～くらいなら／～ぐらいなら・・・


> ディオ「や・・・殺るか・・・い・・・いや
> 今はまずいッ！警察を介入させるぐらいなら最初からやっているッ！目的はあくまでこの家の財産！完全犯罪でなくてはならん！」

A short excerpt from the ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 manga. Quick backstory to the
aforementioned quote: Dio, who has been adopted into the Joestar family, has
been targetting their wealth for years and hopes to inherit it upon the death
of his adoptive father. In order to achieve that, he's been a good son ever
since gaining his trust over the years and is now trying to realize his goal
by poisoning his adoptive father. Jojo, who's actually the real son, has found
out about Dio's plans and beat him up for it. The quote is what Dio is
thinking right afterwards.

Going from what I know about「～くらいなら／～ぐらいなら」(rather B than A), my first
instinct would have been to translate it as "rather than involve the police,
I'd start from the beginning", but the やっている is throwing me off. Why is it ている
and not やる or やりなおす? My other idea for a translation would be "if I already
were to involve the police, I might as well have killed him from the
beginning" which sounds more reasonable to me, but it'd kinda go against what
I know about「～くらいなら／～ぐらいなら」structurally. I'm also not sure if やる here is the
same as 殺る mentioned right before, but since they're so near each other, I
could imagine it meaning "to kill" here.

Could anybody help me out here?




The meaning here is:  
警察の介入も止むを得ないつもりであったなら、最初から殺している

This is however quite awkward to say, so it can be changed to:  
警察を介入させるつもりであったなら、最初から殺している

And then:  
警察を介入させるぐらいなら、最初から殺っている

