The Lower Mainland was gripped by a gang war from 2007 to 2009 as the Red Scorpions fought the United Nations gang while the
Hells Angels and their puppet gang, the
Independent Soldiers, sought to play off both sides, supplying guns to both the rival gangs, which greatly increased the violence. Allied with the United Nations gang against the Red Scorpions was the Dhak-Duhre gang. The gang war increased the dependence of both the Red Scorpions and United Nations gang on the Hells Angels, cementing their control of the Lower Mainland underworld. The police response to the gang war was greatly hindered by the perception that the police forces in the Lower Mainland were grossly inept, which made people unwilling to come forward with information, which was the legacy of the
Pickton case. Pickton was finally arrested in 2002, but the way that the police had ignored the evidence that Pickton was a serial killer gave police forces in the Lower Mainland a reputation for being extremely incompetent and callous, which made ordinary people unwilling to risk their lives to come forward with information during the gang war. Throughout the gang war, the police forces in the Lower Mainland consistently appealed to the public for more information about the gangsters as it was openly admitted that the police were operating in an information vacuum. In 2007, Edward "Eddie" Narong, one of the founding members of the Red Scorpions, broke away to found his own gang along with Corey Jason Lal. Corey Lal refused a demand from Jamie Bacon to pay him a $100,000 "tax" for the right to sell drugs in Surrey. Justice Kathleen Ker stated in 2020 that Bacon wanted Lal killed because of his ego, saying: "he didn't want to look weak. In their world, Corey Lal had to die". On October 19, 2007, the
Surrey Six massacre made the gang war in Vancouver front-page news. On that day, six people were shot dead inside Unit 1505 at the Balmoral Tower in Surrey. The dead included four gangsters, namely Edward "Eddie" Narong, aged 22; Michael Justin Lal, aged 26; his brother Corey Jason Lal, aged 22; and Ryan Bartolomeo, aged 19. The Lal brothers had been in a dispute about how much "taxes" they owed the Red Scorpions for the right to sell drugs in Surrey and had broken away to found their own gang. The newly founded Lal gang had been "exterminated" in its entirety with the Surrey Six massacre. Two innocent by-standers, Chris Mohan, who lived across from Unit 1505, and Edward Schellenberg, a gas installation man, were also killed as inconvenient witnesses to the massacre in Unit 1505. Jamie Bacon was not present at the massacre, but Justice Ker stated he was the "chief architect" of the massacre. Ker stated that Bacon was driven by his ego to order the massacre, saying: "In the twisted logic and perverse code of the criminal point of view, there is a zero tolerance policy for displays of disrespect and defiance. Such conduct must be quickly deterred. Death is often the punishment meted out for such behavior". The elite police team spent much of their time being intoxicated at various bars and strip clubs while making sexual advances on female witnesses, which nearly ruined the case against Jamie Bacon. Langton wrote about the Surrey Six massacre: "The killers had more chutzpah and ego than they had any technical knowledge of how best to go about assassination. They let behind a huge mess of DNA and other evidence. But real investigations are not at all like the magic they show on TV and in movies. To build a compelling case from even the sloppiest murder scene takes lots of hours of hard work and no small amount of luck". The Fiji-born Eileen Mohan, the mother of Chris Mohan, became an eloquent spokeswoman for the cause of law and order, demanding that the police take action to bring the killers of her son to justice. By this point, the Bacon brothers had become major celebrities in the Lower Mainland as the brothers courted attention by wearing expensive clothing, driving expensive cars, and always having attractive girlfriends in town. In the same way that
Maurice Boucher became a folk hero in Montreal during the
Quebec biker war, the Bacon brothers became folk heroes in the Lower Mainland, being mobbed by adoring fans in their public outings. The Bacon brothers were widely idolized and admired throughout the Lower Mainland for their apparent ability to outwit both rival gangster and the Crown. Many young men in the Lower Mainland started to copy the short, cropped hairstyle favored by the Bacon brothers, who were seen as the zenith of "cool". The American journalist Jesse Hyde wrote the media in the Lower Mainland "loved" the Bacon brothers, always obsessively following their latest move. On May 9, 2008, an young man named Jonathan Barber who happened to vaguely resemble Jonathan Bacon because his hairstyle was an imitation of the Bacon brother hairstyle was driving Jonathan Bacon's black
Porsche Cayenne SUV down the Kingsway highway from Abbotsford to Vancouver. Barber worked as the installer of the stereo equipment into automobiles, and he had been hired by Bacon to install a new audio system into his Cayenne. A car carrying a group of UN members led by professional wrestler
Ion Croitoru and
Barzan Tilli-Choli also going down the Kingsway happened to see the Cayenne driven by Barber and noticing from the distance that the driver looked like Jonathan Bacon, opened fire on the Cayenne, killing Jonathan Barber instantly. Tilli-Choli became the leader of the United Nations gang after
Clayton Roueche was arrested in Texas on May 19, 2008. Tilli-Choli, who became the most tenacious opponent of the Bacon brothers, was known for the "human safaris" as he would spend hours cruising the Lower Mainland in his automobile looking for the Bacon brothers and other members of the Red Scorpions gang. On May 31, 2008, the police issued a statement warning anyone who was associating with Jonathan Bacon was putting their lives at risk. On July 16, 2008, the charges against Jonathan Bacon, Godwin Cheng, and Rayleene Burton for the possession of illegal weapons and drugs was dismissed when the judge ruled that the police lacked a warrant to search Cheng's car in 2005 and the arrest of Burton was also illegal because she only fled because of the arrests of Bacon and Cheng. On October 23, 2008, Dennis Karbovanec was stopped by the police who found he was wearing a bulletproof vest and had a loaded handgun with a silencer in a hidden compartment in his Yukon Denali automobile. The police also noted that Jonathan Bacon was driving right behind Karbovanec in his Mercedes-Benz when they pulled Karbovanec over. The police believed that Karbovanec was just a pawn negotiated with the Bacon brothers, and worked out a deal where the Crown would drop all, but one of the 11 weapons charges Karbovanec was facing in exchange for the brothers handing over Karbovanec's weapons cache. Jonathan Bacon handed over to Abbotsford police detective Lyle Simpson on behalf of Karbovanec 7 handguns, 2 shotguns, a hand grenade, an Uzi submachine gun, a rifle, and 114 sticks of dynamite. In return, the Crown dropped 10 of the 11 charges and released Karbovanec on $15,000 bail. When the deal the Crown made with the Bacon brothers became public knowledge, it led a firestorm of criticism in the media and on social media as the Crown was accused of being far too lenient with the Bacon brothers. Adding to the criticism were photographs that the Bacon brothers posted on social media showing themselves enjoying lavish vacations in Mexico. One of the leaders of the UN gang, Conor D’Monte, discussed plans in late 2008 to have a helicopter drop a bomb on the Bacon brothers home. The plan that was abandoned according one of those involved who later turned Crown's evidence as "too difficult logistically. You never know how big the bomb could be. You could damage or kill the neighbours". Another means considered by D'Monte was buying a military rocket launcher to "use it to pierce one of the Bacons’ armoured vehicle", a plan that was also abandoned when it proved impossible to buy a contraband rocket launcher. In January 2009, Tilli-Choli was with Billy Ly of the Fresh Off the Boat Killers gang of Calgary, waiting outside of the
GM Place where a
Lil Wayne concert was being held, hoping to kill the Bacon brothers who were attending the concert. Ly was overheard on videotape telling Tilli-Choli to "unload the whole thing" (i.e. fire the entire round of his AK-47) if he saw the Bacon brothers. The police arrested both Tilli-Choli and Ly before the attempt could be made. On January 16, 2009, the Abbotsford police answered a call that three men was seen carrying guns at the Sevenoaks Shopping Center. The three men turned out to be the Bacon brothers; no guns were found on them, through Jonathan was wearing a bulletproof vest. On January 20, 2009, at about 3:50 pm, Jamie Bacon was driving in his Mercedes-Benz SL55 automobile on the South Fraser Way and had stopped at a red light when a SUV pulled alongside him and a group of men opened fire. Six bullets were pumped in Jamie's Mercedes-Benz, which led him to run the red light and he drove manically down the South Fraser Way at high speed, being chased by his would-be assassins. Bacon ended up crashing his automobile into a Keg restaurant after his car hit a median. After learning that Jonathan Bacon had moved into a condo at 651 Nootka Way in Port Moody, on February 3, 2009, the Port Moody police warned in a public statement that to associate with any of the three Bacon brothers was to put one's life in danger. Langton wrote: "Not surprisingly, the Port Moody warning didn't work. If anything, it only made the gangsta-wannabe kids in the Lower Mainland admire the Bacon Brothers even more. The boys had proved they were not just untouchable by law enforcement, but also by their enemies....Their lives were like the twisted fantasies of a bored 12-year old. The warning only put an official stamp on it". Later on the same day of the Port Moody warning, an associate of the brothers, Raphael Baldini was gunned down in Surrey. People in the Lower Mainland flooded social media sites with praise and tributes for Baldini. On February 6, 2009, a Bacon brother associate, Kevin LeClair, was shot in the front of the Marketplace IGA grocery and died the next day. On February 16, 2009, Nicole Marie Alemy, the wife of a UN gang member, Koshan Alemy, was gunned down in her car. As she was driving only with her 4-year-old son and the windows of her Cadillac CTS coupe were clear, it is believed that this was not a case of mistaken identity, but rather that her killers had targeted her intentionally as a way to bring grief to her husband. The murder of Alemy finally changed public opinion in the Lower Mainland and people began to supply information about the underworld. For the first time, the police phonelines for tips was overwhelmed as thousands of people called in to supply potential information about the Alemy murder. Mountie Corporal Dale Carr told the media: "We're starting to see a bit of a groundswell, if you, of people just saying, 'enough is enough, we're fed up, we're going to give a call'". Two of the callers identified themselves as long-time members of the Red Scorpions who both stated that they were disgusted by the cold-blooded execution of a mother in front of her 4-year-old son, and the information they supplied proved to be very useful to the police. On February 22, 2009, an anti-gang rally was held in Surrey's Central City Plaza, where the lead speaker was Eileen Mohan who demanded once again that the police take action to arrest those responsible for the Surrey Six massacre. == Arrests of Jamie and Jarrod Bacon ==