Danny Wolfe

Daniel Richard Wolfe (24 June 1976 – 4 January 2010) was a Canadian gangster who along with his brother Richard co-founded the Indian Posse street gang in 1988. Wolfe remained one of the leaders of the gang until his murder in 2010.

Youth Wolfe was born three months premature at the General Hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan, the son of Richard Wolfe Senior and Susan Creely. Both of his parents were Cree. His Cree name was Come Up Shouting At The Earth. In 1979, his parents moved to the North End of Winnipeg, where he grew up. Both of his parents were alcoholics, and Danny along with his older brother Richard Wolfe Jr. were essentially left to raise themselves. Creely drank during her pregnancy and Danny suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as his brain had been damaged in the womb by the alcohol in his mother's blood. Richard Wolfe Sr. abandoned his family, and the Wolfe brothers were left in the care of their mother. Creely attended a residential school from the age of 6 onward and was raped by her teacher, causing her to engage in heavy drinking from the age of 12 onward. The Wolfe brothers were often placed "in care" and to escape the abuse ran away to live on the streets. In the spring of 1988, Danny saw his father living as a homeless man on the streets of Winnipeg. Danny had not seen his father for several years, and was heartbroken when his father said "hi" to him and then kept walking down the streets as his son did not matter to him.

Indian Posse In the summer of 1988, the Wolfe brothers founded the Indian Posse gang in the basement of the house that Susan Creely was renting on Beverley Street. Richard Wolfe Jr. described his brother as "a mischievous little guy" who was the first one in the Indian Posse to take up smoking cigarettes, the first one to drink alcohol, and the first one to smoke marijuana. The Wolfe brothers were part of a gang of thieves who called themselves Scammers Inc, but resenting the way that the older boys took the majority of the profits for themselves, the Wolfe brothers founded a new gang called the Indian Posse in August 1988. Both of the Wolfe brothers were greatly influenced by Afro-American gangsta rap, and the name Indian Posse was inspired by the rap songs they loved. The term Indian was often used in a derogatory sense in Manitoba and copying the way that rappers had used the term "nigga" in an attempt to turn a derogatory word into an affirmative one, the name Indian was chosen as the part of the gang's title. Much of the gang's symbolism and rules such as the choice of red bandannas as a sort of uniform were designed by Danny's friend Lynn. The most important rules were that the Indian Posse was only open to Indians and Metis with all other ethnicities excluded while in a nod to Cree traditions the gang was governed by a "circle" (council) of 5-10 people who made decisions by consensus. The structure of the Indian Posse with its three levels of membership, "hang-arounds", "strikers" and "full" members whose status were identified by their tattoos was copied from outlaw biker gangs.

The Wolfe brothers moved from breaking into automobiles into breaking into houses. Danny served as an apprentice thief to his older brother Richard. Danny's first criminal conviction was on 18 January 1989 at the age of 12 for a break and enter into a house. He was sentenced to a year in open custody. In 1990, the police raided Susan Creely's house and found numerous stolen stereo systems and televisions in the basement. Later that year, the Wolfe brothers started to sell drugs and worked as pimps as they forced their teenage classmates into prostitution. The Indian Posse catered to the most depraved sexual tastes and forced girls as young as 10 and 11 to work as child prostitutes despite the gang's rules which forbade pimping child prostitutes. In 1991, Danny started to date Crystal Simard, a 14-year old who already had a daughter. Collen Simard, Crystal's cousin recalled: "They were a sweet couple. Inseparable. They'd be just sitting there, their thin builds with matching long black hair and matching black clothes. Walking down the street you couldn't tell which was which". Collen Simard recalled Danny as a "sweet" young man who was always gentle towards Crystal and her daughter and was generous in supplying her with stolen jewelry as gifts. Simard described Wolfe as a "twisted Robin Hood" who stole from middle class white people to give to poor First Nations people. Another girlfriend recalled that Danny was a young man with "beautiful dark soul eyes" who would quietly break into her basement apartment to have sex with her without awakening her grandmother. She recalled that he was never violent and was always generous in supplying her with cash and stolen jewelry. The journalist Carleigh Baker noted the contrast between "...the gentle and loving young man raved about by his former girlfriends and the hardened thug running a prostitution ring of girls as young as 10. Richard and Danny's posturing on this topic – shame, remorse, and occasionally outright denial – doesn't change the fact that it made them a lot of money."

By the beginning of 1992, the brothers Wolfe had sufficient income to rent a house with a monthly rent of $866. Richard was considered to be the diplomat while Danny was considered to be the warrior. Though easygoing, Danny was known for his ungovernable rage. During his frequent stays at the Manitoba Youth Centre, Wolfe sold drugs and made allies. A pastor at the Youth Centre stated: "Danny was very impressionable. He didn't have the smarts Richard had". Danny served as the principle enforcer for the Indian Posse and was involved in 14 shootings between 1990 and 1994. Danny disliked drive-by shootings, which he considered to be cowardly, and much preferred walk-by shootings, which involved more risk and hence more courage. Danny had an obsession with his underworld reputation and always wanted to be seen as someone without fear. The precise number of people Danny killed remains unknown as his rivals followed the underworld code of never incriminating another criminal to the police and younger members of the Indian Posse usually confessed to the shootings that Danny committed to spare him prison time. The most notable of Wolfe's shootings were a shoot-out on the streets in 1993 with a rival gang called the Crips (no relation to the Los Angeles gang), which ended with Danny ambushing a van carrying some Crips and emptying his handgun while standing in the open, blasting away while showing no fear about the bullets flying around him.

Wolfe found himself frustrated at the lowly status of the Indian Posse in the underworld as the street drug dealers who took on the most risky and least profitable end of drug dealing, but the principle suppliers of drugs in Manitoba were the Asian crime syndicates and outlaw biker gangs who offloaded the responsibility and the risks of street dealing onto the Indian Posse. Wolfe lacked the international connections to have foreign drug suppliers sell to his gang directly, and instead had to purchase drugs from the Asian gangs or the biker gangs who inflated the prices and took none of the risks the Indian Posse had to take. Much to the dismay of the Wolfe brothers, the Indian Posse served as subcontractors to the outlaw biker gangs in Winnipeg such as los Bravos and the Spartans. Though the Hells Angels did not establish a chapter in Manitoba until December 2000, the Hells Angels national president Walter Stadnick was very active in Winnipeg from 1990 onward, playing off the los Bravos and the Spartans against each other, and selling both gangs drugs. Richard Wolfe later stated "Danny always hated bikers". Most Canadian outlaw biker gangs are virulently racist and have a whites-only admission policies, and Danny never disguised his disgust and dislike of the outlaw biker gangs, though it did not stop him from doing business with them if the need arouse or copying their tactics. Wolfe especially hated the openly racist Hells Angels who have a strict whites only admission policy; use Nazi symbols such as swastikas and the SS lightning bolt runes as their own; and who always treated the Indian Posse in a contemptuous manner. The archenemies of the Indian Posse was a Hells Angels-backed aboriginal gang, the Manitoba Warriors, whom the Indian Posse started to feud with in 1994. The Hells Angels courted both the Manitoba Warriors and the Indian Posse to serve as a puppet gang, and came to prefer the former over the latter as the Warriors proved more docile.

In July 1994, Danny escaped from the Manitoba Youth Centre, which led to his conviction for escaping lawful custody. Danny was sent to the Headingley Correctional Centre, which marked his first time in an adult prison. Though short and small, Danny was known as a ferocious fighter, and was frequently involved in prison brawls. Richard who was also serving a sentence at Headingley stated: "I saved a lot of foes from being killed at the hands of D-Boy [Danny]. We fucked up a lot of people". In December 1994, Danny was released from Headingley and resumed his criminal career on the streets. Both the Wolfe brothers adopted the fashion styles of gangsters in Los Angeles wearing baseball caps, checked jackets and Nike shoes.

Leader On 14 May 1995, Richard Wolfe impulsively shot a Polish immigrant and pizza deliveryman, Maciej Slawik, with his shotgun. The owner of Jumbo Pizza owed a drug debt to Richard and he decided to kill a Jumbo Pizza deliveryman to send a message to the owner. Danny was notably angry with his brother as he told him: "You fucking guy! You should've got somebody else to do that. We don't have to do that stuff no more". Danny threatened to kill several witnesses if they testified against his brother. In May 1995, Danny was charged with obstruction of justice and using a fireman in the commission of a crime as he threatened to kill a young couple if they testified against his brother. During his time in the Remand Centre, Danny led an extortion ring in the jail where he forced the other prisoners to pay him protection money or be beaten. Richard was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 19 years in prison. With Richard imprisoned, Danny became the sole leader of the gang.

As Danny was unable to make bail while awaiting trial, on 20 September 1995 he was sent to Stony Mountain penitentiary. A prison psychologist who interviewed him wrote: "He states that when he enters the Stony Mountain population, he will go and talk to other members of the gang and find out what they are doing (i.e. selling drugs, taking programs, etc). He states he will then do what he thinks is good for him and he does not care if the other members want to follow him or not". Wolfe only identified himself as being a "striker" in the gang, but his claims to have authority over other members led the prison authorities to doubt that he was just a mere "striker". After his conviction on the obstruction of justice charges, Wolfe remained at Stony Mountain. A prison psychologist, Richard Howes, who interviewed Wolfe on 6 October 1996 wrote that Wolfe "does seem to genuinely believe something healthy and enlightening can emerge from the gang. One might skeptically and perhaps realistically conclude that he is simply deluding himself if he believes this, but I was left with the sense that he is not committed to the gang simply because he prefers criminal associates". Wolfe told Howes "when it first started it was all crime", but he insisted that the Indian Posse was a social movement that promoted the spiritual well-being of First Nations peoples. Wolfe listed the encounter with his father in 1988, which was the last time that he saw him, as the moment that inspired him to found the Indian Posse. Wolfe stated that his father, homeless and drunk while wandering about looking for some discarded hairspray cans to drink from and begging for money, represented everything that he intended to reject. Wolfe stated "we had nothing" and the Indian Posse gave "a sense of strength in Aboriginal unity". The psychological tests done on Wolfe showed that he had above-average intelligence and had anti-social personality disorder. Wolfe was not classified as a psychopath, but it was stated that his substance abuse; long criminal record; comfort with criminality; unstable lifestyle and attention deficit disorder were all personality traits likely to ensure that he would reoffend if released.

In September 1997, Wolfe was released on parole. On 7 October 1997, four men robbed a drug house and during the police investigation, Wolfe was discovered on the front porch of a house nearby talking to several Indian Posse members while wearing Indian Posse colours. As Wolfe was violating his parole conditions by associating with gang members, he was sent back to prison. In April 1998, Wolfe was recorded making a phone call arranging to have drugs smuggled into Stony Mountain. On 22 April 1998, a team of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers observed a man throw a baseball over the prison walls, which was picked up by Wolfe, but a subsequent searched failed to discover any drugs on him.

Sandra Woytowich, a prison official wrote that Wolfe was "a very pleasant and likeable young man" who was resourceful and intelligent, but committed to a criminal lifestyle. Wolfe who dropped out of school in grade 6 attended a prison program intended to allow him to finish high school. A First Nations elder who worked as a prison counsellor described Wolfe as a friendly prisoner who was very interested in Cree traditions and who gave the impression that he wanted to say something, but was unable to do so, owing to the presence of other Indian Posse members who were always around him. During his time in prison, Wolfe discovered poetry for the first time in his life. On 28 May 1998, Wolfe was released from prison and moved in with his mother who was now living on the Okanese reserve in Saskatchewan. Despite his promises to his parole officer to abandon criminality as a lifestyle, Wolfe had a tattoo with the words Indian Posse written across his back, which he showed he was now a "full" member. Wolfe did not find a job during his time in Saskatchewan and officially lived on welfare. He bragged constantly to anyone who would listen about the number of women he slept with while indulging himself in alcohol, ecstasy and marijuana abuse.

Wolfe's real job in Saskatchewan was to expand the gang by recruiting new members and Saskatchewan-whose population is 10% First Nations-was considered to be an idea place to expand into. The Indian Posse had about 1,000 members in Manitoba by the summer of 1998, and the ruling "circle" wanted a similar number of members in Saskatchewan. In July 1998, Wolfe went on a tour of reserves in northern Saskatchewan, especially in the Prince Albert area, recruiting for the Indian Posse. The Indian Posse preferred to sell drugs in remote reserves in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba owing to the higher prices in those northern climates. A gram of cocaine that went for $100 in Winnipeg would sell for $1,000 on a remote northern reserve; while a gram of marijuana that sold for $10 in Winnipeg would sell for $70 on a northern reserve. Wolfe's tour was very successful as the unemployment rate was 80% on the northern reserves, and his image of assertive, macho masculinity coupled with the promise of great wealth tied to a Red Power message proved highly appealing. Glen Ross, the chief of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, who tried to stop young men on his reserve from joining the Indian Posse commented: "There's pride in the outlaw, pride in fighting what they see as the government, the enemy". In a letter to Richard in August 1998, Wolfe wrote: "I made sure that our presence was there in Regina. We terrorized that place. Every bar we went to we got into some fights. But after a while they knew who we were".

During the summer of 1998, Wolfe met members of the American Indian Movement, and in his letters to Richard expressed the hope that the Indian Posse might become a social movement instead of a criminal organization. On 11 August 1998, Wolfe shoplifted some lug nuts from a Canadian Tire store in Regina and attacked a security guard with a tire iron when he tried to stop him. As a result, Wolfe was charged with armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and theft under $5,000. Wolfe served a short prison sentence and by September 1998 was a free man in Winnipeg. Wolfe resumed his career as a thief, and he always took along with him a loaded gun on his robberies. One former Indian Posse member recalled: "He loved his guns. There were several houses he shot up".

The Hells Angels had no chapters in Manitoba at the time, but were active in selling drugs in the Prairie provinces. Wolfe arranged to buy some cocaine from the Hells Angels, but decided to rob them instead. He put on his Indian Posse red bandanas and along with four other Indian Posse members stormed into the meeting with his guns drawn. Wolfe stole several thousand dollars, which led for the Angels to shoot up the houses of Indian Posse members in revenge. One former Indian Posse member recalled: "When things had to be done, he would walk into houses, break down doors, stick guns to people's heads. If you needed a vehicle, he'll go steal a vehicle or if we're down [short of money] he'll go make it up by doing a robbery or break and enter. If somebody got caught doing a deal and got caught with the product, Danny would repay those debts himself".

Despite the robbery, the Hells Angels approached Wolfe with the offer that the Angels would serve as wholesalers, selling the Indian Posse drugs that they would in turn would sell on the streets. Wolfe rejected the offer, saying the Indian Posse should be treated as equals to the Hells Angels, not subordinates. In a phone call that was recorded by prison officials in 2003, Wolfe was heard to say: "We just told them [the Hells Angels], 'Hey man, we won't fucking stand in front, we won't stand behind you'. We're going to stand side by side if we do this...They wanted control. We just said 'No'. And ever since then, we had to back them off."

In October 1998, Wolfe met at a bar a 19-year-old woman known as "Lisa" who recalled about him: "He had the long hair, the tattoos, the attitude". Lisa recalled of her four months courtship with Wolfe that the couple slept all day and stayed up all night while consuming massive amounts of alcohol and marijuana. Lisa stated of him: "He was the most amazing person I ever met in my life. He had a wicked sense of humour." In December 1998, Lisa discovered she was pregnant with his child, and when she went to tell him the news she learned he had just been arrested for armed robbery. Wolfe and some of his Indian Posse associates had kicked their way into a house and at gunpoint tied up the owners while ransacking the property. Wolfe tortured both the husband and wife to force them to reveal where they had hidden their cocaine. He was arrested leaving the property with a TV in his arms. On 16 March 1999, in a plea bargain with the Crown he admitted his guilt in exchange for a lesser prison sentence. Wolfe was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Return to prison The prospect of fatherhood seemed to make Wolfe a more responsible man and prison officials held out the hope that he would renounce his criminal lifestyle. In a letter to Lisa in April 1999, Wolfe wrote: "You know who I am and what I'm about, but that stuff has nothing to do with our relationship. It's something I can't change". In the summer of 1999, Wolfe became a father. Despite his promises to reform, Wolfe was active in smuggling drugs into Stony Mountain, selling cocaine, steroids, heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines. In August 1999, Wolfe was identified as a member of the Indian Posse's ruling "circle" for the first time. On 12 September 1999, he ordered the beating of another prisoner that resulted in the man going to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. As a punishment for all the trouble he was causing in Stony Mountain, he was placed in solitary confinement for months, where he obsessively wrote letters to Lisa and to his brother. In his letters to Richard, he sounded disenchanted with the Indian Posse, which he complained was divided by feuds and intrigue. Wolfe stated sharply that recruiting young people from broken homes imposed liabilities as wrote in his usual vulgar fashion that the principle problem with the gang was "too many fucked up people recruiting fucked up people". On 16 February 2000, Wolfe was transferred to the Saskatchewan Penitentiary as he was considered to be a trouble-maker at Stony Mountain. In a letter to Lisa, he wrote: "It's cold in these cells, like someone died in them. The House of Misery is what we call this place. There's someone getting it [stabbed or beaten] here everyday. Can't even shower without the pigs [guards] watching". Wolfe complained the prison was full of mice that crawled over him while he tried to sleep. In a letter to Lisa, he promised her: "I'm going to give our son something that I never had when I was small. A dad. I know how it is without a dad and it wasn't good". In another letter, he wrote "they say girls like bad guys more than good guys but I can say I'm the bad guy". In a letter to Richard, he wrote he had two girlfriends on the side and "I just hope my son's mom doesn't find out".

Wolfe was an ardent fan of the rapper Tupac Shakur, whose music he adored, and Shakur's Black Power rapping inspired Wolfe to try his hand at Red Power rapping. Like many other Red Power activists, Wolfe was greatly influenced by Black Power ideologies, which he mostly picked up via the rap songs that he loved. Wolfe detested Canada where he described in letters to Richard as an oppressive state and he made a point of always placing his stamps on his letters upside down to show his contempt for Canada. Alongside his contempt for Canada was a strong anti-white racism as he often wrote that he hated all white people. In one of his letters to his brother, Wolfe wrote: "I always put a stamp upside down. It's like, Canada Who? Canada Where? Fuck Canada! We were here first. Fuck their society. I say fuck the white people". Wolfe routinely used racial slurs in his letters to his brother as he asked Richard in one letter about prisons in eastern Canada "are there a lot of honkeys over that way or a lot of niggers?" In Wolfe's ideology, Canada was an illegal "settler colonist" state that occupied land that rightfully belonged to the First Nations peoples, and as such Canadian society itself was criminal to its very core while he was not bound by any of the laws of Canada. Wolfe did not see himself as a criminal, but rather as a heroic "street soldier" who was nobly resisting the criminal "settler colonist" Canadian state. The concept of the "street soldier" was central to Wolfe's ideology as he saw the world as a cruel, merciless place dominated by a Darwinian struggle for survival, and that Canadian society was so systematically racist that First Nations peoples needed "street soldiers" such as the Indian Posse to defend themselves.

In one of his poems written about a white man, Jeff Giles, killed while resisting an Indian Posse robbery in early 2000, Wolfe wrote: "Because I cause destruction To Your Society/With no sympathy/Fuck your public heroes/Giles who?/pump on his chest/As I sit here and laugh with mad with joy/He never knew the meaning of an AR". In another of his poems, Wolfe wrote: "Stop taking our rights/Stop taking our land/Stop taking our humanity/Stop taking our lives/Civilization is isolation/No tradition in urban cities/We trying to make it work/Hurt is all we feel and see/Pain is all we have". In the spring of 2000, Wolfe became the chairman of the Native Brotherhood Organization, which allowed him an important role in the prison life. Wolfe tried to resume his schooling with the aim of obtaining his high school diploma. He had an intense hatred of the Manitoba Warriors and when he learned that one of his cousins had joined the Warriors he wrote to Richard: "He went with the Warriors, so fuck him. Treat him like a bitch now". In May 2000, he was present when a Manitoba Warrior was stabbed, an action that he either committed himself or ordered, but he was not charged when the victim refused to testify against him.

In January 2001, Wolfe was returned to Stony Mountain, only to be expelled on 15 March 2001 as he became involved in a number of violent incidents with imprisoned members of the Manitoba Warriors, most notably a brawl in the prison washroom. Wolfe was angry about being returned to Saskatchewan Penitentiary as it meant no more visits with his son. Upon his return to Prince Albert, Wolfe became obsessed with The Sopranos TV show while showing an interest in First Nations spirituality. Wolfe also became interested in history and his cell was decorated with photographs of 19th century native leaders such as Big Bear, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull. Wolfe became very much interested in the Battle of Little Bighorn, where in 1876 a force of Lakota, under the leadership of Crazy Horse, annihilated the 7th Cavalry Regiment of United States Army cavalry, under the command of General George Armstrong Custer, as an example of First Nations resistance to white settlement. The Battle of Cut Knife in 1885 where a force of Cree warriors, under the command Poundmaker, defeated the Canadian militia and the North-West Mounted Police, under the command of Sir William Otter, which might have been a more apt battle for Wolfe, did not inspire the same level of interest in him because no Hollywood films had been made about that battle, unlike the Battle of Little Bighorn. Wolfe started to attend sweat lodges and expressed the wish to learn Cree. He expressed much anger when he learned that a First Nations elder who visited the prison to serve as a counsellor was instead receiving fellatio from the prisoners, leading Wolfe to complain "they're supposed to be helping us, not getting us to suck them off". Wolfe, committed to the image of being a "strong" warrior type, always denied that he was sexually abused as he insisted he was too strong to be abused. However, in one of his poems he wrote in prison he declared: "All I ask for is help/But no-one is there/For I have been abused/In all kinds of ways/I cry and hide my emotions/From everyone and everywhere/They beat me, they raped me/Burned me/That is only some of the things/They did to torture me".

In July 2001, Wolfe was the prime suspect behind the beating and stabbing of a prisoner who crossed the Indian Posse, but he was not charged. In 2001, Creeley stopped her substance abuse and drinking and started to work as a counsellor to troubled First Nations youth. She started to press for her sons to reform. Upon learning that he was going to be transferred to Renous prison in New Brunswick which had few Indian Posse members in a bid to curb his trouble-making, Wolfe tried to escape. In October 2001, Wolfe was transferred to the Atlantic Institution in Renous. As Wolfe, along with two others, were the only Indian Posse prisoners at the Atlantic Institution, he was frequently beaten up by the more numerous Manitoba Warriors imprisoned at the same institution. A Manitoba Warrior smashed Wolfe's head into the cement wall so violently that he had to be hospitalized. For his own protection, Wolfe was placed in segregation for six months. In April 2002, Wolfe was transferred to the Donnacona Institution outside of Quebec City. In 2003, he was moved to the Cowansville Institution. Wolfe received a letter from a woman who complained about the "pretty disgusting" way that the Indian Posse treated women who went on to tell him "you guys were great. These new guys are jerks...The seniors need to step in, show these new young guys the proper way of things!". From his cell, Wolfe ordered the murder of another Indian Posse member, Gene Malcom, who was shot in the head on 26 September 2003, but survived.

Despite his dislike of white people, at Cowansville, Wolfe became a protégé of Gerald Matticks, the leader of the West End Gang of Montreal. Matticks came from an Irish family in Montreal and had grown up in extreme poverty. As a man who came from a "minority within a minority" as Montreal has a French-Canadian majority while its substantial English-speaking minority is of mostly British extraction, Matticks had a similar sense of exclusion felt by Wolfe. Matticks is illiterate and Wolfe read and wrote letters for him. Wolfe wrote in a letter to his brother about Matticks: "running the fucking shit yet he couldn't read or write". Wolfe described Matticks as the most intelligent and ablest gangster he ever met. Matticks served as a surrogate father to Wolfe who recounted to him tales of how the West End Gang had fought off the Mafia to take control of the Port of Montreal. Under the influence of Matticks, Wolfe became a calmer man. From October 2003 to July 2004, there were no incidents involving Wolfe at prison, and in the spring of 2004 a prison official wrote about the "wholly different picture" of Wolfe who had become a model inmate. On 14 July 2004, Wolfe was released on parole due to good behavior. At the time of his release, Wolfe had $209 on his person and no drivers' license (he always failed his driving tests), no health card and no Indian status card.

Wolfe worked briefly as a part-time general labourer at Silverado Demolition in Regina, but resigned when a time conflict emerged with a course he was taking. Wolfe's parole officer, James Squire, wrote: "Daniel's overall attitude to the criminal justice system and conventional institutions was adversarial to say the least. He openly admits to having had an "Us versus Them" attitude towards the police and other such authority figures and generally saw society as being dominated by white systems governed by white rules that made the white richer and the Indian suffer...Daniel readily admits to feeling that he had no legitimate ways of making a living, so crime became a full time job as a means to attain food, clothing and a place to stay". Squire believed that a course Wolfe had taken in Cree religion in prison had helped him, and learning the "old ways" had made Wolfe into a better man. In October 2004, Wolfe moved in with his mother at the Okanese reserve. Creely as a reformed woman was determined to put a stop to Wolfe's substance abuse and wanted him to abide by his parole conditions. At Okanese, Wolfe worked as a rancher and his new parole officer, Sandra Lavalley, described him as a changed man who wanted to be a good father to his son. After a New Year's Party on 1 January 2005, Wolfe started to engage in substance abuse again to such an extent that his mother reported him to Lavalley. On 25 January 2005, Creely and Lavalley confronted Wolfe about his substance abuse and warned him that he would go back to prison if he did not seek help. Wolfe broke into in one of his usual rages and stated that he did not want to be treated like a child. Finally, Wolfe admitted that he had resumed his substance abuse, and promised to stop in exchange for not being sent back to prison. On 9 June 2005, Lavalley confronted Wolfe with evidence that he had broken his promise and started substance abuse again, along with evidence that he was having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Lavalley informed him that he would be going back to prison for his parole violations. Wolfe started that he needed to pack his possessions before returning to prison, but instead fled. After spending two weeks in hiding, Wolfe returned to Winnipeg. He did not seek to maintain contact with his 15 year old girlfriend, Shenoa, who was three months' pregnant with his child.

In his letters to his brother, Wolfe described Winnipeg as far worse than the city he had known as a child writing "it's crazy" as prostitution and drug abuse were more rampant than it had been in the 1980s-1990s. Wolfe was approached by Michael Sandham, the president of the Winnipeg chapter of the Bandidos with an offer to have the Indian Posse join the Bandidos, an offer that Wolfe rejected out of hand, not the least was because he did not want to be an outlaw biker and certainly not subordinate to Sandham. Wolfe resumed working as a drug dealer, but was brought down when his business partner was arrested, which led the police to him. In September 2005, Wolfe was sent back to Stony Mountain prison. The Indian Posse faction at Stony Mountain was riddled with intrigue and feuds. On 13 April 2004, one of the leaders held at Stony Mountain, Brad Maytwayashing, had been beaten up and expelled from the gang, an action that Wolfe had approved of. One of the Indian Posse leaders who had beaten Maywayashing was Sheldon McKay, a member of the ruling circle (council). As a teenager, McKay had killed his girlfriend's mother by slashing her throat and leaving her to bleed to death. In another incident shortly after his release from prison in 1999 McKay had beaten to death Adrian Bruyere, a member of a rival gang, the Nine-O's, by kicking in his head. Detective James Jewell of the Winnipeg police who had arrested McKay for Bruyere's murder called him the "personification of evil". McKay was an intriguer who sought total control of the Indian Posse and planned to eliminate the other leaders. Travis Personius, an Indian Posse member who served as McKay's bodyguard in prison recalled that McKay would strike his followers with his fists to show his power as he knew that they would never dare to strike back, saying of him: "He was an asshole". Kim, a First Nations woman who worked as a prison counsellor, described Wolfe as a much better behaved inmate than the usual Indian Posse prisoner, saying: "he was a very compassionate guy". Kim stated that despite their superficial friendship that there was much tension between McKay and Wolfe as McKay was jealous of Wolfe's popularity.

The McKay murder In April 2006, an inmate smuggled in a stash of painkillers, which McKay seized for himself, and then gave to another inmate when a search was ordered of his cell. Wolfe was able to obtain the pills and used all of them for himself, an act which greatly angered McKay. Wolfe contacted an Indian Posse member serving a life sentence at Stony Mountain to say it was necessary to have McKay killed before McKay had him killed. One Indian Posse member stated he was shocked by the way that Wolfe went in an instant from being warm and friendly to being cold and calculating as he stated: "Even though he's the nicest guy, he's fucking sinister. Even if you're his best friend he'll kill you". Wolfe along with a fellow Indian Posse founder Ray Armstrong went to see another Indian Posse leader, Jeffrey Bruyere, who was making a shiv (a homemade knife) and who agreed to join their plot. On the evening of 3 May 2006 while McKay was watching TV in his prison cell, a delegation of Indian Posse leaders consisting of Wolfe, Armstrong, Bruyere, Adrien Young and Raymond Chartrand entered the cell.

Wolfe asked McKay "What's up? So you think you're the man?" As McKay rose to confront them, Wolfe threw the first punch while Chartrand grabbed him from behind. After beating McKay up, Wolfe announced "this guy's not leaving this cell". He placed a white cloth around McKay's neck, and each took turns strangling McKay to death to ensure all were equally culpable. Personius observed that when Wolfe left the cell, he was holding the murder weapon as far as possible from himself. Wolfe and the others spent the rest of the night destroying any evidence that might incriminate them.

The next day the guards discovered McKay's corpse rotting in his cell, and ordered a lockdown. McKay's girlfriend had arrived at Stony Mountain for a conjugal visit and while she was undressing in the conjugal visit room, a guard went to McKay's cell to wake him up. As McKay remained in the bed, the guard was heard to shout "what the fuck, you dead or something?" As McKay remained still, the guard walked into the cell and was struck by the smell of the decomposing corpse. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police interviewed all of the prisoners, but was unable to obtain sufficient evidence to charge Wolfe, though he remained the prime suspect. Wolfe did not speak of the murder to anyone other than a brief comment to an undercover policeman that "the fucker deserved it" as he accused McKay of being power-hungry and stated he was "plotting against brothers, doing greasy things behind other people's backs and spending money from the kitty". The lockdown ended in July 2006 and Wolfe was released from prison in November 2006. Besides for traditional archenemies such as the Manitoba Warriors and the Native Syndicate, the Indian Posse was being challenged by two new Afro-Canadian gangs, the African Mafia and the Mad Cowz, which led Wolfe to argue that the Indian Posse needed a massive recruitment drive. After his release, Wolfe moved to Saskatchewan to recruit more members.

Murder spree Wolfe settled on the Okanese reserve in Saskatchewan which he used as a base to set up several new Indian Posse chapters on various reserves in the spring and summer of 2007. He lived in the basement of the house of his cousin Tatiana in a room decorated with pictures of rappers such as Dr. Dre and 50 Cent along with photographs of Indian Posse members arranged in the shape of the Indian Posse logo. In May 2007, he was arrested for marijuana possession and the use of a false ID. By the summer of 2007 Wolfe had recruited 400 new members into the Indian Posse. Despite his work as a recruiter for the Indian Posse, Wolfe with apparently no sense of irony, worked as an anti-gang counsellor at local high schools, where in exchange for a fee, he denounced his own gang. Because of an increase in crime on the Opaskwayak Cree reserve, the band elders asked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to build a new station on the reserve. While under construction, Wolfe had the station burned down twice. One of the arsonists, a Cree teenager known only as James due to a court order, later testified that Wolfe had told him not to worry about facing charges as he was underage and the police would forget about the arson within five years. Wolfe talked about sending James to Europe to buy heroin as he maintained that he had connections with the Triads (Chinese organized crime) who were willing to sell to the Indian Posse. By 2007, Wolfe was a tricenarian, which made him an old man by Indian Posse standards, and his leadership was being challenged by younger men, which made upholding his underworld reputation as the most dangerous Indian Posse member all the more important for him. In one of his letters, Wolfe complained that he was now the oldest member in the Indian Posse, but insisted: "I can still rock'n'roll like an young guy! Haha! Still pick up the honeys like crazy". One night in mid-September 2007, Wolfe, under the influence of alcohol, fired off a .22 rifle into the darkness from the front deck, leading to his neighbour, Ernest Tuckanow, to call the File Hills tribal police to say that he saw Wolfe blasting away at a tree, which had woken him up. Wolfe did not pick up the shell castings from his shooting exercise, which were later discovered by the Mounties.

On 20 September 2007, Danny Wolfe was involved in a verbal dispute in a bar in Fort Qu'Appelle with Bernard Percy Pascal, a member of the rival Native Syndicate. Wolfe was drinking at the Trapper's Bar when Pascal noticed that he had Indian Posse tattoos on his arm and went up to confront him, telling him that Fort Qu'Appelle belonged to the Native Syndicate and that he should leave. Wolfe took off one of his socks, placed a pool ball in it and used it as a weapon. Through Pascal had retreated, Wolfe's ego had been damaged by the insults he had taken in public, and he was full of desire for revenge. Wolfe had written down the license plate of Pascal's blue pick-up truck as he drove away. The bartender heard Wolfe say to someone on his cell phone: "They don't know what's coming for them". Wolfe went to his cousin's house where he borrowed her van and a gun. He called for his friend Gerrard Granbois and "James" to join him. After two hours cruising around Fort Qu'Appelle, he found Pascal's truck parked outside of the house at 302 Pasqua Avenue and parked the van a short distance away. The house at 302 Pasaqua Avenue belonged to a couple, Christina Cook and Marvin Arnault. Cook, known to everyone as "Granny", was a 63-year old First Nations woman who liked to take in troubled youth into her house as a way to prevent them from living on the street. A group of young people who were friends of her grandson were staying at her house that night, and one of them was Pascal. After getting out of the van, Wolfe used his red bandanna as a face mask and along with James headed towards Pascal's house. Wolfe broke into Pascal's house and started shooting everybody he saw. At 8:30 pm on 24 August, Wolfe told Preston Buffalocalf that this was the night to break out. Using their tools, the Wolfe brothers smashed a hole though the wall of the jail later that night. Wolfe used a blanket to cover himself as he crawled under the barbed wire fence. Wolfe reached the top of the wall and jumped down 15 feet to the ground. Wolfe climbed over two more fences to reach freedom. Joined by his half-brother Preston and Cody Keenatch and Ken Iron, Wolfe walked across the fields to a railroad, which the group used to walk down to Regina. At 8:50 pm, the Regina police called the correctional centre to say that an informer had just told them that Wolfe had escaped. It was only at 10:08 pm that the jail confirmed that Wolfe had indeed escaped. The first of the group who escaped to be arrested was Ken Iron, who was apprehended at a hockey arena at 11:15 pm by a policeman who recognized him. Friesen noted that Wolfe had executed one of the "most spectacular prison breaks in Canadian history" as he escaped from a maximum security wing. However, Friesen noted there is a strong possibility that Wolfe's escape had been made possible by corruption as he made thousands of dollars selling drugs within the jail to the other inmates; several guards at the Regina Correctional Centre had been convicted of corruption for allowing the drugs in; and the jail staff seemed suspiciously indifferent to reports from the police that a break-out was being planned in the summer of 2008. At 3 am, Wolfe and his followers reached Regina, bloody from the cuts caused by the barbed wire. To provide themselves with a vehicle, the group stole a car they found parked on the street. The group drove out to the Okanese reserve to see Wolfe's cousin Tatiana Buffalocalf to pick up sleeping bags. Wolfe drove out to an area called the Big Bush, where he slept.

The RCMP was so embarrassed by Wolfe's escape that initially the public was not informed. Sergeant Brent Ross of the Mounties was assigned to recapture Wolfe. Over the protests of the Saskatchewan government, Ross had a press release informing the Canadian people that six prisoners, all charged with murder, had escaped from the Regina Correctional Centre. The manhunt for Danny Wolfe across the Prairies, who was described by the police as highly dangerous, attracted much media attention.

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