iStock photo
iStock photo

(Submitted by Anita Bathe) Police and Abbotsford’s mayor are hoping a community safety forum being held this week, will help address the issue of a conflict between two rival groups in the city.

That conflict led to the shooting death of an innocent bystander last Wednesday night.

Mayor Henry Braun says the city has had them before and every time hundreds of people show up.

“I am hoping that at this forum we will be able to convince some parents that they need to deal with their children. Some of these [children] are as young as 15 and they are getting sucked into gangs,” he explains. “My call to [parents] is that at the end of that road is death and description for maybe them and I think we need to go back and revisit the Mayor’s Task Force that we had in 2010 and look at phase two of that. Are there things that we can do that we haven’t been doing?”

The APD says a special gang team has been put in place but police also say this isn’t just about gangs, it actually has more to do with petty disputes.

The forum is happening this Thursday, September 10, 2015, from 7:00 -9:00 pm at the Abbotsford Arts Centre located at 2329 Crescent Way.