Scourge of meth-linked homemade guns in Winnipeg hits record high in 2019, police say

Leslie Beaulieu is good with his hands it's what landed him in federal prison but the craftsmanship he became known for on Winnipeg's streets has violent ends.

People would bring the 27-year-old father of tworaw materials, whichhe would fashion into potentially deadly weapons.

Beaulieutook bits of pipe or bike parts someone even brought him part of a lamp andturned them into homemade firearms, also known aszip guns,using power tools and elbow grease.

He stockpiled his creations as heslippeddeeper into a meth addiction and thepsychosis that comes with it. Then, just weeks before his arrest last May,Beaulieu accidentally shot himself in the foot and landed in hospital.

"I felt really paranoid and felt like I had to help some people, but at the same time I was ruining things with myself and people around me," Beaulieu told court in December, saying he underestimated how addicting meth would be.

"Nobody wanted to come around anymore because I was scaring them. This drug pretty much took my life."

Hepleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine and a restricted firearm, as well asmanufacturing firearms, and was sentenced to 4 years.

Beaulieu's story is just one side of a worsening problem that istied to meth and has police on edge.

The number of homemade guns recovered inWinnipeg shot up 56 per cent in 2019 police seized nearly 90 of them last year, compared to 53 the year before,says Winnipeg Police Service guns and gangs unit leaderInsp. Max Waddell.

That spike coincidedwith arecord year for homicides in general and gun homicides in particular in Winnipeg.One of the first was committed with a homemade gun.

Waddell said police are convinced the manufacturing and possession of homemade guns is connected with the meth trade. People involved in either the drug or weapons trades, or both, are also often using, he saidand the drug can leave them in a state of psychosis and paranoia.

"These individuals feel the need to have a form of protection, not only for themselves but [from] the ones that are trafficking it they also need a form of protection to protect their property from drug rips or other rival gangs."

Biggest seizure ever

At his sentencing hearing, Beaulieu said he was giving away most ofthe guns he made. Having already spent months behind bars, he said he was glad to be clean and off the streets.

It's possible he'dstill be making guns if it weren't for an erratic cyclist spotted wearing a Hell's Angels-support sweatshirtin the West End last year. Police followed the male to an apartment on Maryland Street and saw a black device tucked into his waistband as he hoisted the bike up onto the porch and went inside.

It turned out tojust be a Bluetooth speaker, but Beaulieau was also spotted inside the apartment. An officer recognized him from a police bulletinas someone who could be linked to the trade of improvised guns, court heard at Beaulieu's sentencing.

A search recoveredpower tools, including a routerwhich can be used to drill holes and hollow out materialanda cache of 11 homemade guns in various states of completion. It was the largest homemade gun bust in a single location inthe city's history.

Waddell said one of the most "mesmerizing" materials showing up in homemade gunsis bike parts.

"Something we would look to as a common part of society is now being used for such terrible means."

'Winnipeg phenomenon'

The Crown prosecutor in Beaulieu's case, Vanessa Gama, said the zip gun problem issomething of a "Winnipeg phenomena," and their construction makes them particularly risky.

"There is no normal chamber or safety, and that's what makes them so inherently dangerous," she said in court, referringtoBeaulieu's mishap that led to him shooting himself in the foot.

"Improvised firearms are true crime guns: they are nearly impossible to trace, there are no serial numbers and they are completely unregulated."

In recent years, Canadian police forces have seizedmore sophisticated homemade guns than those that are typically turning up on the streets of Winnipeg.

In 2018, police in the Greater Toronto area busted a group accused of making and distributing "ghost guns," which look more like traditional handguns. They're considered hard to trace because they're pieced together with unregulated but legal parts without serial numbers.

And in 2017, police in Edmonton seizedfour homemadesubmachine pistols, manufactured by a black-market gun-making shop.

'Buzz is out there'

There's evidence homemade guns are popping up for sale on the dark webtoo, andit's possibleto find out how to make them yourself.

"You can learn these things off the internet now, which is alsopretty wild," said Winnipeg defence lawyer Wendy Martin White.

"It's not hard to do and the buzz is out there. People are just doing itmaybe some are even doing it just defensively, because it's so unsafe on the streets now in some parts."

Whitewas Beaulieu's defence lawyer and doesn't know how he learned to make guns.

She also sees the link between homemade guns and meth use in other clients, and how the two have created a heightened sense of danger on the streets.

"I'm hearing that from my clients more so than ever," she said. "They say it's just very scary out there. They all are carrying weapons, which is terrible."

Challenge facing justice system

White is currently representing another man who was initially charged with two separate sets of homemade gun possession offences. One of the guns was tested by a firearms expert who said it wouldn't meet the legal definition of a firearm, so the charge was dropped.

That illustrates a challenge the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has been pushing governments to addressfor years.

"These replica firearms have been used to terrorize victims and compromise the safety of the Canadian public," reads a resolution passed by CACP members directed at Parliament in 2000.

It sought to reclassify replica firearms, including homemade guns, as prohibited weapons, making it an offence to possess them, CACP spokesperson Natalie Wright wrote in an email.

Wright said the association'sspecial purpose committee on firearms is currently mulling an array of firearm and legislation issues that could lead to new recommendations to lawmakers about homemade guns.

Police on lookout for anothermanufacturer

As for 27-year-old Beaulieu, ifhe serves the remainder of his sentence, he'll celebrate his 30th birthday behind bars.

Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Chris Martin accepted a joint recommendation of 54 months from Gama and White.

"At this point you look to be a pretty dangerous menace to the community," Martin saidin court last December.

But while delivering his decision, Martin also called Beaulieu an "intelligent fellow" who clearly had a roughupbringing. His grandparents were forced through the residential school system, and there was addiction in the home growing up.

Beaulieulives with post-traumatic stress disorder, among other conditions that were exacerbatedin the years after he found his mother dead froman overdose, and after his best friend died in his arms following a stabbingin 2012, court heard. After that, Beaulieuturned to meth.

"I'm not trying to be Pollyanna about this, but it seems you're pretty good with your hands," Martin said at the hearing.

"Maybe it's the type of thing you get into some kind of machinery work or something like thatinstead of manufacturing guns, you manufacture somethingthat people need."

Beaulieu is no longer contributing to the homemade gun problem, but another manufacturer is filling the void.

A new shadowy figurelikely someonewith a machining, metal or bending background sprungonto the scene last fall.

In December, Insp. Waddell issued a call for help to bring that person to justice before someone gets killed.