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Do right thing and help end shooting spree

It's beyond-belief miraculous that nobody has been killed, innocent or otherwise, in the 21 shootings on local streets since March 9. Police say two groups - of South Asian and Somalian decent - are fighting over drug turf here. So far, there have been 18 shootings in Surrey and three in North Delta - that is, as of press time.

It's getting hard to keep track. In fact, we learned about the most recent shooting in Newton - which happened early Wednesday morning - as this editorial was being written.

Surrey and Delta's top cops, Bill Fordy and Lyle Beaudoin respectively, publicly appealed this week to the friends and families of those suspected to be involved in the shootings to do everything they can to help the madness stop.

Fordy indicates that those appeals have been met with "limited" success.

"In a perfect world," he noted, the families of these young men would "rally around" them, help them to "change the trajectory of their lives so they don't end up in a position where they're not able to co-operate with police, in other words, they've lost their lives."

He noted some families were surprised to learn of their relative's alleged involvement, some were in denial, and others were "flat-out" not supportive of police.

Indeed, the police and local politicians are under a lot of pressure to make this nonsense stop.

But the fact of the matter is, if people want to shoot at each other, they will.

Three days after the first in a rapid series of shootings, the Surrey RCMP held a press conference on March 12 that garnered many tips and led to one arrest, at least.

Police investigators need some brave souls to stand up, do the right thing and tell them what they need to know about the people behind these shootings before somebody gets killed, again, innocent or otherwise.

So far, it hasn't happened, but odds are certainly indicating that it will.

The Now