A year ago (June 2014), I wrote a piece in my column Rattan’s Rumble titled “Hanging out with gang guys is not cool!” after gangster Jeffrey Chang was targeted at a Vancouver gas station (details in the piece below). He escaped with minor injuries, but his girlfriend, Mia Deakin, who happened to be the daughter of Jody Claman, a former “Real Housewives of Vancouver” star, was shot in the shoulder and landed up in hospital.
This week both Chang and Deakin were back in the news because the former was dead at the young age of 28 from a suspected overdose, though the B.C. Coroners Service told the media that it was too early in their investigation to have a clear cause of death. Chang was found unresponsive in a Pitt Meadows house last week on Friday (July 3).
Deakin gave birth to Chang’s child earlier this spring, according to one media report. She said her farewell to Chang on her Instagram account: “Goodbye my darling my love my soul! We will meet again one day my handsome man.”
Here is my June 2014 write-up “Hanging out with gang guys is not cool!” that many people were accessing on our website (www.voiceonline.com) Tuesday morning (according to the website stats):
VANCOUVER police spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham stressed on Monday [June 9] that hanging out with people associated with gangs is “an extremely dangerous lifestyle choice,” and noted that police have seen an increase in women getting involved in the violence.
Mia Deakin, who goes by the name of Mia Claman on social media and is the daughter of Jody Claman, one of the stars of the “Real Housewives of Vancouver,” is recovering at Vancouver General Hospital after having been shot in the shoulder in a drive-by shooting at the Chevron gas station on East Hastings near Vernon Drive on Sunday [June 8] shortly after 7 p.m.
The man she was with was seen running as a gunman in a backseat of an SUV fired at him from a high-powered rifle. He received minor injuries.
He was located by police, taken to hospital and then arrested on an outstanding warrant for a driving prohibition.
He was identified as Jeffrey Chang, 27, by a local newspaper. Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – BC told The VOICE on Tuesday [June 10] that though he could not publicly identify the victim, that person “does have historic connections to the Wolf Pack.” The Wolf Pack reportedly comprises the Red Scorpions, the Independent Soldiers and the Hells Angels and is in conflict with the remnants of the Dhak-Duhre and United Nations groups.
Houghton added: “It’s very well known that that person’s brother was a gang member and was killed in a shooting several years ago.”
The brother was Jonathan Chu-Ka Chang who was gunned down in Burnaby in 2009.
DEAKIN’S father told Global News over the phone that he had recently warned his daughter about the type of people she was hanging out with.
His warning and that of Fincham is what I have been repeating endlessly over the years.
Just last March [2014] in a write-up on this subject, I noted how the false glamour of gangs was exposed so vividly at the ongoing Surrey Six trial.
I wrote: “The hollowness of the concept that gangs are like families with loyalty and they have a great time was graphically brought out by the testimony of Crown witness Y (who can’t be named because of a court order protecting his identity).
“… The witness, who was a protector of Red Scorpion leader Jamie Bacon told court that he later realized that loyalty among criminals was “just a big mirage.” He said: “So many of the homicides that you hear about usually end up being by ex-friends.”
“He decided to become a police witness when he realized that the gang members were trying to kill him. So much for family and loyalty!
“He also revealed how he and other gang members, including Jarrod Bacon, were addicted to the powerful painkiller oxycodone because it ‘took the edge off’ when there were “so many different people trying to kill you.””
Last December [2013], Red Scorpion member Cody Haevischer’s former girlfriend, who could only be identified as KM as she is a protected witness, testified that she was “pretty stressed out” because she felt the police were looking for her. She said that after the murders, the gang became paranoid about police and things started to fall apart. The tensions and infighting within the gang intensified as they realized that police were watching them.
Haevischer and Matthew Johnston are charged with six counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the Surrey Six murders. [Haevischer and Johnston were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years last December.]
KM said she really didn’t want to become a witness because the gang members were “my family and I loved Cody more than anything.” She “hated cops” because she felt she was a gangster herself.
But she had a rude awakening.
