Bacon Brothers (gangsters)
The Bacon Brothers, Jonathan, Jarrod, and Jamie Bacon, are a trio of gangsters from Abbotsford, British Columbia, who are suspected of multiple firearms and drug trafficking charges and implicated in a rash of homicides that took place in the Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver area. Jonathan, the oldest brother, was murdered in Kelowna on August 14, 2011.
Rise to power
The Bacon family originated from Edmonton. David Bacon was a special needs teacher who moved to Abbotsford after being hired by the Abbotsford School District while his wife Susan worked as a property manager for the Prospera Credit Union. The Bacon family was comfortably middle-class. The three Bacon brothers were Jonathan David, Jarrod Wayne and James Kyle "Jamie".Jonathan Bacon attended W. J. Mouat Secondary School and excelled at wrestling. One woman who knew the Bacon brothers who has asked to be identified only as "Elizabeth" suspected that Jonathan was working as a drug dealer, saying "When you see a kid start to have money all of a sudden, you immediately figure it's drugs". "Stephanie" described Jonathan as a popular student who loved wrestling and who became colder as he became to associate with a group of older men, saying of his new friends: "They were older, some of them in their 20s, They all had cars and expensive stuff like jewelry and watches. When Jonathan started to hang out with them, he started acting like them, talking like them, dressing like them". Another woman who went to school with Jonathan who asked to be identified only as "Amy" stated that the Bacon family was considered to be mostly "normal", but the two younger Bacon brothers were viewed as "bad news". "Amy" described Jonathan as becoming more distant as he aged, saying: "It's not like he became mean and nasty, or like a bully, or anything. It's just that he became less friendly, more of a tough guy". "Amy" also stated that Jonathan's new friends, including the non-Asians, all had tattoos in "Chinese writing". Jonathan graduated from Mouat in 1999 and did not go to university. In 2000, he was arrested and convicted of drug possession and again in 2001 for the possession of stolen goods. In 2001, David and Susan Bacon purchased an expensive house at 35475 Strathcona Court with seven bedrooms that sparked much discussion in the community about a how teacher and a property manager could afford their new home.
Jarrod and Jamie Bacon both attended Yale Secondary School. In 2002, Jarrod took up wrestling and in 2003 won the provincial high school wrestling championship. Jamie likewise followed his brothers in embracing wrestling and in his final year of high school won a provincial gold medal in wrestling. One woman who knew Jarrod who has asked to be identified only as "Andrea" stated: "He was a tough guy, pushing his weight around. While Jonathan could be quite charming at times, Jarrod was more like a thug. My little brother and all his friends would avoid him at all costs. They were scared of him." Andrea said of Jamie: "He was a jerk. I never liked him. At his age, lots of guys can be immature, but Jamie was like mean; like over the top, like he seemed to enjoy pissing other people off". Another woman known as "Christine" stated about Jarrod: "I couldn't believe it when I heard he was a teacher's son. He was disruptive in class and seemed not to care at all about his work". Christine said of Jamie: "He always had new fancy things, like clothes and jewelry, and he had a car when he was very young-a big car, an expensive one...I just assumed it was drugs"
On May 15, 2001, Jamie was arrested for assault at the age of 15, an incident that is little known owing to a court ban. Journalist Jerry Langton wrote that the Bacon brothers were typical of the gangsters in the Lower Mainland who usually came from middle-class families with loving parents. Langton wrote that Bacon brothers "...didn't come from poverty or an abusive or broken homes. In fact, they came from exactly the opposite upbringing that many social critics say incubates crime. The Bacon brothers lived in middle-class affluence in a nice house with their supportive parents. They went to good schools at which they excelled athletically and were popular socially. They were just some guys who thought they could get rich selling drugs".
A man who asked only to be identified as Nelson who moved from Toronto to Abbotsford lived on Strathcona Court and knew the Bacon family. Nelson described the Bacon brothers as being in their 20s, but still living with their parents. Nelson said that the Bacon brothers made everyone in the neighborhood "nervous" and that: "Nobody wanted to run into them because they were obnoxious and rude. It started with the old man. He was not just rude, but aggressively so. I have no idea how he had a job as a teacher". Nelson called Jonathan the most relatively reasonable of the three Bacon brothers while Jarrod "tried to look like a gangster in dark suits and expensive sunglasses. He looked like he had more money than taste". Nelson called Jamie the worse of the three brothers, saying: "He was the size of a moose and seemed about half as smart. While the other two had macho swagger, Jamie looked like a psycho". Nelson stated that the Bacon brothers dominated the neighborhood, parking their expensive luxury cars whatever they pleased and holding loud parties well into the night. When Langton asked Nelson about the origins of their Bacon brothers' wealth, he stated: "They sold drugs, of course". The Royal Canadian Mounted Police believed the Bacon brothers were working with the United Nations gang. The Bacon brothers worked with rather than for the United Nations gang as the brothers held in contempt Clayton Roueche and what Langton called his "juvenile, faux-Asian, semi-religious rituals". In 2004, Jarrod was charged with attempted murder after a man was shot at the Fraser Valley Inn. The charges were dropped when the victim of the shooting refused to testify against Bacon in court.
Arrest of Jonathan Bacon
In 2005, Jonathan moved out of his parents house and rented a house at Winfield Drive with his girlfriend, Rayleene Burton. The neighbors of Bacon described "expensive-looking" automobiles constantly being parked in his driveway and on the street as various "tough-looking guys" were always coming and going into the house. The police arrested and charged Jonathan with leading a break-in into a marijuana grow-op, but the unwillingness of the witnesses to testify against him led to Jonathan only being convicted of possession of stolen goods. Jonathan also starting taking helicopter lessons from Dustin "Princess" Haugen, a helicopter pilot known to work as a drug smuggler for the United Nations gangs, flying drugs over the American border. In March 2005, Haugen was involved in a helicopter crash that killed his girlfriend, Christian Alexander. Haugen claimed that he was taking Alexander on a "sightseeing trip" at night. Bacon ceased his helicopter lessons after the crash.The Abbotsford police put Jonathan Bacon under surveillance, and on the afternoon of August 4, 2005, Constable John Forster was informed by the surveillance team that Bacon was sitting in the car of Godwin Cheng, a known drug dealer, in front of his house. Forster ordered the policemen present to arrest both Bacon and Cheng, and after arresting the two men, the police found 8 ounces of marijuana, 15 ecstasy pills, 92 hits of methamphetamine, and $2,600 in cash in Cheng's car. Upon seeing Bacon's arrest, Burton fled from the house in her SUV and after she was arrested only blocks away from Bacon's house, the police found $88,000 in cash inside her SUV.
After being granted a search warrant, the Abbotsford police found in Bacon's house four handguns, two semi-automatic and two automatic, plus a police scanner and a genuine police constable's uniform. Jonathan Bacon was dressing up as a policeman, apparently to assist with robbing other drug dealers. On October 25, 2005, Jamie Bacon together with Denis Karbovanec of the Red Scorpions were arrested for uttering death threats and pointing weapons after becoming involved in a verbal alteration on Sandy Hill Road.
Association with the Red Scorpions
On September 21, 2006, a drive-by shooting at Strathcona Court left Jonathan Bacon wounded on the driveway as he took multiple gunshot wounds. As Jonathan recovered from the shooting, many of his duties fell upon Jamie, whom Langton called "the monstrous, childish, monosyllabic body-builder and wrestler". On December 7, 2006, at the Castle Fun Park in Abbotsford, Jamie was attending a meeting when a passer-by happened to notice one of the men attending the meeting was carrying a gun and called the police. Arrested alongside Jamie were Randy Naicker and Barry Espadilla of the Independent Soldiers and Dennis Karbovanec and Anton Hooites-Meursing of the Red Scorpions.In 2006, the brothers partnered with the Red Scorpions gang to help them compete with the United Nations gang. The authorities believed that the brothers took leadership control of the Red Scorpions shortly thereafter. It is believed that the Bacon brothers' take-over of the Red Scorpions was orchestrated by the Hells Angels to reduce the Red Scorpions down to a Hells Angels puppet gang. Clayton Roueche, the boss of the United Nations gang was dismissive of the Bacon brothers, saying: "To me they were just little errand boys."
On February 21, 2007, the Bacon brothers left Abbotsford to move to their new home, a luxurious rental house at 15830 106th Avenue in Surrey. Unlike Abbotsford which has its own police force, Surrey hired out its policing to the RCMP. The Mountie detachment for Surrey was much smaller than the Abbotsford police force, and most of its members are not from British Columbia. There was perception in the Lower Mainland underworld in the early 21st century that Surrey was an easier place to operate in as the RCMP detachment for Surrey is more "transit" as most of its members rotate around various posts in Canada and hence lack local roots.
On April 13, 2007, as Jamie Bacon was in the process of parking his car in the drive-way of his house, his Corvette automobile was shot up by two gunmen who put bullets into the vehicle. Jamie jumped out of the car, pulled out a Glock handgun and fired four shots at the would-be assassins who were now running away. Jamie was slightly wounded by the attack as he was wearing a bulletproof vest. As he was being driven to the hospital to treat the slight gash on his head, Jamie told constable Byron Donovan of the RCMP who was riding with him that the shooting was "part of the lifestyle". Jamie told constable Donovan that he always wore a bulletproof vest whenever he went out as part of his "lifestyle". Jamie also stated he was wearing a "level 3" bulletproof vest which he stated were the best quality bulletproof vests, which he had learned from watching a TV documentary.