if I should. I’m sure it affected him. That kind of thing affects your life forever unless you’re a psychopath. And as much as I don’t like him, I don’t think he meant to do it … Maybe everything was just headed to a climax, a disaster. Maybe it was inevitable.”

  Brian Honeybourn would go on to an exemplary career with the Vancouver police department. After serving for many years on patrol duties, he worked in internal affairs investigations and later joined the BC Unsolved Homicide Unit, a province-wide task force that was mandated to investigate the province’s more than 600 unsolved murders and cold cases. In that capacity, he spearheaded the re-examination of one of Vancouver’s most notorious unsolved murders, the “Babes in the Woods” case about the bodies of two children found in Stanley Park in the early 1950s. In 1999, he represented the department internationally when he was dispatched as part of an RCMP forensic team sent to assist NATO investigators in Kosovo with the grim task of the exhumation of mass graves there and making identifications.

  In 2001, after thirty-two years with the police department, Honeybourn retired. “I missed the job like hell for the first five years, but I didn’t dwell on it,” he says. He also tried not to dwell on the events of November 27, 1972, though he’s never forgotten the details of that evening. While there’s no question that Teece’s death stayed with him, he did his best to not be haunted by it—a task made a little easier after he unexpectedly received a note from Teece’s sister Yvonne who said that she forgave him.

  Honeybourn, who will be seventy in 2017, sometimes finds it hard to believe so much time has passed since he was a young constable in 1972. “I just was a kid then … I’m sorry things worked out the way they did. I didn’t intend for them to work out that way,” he says.

  There’s no question that the police department works under considerably different policies, technologies, and training than it did in 1972. Plainclothes police in the early 1970s were required to purchase their own leather holster, then little more than “a wallet with a gun in it” as one retired officer described it. Today, the standard-issue holster has a lock-and-release mechanism. If a VPD constable takes out their gun at any time while on duty, whether they fire it or not, the constable is required to write a report to explain their reason for drawing the weapon. The accidental discharge of a weapon while on duty is regarded as a serious infraction. Even police training is different—they are taught now that a trigger finger is to be kept straight and out of the trigger guard and only put in when the officer is ready or required to shoot. This is clearly meant to prevent the accidental or unnecessary firing of a weapon. What hasn’t changed is the responsibility given to the individual officer, who can still decide whether a situation warrants or requires them to pull out their gun.

  “What was hard for me when I went back to patrol was that I wondered if I could ever draw my weapon again,” says Honeybourn. “I was one of those guys that was reluctant to, I suppose. But I did it if I had to.” He was offered neither mandatory nor optional police counselling after the incident; today, VPD officers involved in a shooting must undergo psychiatric assessment before they can return to duty.

  The modern political climate around officer-involved shootings—espec
ially those that involve minorities, as in a number of recent and controversial U.S. incidents—attract as much if not more media attention than the Teece shooting in 1972. But the most significant difference is how the investigations into shootings are managed. Today, a separate provincial agency, the Independent Investigations Office, handles the cases instead of leaving the police to investigate themselves. “Formed in 2012, the IIO operates under the umbrella of the BC Ministry of Justice and conducts investigations into officer-related incidents of death or serious harm in order to determine whether or not an officer may have committed an offence.”66 Even when it seems obvious that an officer acted appropriately and justly, IIO investigations can take months. More controversial cases, such as the 2007 shooting of Paul Boyd, a distraught man killed by Vancouver police, may take years.

  Honeybourn is aware of how different the case might have been handled today; he knows that it might have ended his career. Had Honeybourn been terminated, Vancouver would have lost a good policeman, who despite the tragic accident in 1972, went on to serve his city honourably. Today, he is active organizing and hosting retired police reunion lunches that help to raise donations for charity, which are often attended by 100 or more retired police officers from a number of Lower Mainland police departments and RCMP detachments. Brian emcees the events, at which old friends and workmates come to see one another again and toast friends who are no longer around. The gatherings are not entirely different from the East Van Reunions. And although one group shows up in jean jackets and boots and the other wears sports coats and ties, it might be difficult to tell them apart.

  There was one final chapter between the Clark Parkers and Brian Honeybourn. One night in 1993, when Honeybourn was on patrol in the Downtown Eastside, he overheard on the radio that a suspected drug dealer named Robert Wadsworth had been arrested. It was just over twenty years since Danny Teece had been shot, and Honeybourn once again drove down an alley in his patrol car to find, this time, a much older Clark Parker.