Richard Daniel Wolfe (1975 – 27 May 2016) was a Canadian gangster who co-founded the Indian Posse gang along with his younger brother Danny Wolfe in 1988, which he later left in 1997. Convicted of attempted murder in 1995, he was released on parole in 2010. On parole in 2014, he sexually assaulted a woman and beat a man with a baseball bat. He died in prison.
Youth Wolfe was born on the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, the son of Richard Wolfe Senior and Susan Creely. Both of his parents were Cree. In 1979, his parents moved to the North End, Winnipeg, where he grew up. His father abandoned his family while his mother was an alcoholic. In sentencing Richard Wolfe Jr. in 2015 following his convictions for sexual assault and assault, the judge stated: "He was raised in an environment where substance abuse and domestic violence was prevalent. Richard was repeatedly exposed to violence which occurred during his parents' house parties. He was sexually abused at the age of seven, once by a stranger and twice by a neighbor. The episodes of sexual abuse left Richard confused, ashamed and full of hate".
Along with his younger brother Danny, Richard scavenged for food from a garbage bin of a local Kentucky Fried Chicken as their mother spent her welfare cheques on alcohol, and scavenging for food was the only way the Wolfe brothers fed themselves. The Wolfe brothers raided the gardens kept by Portuguese immigrants to steal their tomatoes and carrots in the summertime and soon moved on to breaking into cars to steal any valuables that might be inside to raise money for food. Starting at the age of 9, Richard took to wearing a red bandana, which later became the symbol of the Indian Posse. For a class assignment about his future ambitions, he wrote "Richard-Wealthy and Powerful". Richard was placed "in care" at foster homes a number of times, and to escape the abuse always ran away. The journalist Jon Friesen wrote about the Wolfe brothers: "By the time they were about ten or eleven years old, Danny and Richard were quite accustomed to raising themselves. They had no regard for conventional rules or morality. They saw themselves as survivors and were prepared to do whatever it took to make it".
Indian Posse In the summer of 1988, Creely rented a house on Beverley Avenue in Winnipeg. Moving in with her were the two Wolfe brothers and their younger half-brother, Preston Buffalocalf. The Wolfe brothers lived in the basement of the house, and the Indian Posse still speaks of "the basement" to refer to the gang's origins. The Wolfe brothers belonged to a youth gang who called themselves Scammers Inc. In August 1988, the Wolfe brothers along with five other members of Scammers Inc decided to break away to found their own gang, which they named the Indian Posse. Richard said of the gang he founded: "We just wanted to make sure we stuck with each other and watched other's backs". One of the rules that Richard developed for his gang was that membership was for life, and that the penalty for leaving the Indian Posse would be death.
Richard's primary role in the Indian Posse at first was as a thief who specialized in stealing car stereos. Wolfe would brazenly break into garages, use a screwdriver to smash in one of the car windows, and then use the same screwdriver to remove the stereos. He sold the stolen stereos for $100 per system to the Triads in Winnipeg's Chinatown. Richard Wolfe started carrying a handgun to school at the age of 13, and after his gun was discovered by a teacher, resulted in his first criminal conviction on 2 February 1989.
By 1989, Richard moved on to breaking into houses. Richard would spend hours bicycling or walking around Winnipeg looking for a house that appeared unoccupied and then break in, looking for jewelry, electronics, CDs and cash to steal. Richard stated in an interview: "We didn't think about the people we were stealing from as being victimized or traumatized. There was none of that. I wanted what they had". By 1990, Wolfe was firmly committed to being a gangster. Under his leadership, the Indian Posse started to specialize in stealing cars and robbing gas stations in the North End at gunpoint. By 1992, the Wolfe brothers had rented a house for $866 per month and was selling drugs. The Wolfe brothers purchased drugs from native gangs in South Dakota or more commonly drove out to Vancouver to purchase cocaine from the Triads. The brothers Wolfe resented the position of the Indian Posse as street dealers who had to buy drugs from either Winnipeg's outlaw biker gangs, the Spartans or los Bravos or the Asian crime syndicates, usually the Triads, as street dealing was the least profitable and most dangerous position to be in the drug business. However, the lack of international connections left the Indian Posse no choice, but to purchase drugs from the gangs that did have the international connections.
To make his appointments on time with his probation officer, Richard would steal automobiles and would leave the stolen vehicle in the parking lot while he rushed to see his probation officer to assure him that he was not breaking any laws. The area around the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Development, known locally as "Little Chicago", was the primary area for Richard and other Indian Posse dealers to sell marijuana, LSD and cocaine. He usually used children from the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Development as his drug couriers. The principal area for drug sales was around the Merchant's Hotel, known locally as "the Merch", where the Indian Posse set up an open air drug market in 1991. An youth pastor at the Manitoba Youth Remand Centre who knew both Wolfe brothers stated that in the early 1990s Richard was the leader of the gang while Danny was his lackey. The pastor stated: "Richard always had that ability to be honest. Danny was very impressionable. He didn't have the smarts that Richard had". Danny served as his brother's enforcer, being involved in 14 shootings between 1990 and 1994. Friesen describing Danny as "Richard's loyal lieutenant and enforcer". Richard was involved in robbing armed cars and ATM machines, but those robberies were set up by one of Winnipeg's two outlaw biker gangs, the Spartans or los Bravos, who took the bulk of the profits with the Indian Posse serving as the flunkies for the bikers. The main sources of income for the Indian Posse in the 1990s were prostitution and selling drugs with robberies being a sideline activity.
The Wolfe brothers liked to dress in the style of the Afro-American gangs of Los Angeles who along with the West Coast gangsta rappers he idolized, wearing Nike shoes, baseball caps, and red jackets. Richard liked to show off his wallet full of hundreds of dollars to illustrate that he was now economically better off. Richard was often robbed by the corrupt Winnipeg police with policemen seizing about 40% of his cash. Wolfe stated in an interview that he be stopped by a policeman and: "They'd ask, 'how much you holding? I'd say '$1, 200'. They'd grab half and say, 'it looks more like $600'". Both the Wolfe brothers hated the Winnipeg police along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Manitoba does not have its own provincial police). Richard stated he was twice taken "on a starlight tour" under which the police would arrest him in the dead of winter at night, take him to a remote rural area and tell him that he had to walk back to Winnipeg. After being taken on a "starlight tour" for a second time, which forced him to walk five miles at night in the wintertime, Richard planned to murder a policeman in revenge. Joined by his bloodthirsty younger brother who was always enthusiastic about violence and another Indian Posse member, Richard went out to hunt for a policeman to kill. Richard found a policeman in his cruiser and as he approached the officer, he recalled: "I was creeping along on the ground when I turned around to check on my brother and he's gesturing at the other guy, saying basically 'what about him?' My brother didn't really trust him". Richard abandoned the murder attempt as he decided that the man could not trusted to not turn Crown's evidence as he stated: "I'm glad I didn't do. My anger was getting the better of me". Unlike his womanizing younger brother, Richard had a stable long-term relationship with his girlfriend Colleen who passed his "beer test". Richard would invite girls to parties, saying they could bring just themselves or bring themselves along with beer. The girls who arrived without beer were considered by Richard to be snooty and self-centered. Colleen brought a case of 24 bottles of beer, which made her into Richard's girl. Detective James Jewell of the Winnipeg police said: "They had almost a Bonnie-and-Clyde reputation. Not a lot of women were trusted in the gang, but Colleen was Richard's right-hand girl. She participated in a lot of the crimes, which was unusual".
Richard would meet with the leaders of other gangs to negotiate agreements to push up the prices of drugs. Richard recalled in an interview: "We'd say to them, we know you're selling over here. How much for? They'd say $15. We'd say, okay, we're going to go over here and do the same fucking thing. That way we're on the same page...As long as everybody was making money, everyone was happy". Richard's cool temperament and his ability to "talk to the room" as he phrased it marked him out as an excellent diplomat who was able to handle relations with the other gangs, unlike his wilder younger brother Danny who was known for ungovernable rages and a tendency to act in a rash, violent way. Friesen wrote: "That kind of diplomacy in a sixteen-year-old is remarkable and it was one of Richard's strengths". Wolfe's favorite weapon was his AK-47 assault rifle, which he loved to fire during trips out to the countryside. In 1993, the Wolfe brothers were involved in a shoot-out with a rival gang, the Crips (no connection to the gang of the same name in Los Angeles), leading for Richard to take cover behind a tree while the more aggressive Danny stayed in the open while returning fire. Richard recalled: "I screamed 'take cover!' and he wouldn't take cover. Danny's just standing up, letting 'em go. Pow! Pow! Pow! The Crips fled when Richard pulled out a shotgun, but Danny was angry when he learned that shotgun was jammed. Danny berated his brother for not keeping his shotgun in working order. One day in 1993 when he was firing off his AK-47 at targets at a farm outside of Winnipeg, Richard asked Danny if he was would kill him for the sake of the Indian Posse. Richard recalled Danny's response: "Danny looked me right in the eyes and said, 'Yes I would. For the family'. We made this family and no matter what happened we would do what was right". In the Indian Posse, "taking a van ride" was a euphemism for an execution. Once, a group of Indian Posse gangsters arrived at Richard's house to tell him to board a van, leading Richard to calmly say "I'll get my coat, let's do this", leading him to be congratulated for his willingness to obey orders despite the apparent prospect of his demise.