Posts Tagged ‘homicide’
Natasha Moar homicide: An accounting and some questions
“See this girl she was treated like a nobody noone came to help her fight in court,not one person came forward to say hey i seen him abuse her.where was everyone fat mouths when she needed help today.there was no fucken justice today not even a fair trial…56 months for taking a life so brutally.” […]
Nigel Dixon homicide; the atmosphere in which it happened
Why? It’s the question which routinely gnaws at most acts of horrific violence anywhere, and one police investigators and prosecutors often foist themselves on while trying to resolve cases, make arrests and bring criminals to justice. The callous April 2 broad-daylight murder of Nigel Dixon, 20, in the 500 block of Langside Street is no […]
Kines heading back for new murder trial: The Court of Appeal’s reasons
Manitoba’s top court issued reasons Wednesday on why it sent accused killer Jason Allen Kines back to trial on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated sexual assault and sexual interference in connection to the death of Venecia Audy, 3, in August 2006.
Justice Brian Midwinter acquitted Kines after weeks of evidence being put forward at a Dauphin jury trial earlier this year.
The Court of Appeal ruled last week that Midwinter was wrong to take the case out of the hands of the jury after ruling bite-mark evidence put forward by the Crown though a dental expert didn’t go far enough to prove Kines was the biter “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Below are excerpts of the appeals court panel’s reasons. A new trial date for Kines is pending and he remains free on bail in Saskatoon. He is presumed innocent.
[Reasons authored by Justice Richard Chartier, on behalf of Barbara Hamilton, Marc Monnin and himself.]
“The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was multiple blunt-force trauma resulting from non-accidental trauma. The victim had a combination of lacerations, bruises and human bite marks all over her body. Her vagina had been torn and bite marks were found just above her vagina.”
“A forensic odontologist testified that [Kines] had a “very highly unusual” dentition that lined up with most of the bite marks on the body. He definitively excluded the other member of the household as being the biter for all but one bite mark. The expert testified that the accused was “most likely” the biter. He also said that he was “very confident” in his identification of the accused and explained that “probable” identification was as definite a designation as his discipline allowed, except in rare circumstances.”
Midwinter’s principal reason he took the case from jury, Chartier said, was “his conclusion that the evidence identifying the accused as the biter did “not give rise at law to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Because it was only “probable,” that led him to conclude there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction.
“The judge in this case appears to have failed to differentiate the question of whether the Crown met its burden on a directed verdict test (the evidentiary burden) with whether the Crown met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt (the burden of proof).”
Evidentiary Burden = determines whether an issue should be left with trier of fact.
Burden of Proof = “determines how the issue should be decided.”
“The first is for the judge; the second is for the jury.” “Moreover, the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard” has no direct application on a judge’s consideration of a directed verdict motion.”
“The judge’s conflation of the evidentiary burden with the ultimate burden of proof caused him to engage, to an impermissible degree, in a weighing of the evidence, to the point of determining questions which fell within the jury’s purview. We also agree with the Crown that the judge failed to consider the circumstantial evidence in its totality. Given that we are ordering a new trial, we will simply state that there was other contextual evidence which the judge did not seem to consider. In our view, the Crown’s suggested inferences fall within a range of inferences a jury could reasonably draw. As such, there was some evidence that the person accused of the offences was the perpetrator of the offences.”
“… In the end, the judge’s conclusion that the identification evidence in this case does not meet the test on a directed verdict motion cannot be allowed to stand. Whether the evidence adduced but he Crown will ultimately be sufficient to meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable count will be for the jury to decide.”
-30-
Answers needed in Malcolm domestic-violence murder case
(Sandi-Lynn Malcolm/Facebook)
The provincial government, Justice Minister Andrew Swan and those sitting on the provincial domestic violence Death Review Committee must turn their minds to investigating what happened to Sandi-Lynn Malcolm.
Nothing short of a full and frank examination into how a young aboriginal girl can be serially abused by her ex-partner on a small reserve — only to end up brutally killed by his hands, will suffice.
It’s my view the public should be protesting — as Malcolm’s family and friends have done — to bring attention to her case in hopes of rooting out others like it before it’s too late.
What happened to this girl should not have happened and we should be sickened by it.
After sitting with the facts of Malcolm’s killing for only a short time now, I believe she was failed on a fundamental level, for a number of reasons:
She lived in an isolated environment that had few resources or opportunities for intervention.
Warning signs — including those expressed through her own words to police — that something awful was going to happen weren’t heeded to the degree they should have.
And, (I suppose it goes without saying) Malcolm suffered a fatal consequence in her continued association with a violent human being who urged her to “trust him.”
He repaid her undeserved trust with unspeakable violence.
She was only 17 years old, though. A kid. We can’t lose sight of this.
Answers must be sought.
Here’s why.
“There. I done what had to be done.” — Ronald Racette Jr.
On the night of Jan. 30, 2010 RCMP who police the Ebb and Flow community got a call from Malcolm’s mother, saying her teen daughter was covered with cuts and had black eyes.
Sandi-Lynn gives an official statement, in which she alleges her ex-boyfriend, Ronald Racette Jr., 19, had brutally assaulted her at his father’s home. He punched her, hit her with a lamp, whipped her with the lamp’s cord and then tried to choke her with it.
A check of Racette’s record on CPIC would have alerted police to the fact of his prior domestic-abuse history.
“I should just kill you,” she reported Racette Jr. as telling her. There were no other witnesses, she told police, who photographed her bruises and cuts.
Less than two weeks later, on Feb. 8, Sandi-Lynn picks up the phone wanting to report the violence Racette Jr. put her through a day prior .
She gives another statement: Sandi-Lynn, covered in bruises, tells RCMP that her vow to stay away from Racette Jr. collapsed when he phoned her, pitifully saying he hadn’t eaten in two days.
“She said she had a soft heart and felt sorry for him,” court was told. “He told her to trust him … she did.”
Sandi-Lynn brings Racette Jr. something to eat. They were “getting along fine,” she said.
But when she said she had to go to work on her resume — she hoped to get a job as a cashier in a store — he grew angry.
While out for a walk, Sandi-Lynn was made to run through deep snow, was knocked down and kicked and pummelled while being accused of being unfaithful while he was in jail.
“She told him she didn’t want to die like that.”
Sandi-Lynn’s next words to police were alarmingly prophetic:
“Everybody had told her not to take him back because the next time, he’ll kill you, but she didn’t listen,” court heard of her police statement.
A raging Racette Jr. continually asked her if “she wanted to die.”
“I should just kill you and kill myself,” he said. They were near a creek in the community. He threatened to just throw her in there, “where no-one would find her.”
Sandi-Lynn’s survival skills kicked in. She offset his volatility by “pretending to love him” — putting on a “big front” in hopes of getting away from him alive.
He kept beating her, and made her stay outside, shoeless, in the freezing cold. “She said she felt like she was being kept hostage or something,” RCMP heard.
Racette Jr. wasn’t drinking, Sandi-Lynn said.
After giving her statement, RCMP set out to look for him. At the second community home they came to, Racette Jr. is seen fleeing into some bushes.
Cops chased him on foot but couldn’t catch up. A warrant issues but he’s not caught.
He’d re-emerge just over two weeks later for his last night of freedom.
A recounting of Sandi-Lynn’s last hours were presented to the court through witness testimony from people who were around Sandi-Lynn in her last hours and minutes.
On the evening of Feb. 26, Sandi-Lynn and a group of girlfriends scored a 30-pack of beer, but didn’t set about drinking heavily. She used the phone at one point, and reported the party was happening at Racette Jr.’s dad’s home.
It’s believed she was talking to Racette Jr. in this call. He turned up not long after.
Before he came to get the girls and their remaining 24 cans of beer, Sandi-Lynn asked her friends to “watch over her and not let him be alone with her.”
He picked them up in a nondescript “black car.”
Instead of driving directly to the party, Racette Jr. took a route past a local cemetery and stopped the vehicle.
“This is where we are all going to end up,” he said.
A ‘trail of knives’
Once at the party, it didn’t take long for Racette Jr. to become irate. Sandi-Lynn refused him a request to go alone with him to another room.
Not long after, Sandi-Lynn and another friend were horsing around, just being girls. “She’s my girl now,” the friend joked to Racette Jr.
Racette Jr. responds by punching the friend in the face four times, an assault only stopped after others intervened to pull him off.
He goes outside for a few moments. Returns. Another request of Sandi-Lynn is made for the two to be alone. Another refusal from her.
This. The last straw. He tosses an ashtray in her direction and begins grabbing knives.
“A number of people went and hid in Ronald Sr.’s bedroom because they feared something terrible was going to happen,” Justice Midwinter was told.
They had no idea how awful it was going to get. Sandi-Lynn and another woman who had come to collect her young son from the home fled to a bathroom.
Another witness reported seeing a “trail of knives” leading to the bathroom door.
‘The cops are coming’
I won’t recount what happens next, other than to say a jealous and enraged Racette Jr. committed acts of such brutal and extreme violence on Sandi-Lynn that hearing the extent of her injuries was truly jarring.
47 stab wounds don’t even amount to half of the total number of injuries a pathologist totalled up. Dr. Charles Littman noted 105 “incidents of trauma” on her.
One of Sandi-Lynn’s friends tried to stop the attack by stabbing Racette Jr. in the back as he murdered the teen. It only served to anger him more.
“He looks at her with an evil look and went charging after her.”
He made his way to his father’s bedroom — they unlocked the door to let him in — where people cowered in fear. Children had to be out out the window for fear of their safety.
“Why did you do that? You killed that girl,” his dad told him. “You better get out of here, the cops are coming.”
Racette Jr. didn’t reply. He went back to the bathroom where Sandi-Lynn was and turned on the shower.
A witness says he left the house shortly after, leaving these haunting words in the gloom:
“There. I done what had to be done.”
Efforts to revive Sandi-Lynn didn’t work. It took 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
Police caught up with Racette Jr. at his aunt’s home, where he was wrapped in a blanket, being comforted by a relative.
’Our little reserve is not a war zone’
There was little defence lawyer Todd Bourcier could say in defence of what Racette Jr. did — acts the now 21-year-old pleaded guilty to doing.
But Bourcier raised some credible points about the lack of intervention and other resources in the community for domestic abusers and abuse victims alike.
The nearest women’s shelter from Ebb and Flow (on-reserve population of 1,200 or so) is in Dauphin, a distance of 50 kilometres away.
Options for counselling for men is limited, even to address what he termed the “surface concerns” for offenders with histories of abusing their partners.
And certainly nothing to address Racette Jr.’s specific needs as an angry, jealous, ill-educated, booze-and-drug abusing violent offender of a horrible background, now convicted murderer.
There’s one band constable on reserve, and the nearest RCMP detachment is in St. Rose du Lac, about 35 or 40 kilometres away, according to an online description of the band’s operations.
Despite the small number of people living in the community, between December, January and February, cops responded to 465 service calls, 78 of them regarding violence, Bourcier said.
It goes without saying Sandi-Lynn’s family and friends have been wrecked by not just her death, but also how she died. She was just weeks away from her 18th birthday.
I was there at the Manitoba Legislature a few days after Racette Jr. was charged with her murder when Sandi-Lynn’s relatives and friends travelled the 300 k.m. into the city to hold a candlelit vigil and peaceful protest to condemn domestic violence.
(Malcolm’s family and friends hold candlelight vigil at the legislature)
“Our little reserve is not a war zone. Things like this should not happen,” her dad, Kingsley Malcolm, told me at the time.
They did the same thing in 2011, this time, her cousin calling for more attention to be paid to what happened:
“At the time of Sandi’s death the Olympics were closing, so there was not much coverage about her. We needed to bring it to the public’s attention,” she said. “I felt I needed to do this so we could honour her and bring people together to support one another. (from missingmanitobawomen.blogspot.ca published Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011)
Racette Jr.’s sentencing judge, Justice Brian Midwinter, was clearly aggrieved at the underlying circumstances informing Sandi-Lynn’s death, telling the gallery:
There were no resources in the community for Mr. Racette to access … and I have to deal with a vicious attack unprovoked by anything the victim did.
Would it be too much of a stretch to believe that the simply sad domestic-violence resource situation in Ebb and Flow is markedly different from countless other isolated Manitoba communities out there?
Today, using the only tiny power I have — this forum — I’m calling on the Manitoba government to task its domestic violence Death Review Committee to investigate Sandi-Lynn’s murder, the circumstances that led up to it and issue a public report on its findings.
Further reading:
Father of slain teen condemns domestic abuse
Missing and Murdered Manitoba Women on the Malcolm case
Domestic violence on the docket
Domestic violence: Province of Manitoba
Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (Free Press, update article in 2011)
Province announces Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (2010)
Time to end the ‘superjuice’ scourge
(It’s no joke/WinnipegCat)
“A lot of the violence up here is attributed to superjuice. A lot of (people) are drunk when they are fighting each other, especially the gangs.” — Edwin Wood, an Island Lake probation officer, 2009 ( Winnipeg Sun link)
To my mind, there’s little better indicator of a damaged society than any where so-called “superjuice” is allowed to exist and be sold by the 2-litre.
Slammed and damned for years now given its havoc-wreaking influence on so-called “dry” communities (typically isolated ones) in Manitoba, little has been (or can be) done, apparently, to stem the tide of violence superjuice causes.
I wrote about the alarming influence of superjuice on the Garden Hill First Nation today as part of a sentencing hearing for two kids who bashed a guy to death while hopped up on the homebrew.
[As an aside, note lawyer John Corona has been sounding the same alarm about superjuice now for years.]
It probably won’t surprise any that calls regarding the harm superjuice causes has been ongoing for many years. (link also describes how it’s made and the immense profits from selling it).
It appears nothing has changed in all that time.
A report recently written for the court still describes high prevalence of superjuice in Garden Hill.
Aside from the fact it reinforces my “Manitoba has a drinking problem” beliefs, I’m simply shocked more can’t be done to stem the smuggling of superjuice yeast into northern communities.
They’re not that big. Garden Hill is about 3,300 people.
Until this problem gets dealt with, we’ll continue to see the cycle of extreme violence in communities. And to me, that’s just wrong.
I wonder if the province made interdiction of superjuice a priority when penning the newest municipal policing contract with the RCMP? (It’s in effect for two decades).
Should the aboriginal groups contesting the issuing of the contract without their input win their case, will they?
There are things we can do about out horrific crime issues that don’t require groveling to Ottawa for permission.
Eradicating superjuice would be but one of them.
FURTHER READING:
(Unsurprisingly, I can find no government reports, stats or anything beyond media reports about the superjuice issue)
Reserves plagued by potent superjuice (Toronto Star)
Superjuice linked to Garden Hill First Nation death (CBC)
Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba call for ban on sale of yeast
Leaders brew up law to fight superjuice (WFP)
Time to end the ‘superjuice’ scourge
(It’s no joke/WinnipegCat)
“A lot of the violence up here is attributed to superjuice. A lot of (people) are drunk when they are fighting each other, especially the gangs.” — Edwin Wood, an Island Lake probation officer, 2009 ( Winnipeg Sun link)
To my mind, there’s little better indicator of a damaged society than any where so-called “superjuice” is allowed to exist and be sold by the 2-litre.
Slammed and damned for years now given its havoc-wreaking influence on so-called “dry” communities (typically isolated ones) in Manitoba, little has been (or can be) done, apparently, to stem the tide of violence superjuice causes.
I wrote about the alarming influence of superjuice on the Garden Hill First Nation today as part of a sentencing hearing for two kids who bashed a guy to death while hopped up on the homebrew.
[As an aside, note lawyer John Corona has been sounding the same alarm about superjuice now for years.]
It probably won’t surprise any that calls regarding the harm superjuice causes has been ongoing for many years. (link also describes how it’s made and the immense profits from selling it).
It appears nothing has changed in all that time.
A report recently written for the court still describes high prevalence of superjuice in Garden Hill.
Aside from the fact it reinforces my “Manitoba has a drinking problem” beliefs, I’m simply shocked more can’t be done to stem the smuggling of superjuice yeast into northern communities.
They’re not that big. Garden Hill is about 3,300 people.
Until this problem gets dealt with, we’ll continue to see the cycle of extreme violence in communities. And to me, that’s just wrong.
I wonder if the province made interdiction of superjuice a priority when penning the newest municipal policing contract with the RCMP? (It’s in effect for two decades).
Should the aboriginal groups contesting the issuing of the contract without their input win their case, will they?
There are things we can do about out horrific crime issues that don’t require groveling to Ottawa for permission.
Eradicating superjuice would be but one of them.
FURTHER READING:
(Unsurprisingly, I can find no government reports, stats or anything beyond media reports about the superjuice issue)
Reserves plagued by potent superjuice (Toronto Star)
Superjuice linked to Garden Hill First Nation death (CBC)
Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba call for ban on sale of yeast
Leaders brew up law to fight superjuice (WFP)
Shawn Lamb: the record, for the record
(Chris Procaylo/Winnipeg Sun/QMI)
In recent days, many have requested the publication of accused Winnipeg serial killer Shawn Lamb’s extensive record of criminal court convictions in full, given his case has raised so many questions about chronic offending.
I present it here, in full, for the public record.
Entries listed note the court centre where the convictions were entered, the charge and the resulting sentence imposed.
Background on what you’re about to read below can be found here, here, here, and here. And here.
- 1976/08/18 Toronto
Attempt Fraud
Conditional Discharge, 1 yr probation
- 1976/11/02 Barrie
Theft over $200
Theft under $200
Breach probation
Break, enter and commit offence
6 months jail on the theft over, with lesser periods noted concurrent on other charges.
- 1979/04/13 Barrie
Break, enter and theft
18 months jail, the sentence was appealed and reduced to 9 months
- 1979/05/30 Barrie
Break, enter and theft
6 months jail consecutive to sentence already being served
- 1979/09/25 Barrie
Possession of a narcotic
15 days jail
- 1979/11/27 Guelph
Escape lawful custody
9 months consecutive to sentence already being served, later appealed down to time in custody.
- 1979/12/14 Port Hope
Mischief
30 days concurrent with sentence already being served
- 1980/07/07 Barrie
Drug possession
Possess for the purpose of trafficking x2
9 months and probation on possession, 2 years on the trafficking counts.
- 1980/12/21 Winnipeg
Armed robbery
Assault peace officer x2
2 years on the robbery, 6 months on each of the assault PO counts (consecutive)
- 1984-04-18 Winnipeg
Assault causing bodily harm
5 months jail
- 1984-11-29 Winnipeg
Theft under $200
1 month jail
- 1985-02-28 Winnipeg
Assault cause bodily harm
Mischief
6 months on the assault, 1 month concurrent on mischief. Assault sentence was hiked on appeal to 12 months to be followed by 18 months of probation.
- 1987-03-11 Barrie
Assault x2
Assault
Fail comply with bail conditions
6 months consecutive on the first two assaults, 3 months each on the other assault and bail breach, consecutive.
- 1987-08-20 Guelph
Attempted obstruction of justice
Assault
Fail comply with bail conditions
Fail attend court (in Calgary, Alberta)
Theft over $1,000
Fail comply with probation order
5 months less a day on each charge, concurrent
- 1988-06-06 Chilliwack, British Columbia
Assault
30 days and 2 years of probation
- 1988-08-05 Vancouver
Care and control of a vehicle while over .08
$600 fine and 40 days time in custody noted
- 1989-04-19 Edmonton
Mischief
$250 fine and 10 days time in custody noted
- 1989-11-15 Edmonton
Utter threats
Possession of a weapon
1 day jail on each charge.
- 1990-01-29 Edmonton
Uttering a forged document
30 days jail
- 1990-07-12 Edmonton
Theft under $1,000
Obstruct peace officer
$200 and 15 days time served on the theft; $50 and three days time served on the obstruct
- 1990-07-16 Edmonton
Theft over $1,000
3 months
- 1991-02-21 Edmonton (RCMP High Prairie arrest)
Theft under $1,000 x2
Fail to appear
Fail to attend court
Fail bail condition
$200 fine on thefts plus 20 days jail, $100 fine on fail appear plus 10 days, $100 fine plus 10 days on attend court breach, $200 plus 20 days on bail breach
- 1991-03-13 Slave Lake
Assault
5 months jail
- 1991-08-01 Edmonton
Theft under $1,000
$50 fine and 10 days TIC
- 1992-02-06 Slave Lake (Slave Lake RCMP arrest)
Sexual assault
4 years prison plus a 5 year firearms prohibition
- 1992-06-08 Innisfail
Fail to comply with probation order
30 days concurrent with prison sentence
1993-06-17
PAROLED
1994-06-29
PAROLE VIOLATION, RECOMMITTED TO PRISON
1995-11-28
STATUTORY RELEASE
1995-11-28
STAT RELEASE VIOLATION, RECOMMITTED TO PRISON
- 1996-07-05 Edmonton
Assault
9 months
- 1997-07-09 Edmonton
Fail to appear
Theft under $5,000
1 day on fail to appear, $150 fine and three days TIC on theft
- 1997-12-19 Edmonton
Break, enter and theft
4 month conditional sentence and 1 year probation
- 1998-09-17 Winnipeg
Possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000
Public mischief
3 months on each charge consecutive plus two years of probation
- 1999-06-23 Winnipeg
Utter forged document
Possession of property obtained by crime
30 days jail and a restitution order
- 2000-01-14 Winnipeg
Utter forged document
Possess property obtained by crime over $5,000
Utter forged document
Possess property obtained by crime under $5,000
Fail to comply with bail condition
45-day intermittent sentence on first 2 charges, 30-days intermittent on next two, 1 day on the bail breach
- 2000-04-06 Winnipeg
Unlawfully at large
30 days consecutive to sentence already being served
- 2000-09-11 Winnipeg
Unlawfully in a dwelling house
Assault cause bodily harm
Fail to comply with probation order
2 years jail and two years of probation
- 2001-09-11 Winnipeg
Possess property obtained by crime under $5,000
Fraud over $5,000
1 year jail on each charge concurrent
2001-09-22 Winnipeg
Possess property obtained by crime under $5,000
Fraud over $5,000
1 year concurrent with sentence already running
- 2002-03-26 Winnipeg
Utter threats
Time served of 68 days
- 2003-04-25 Winnipeg
Theft under $5,000
Utter threats
Assault peace officer
Time served of 6 months and 7 days
- 2004-12-24 Winnipeg
Fail to comply with bail order x2
Fail to appear
Time served of 45 days on each charge concurrent
- 2005-06-30 Winnipeg
Utter forged document
Break, enter and theft
Theft under $5,000
Theft over $5,000
Posess. property obtained by crime under $5,000
12 months jail with 11 months TIC noted and 3 years probation
- 2006-08-31 Winnipeg
Assault peace officer
Possess property obtained by crime under $5,000
Time served of 115 days
- 2007-09-07 Winnipeg
Possession of property obtained by crime under $5,000
Theft under $5,000
Posession of stolen credit card
6 months jail and 274 days of pre-sentence custody noted
- 2008-11-07 Winnipeg
Carry concealed weapon
Possess property obtained by crime
Time served of 205 days
- 2009-01-16 Winnipeg
Attempted Robbery
18 months conditional sentence, 3 years probation, supervised
- 2010-05-26 Winnipeg
Possession of property obtained by crime — motor vehicle
Forgery x9
Theft under $5,000
Robbery with violence x2
13.5 months at double credit (27 months) noted, 19 months going forward AND the resumption of the 2009 conditional sentence order and the 3 years supervised probation.
-30-
Accused serial killer Shawn Lamb and ‘the pain of being a rabbit’
(Shawn Lamb is arrested by Winnipeg police/Chris Procaylo/Winnipeg Sun/QMI)
Accused serial killer Shawn Lamb didn’t want to talk to me today, instead referring me to his lawyer, Evan Roitenberg through a very polite officer at the Winnipeg Remand Centre.
Roitenberg, always a gentleman, politely declined to discuss the triple second-degree murder case, in which Lamb is presumed innocent. He said he had little information and was awaiting disclosure from the Crown via police.
But that doesn’t mean Lamb, a career criminal with more than 100 convictions on his record, doesn’t have things to say.
Below, is a verbatim reprint of a handwritten piece of his original musings submitted to Judge Linda Giesbrecht on May 26, 2010 — the day where Giesbrecht sentenced him to serve 19 more months and Lamb ended up serving 13, despite his record.
“I’m just a coward pretending not to be afraid, sounding confident powerful, looking bold and fearsome as I could rip off the heads of my opponents.
But in my belly the wee bottom of my little belly is a boy still afraid, feeling alone, unknown if what he has will be enough to win to survive.
Hoping only hoping in its place I could feel the anger slowly filling up my empty belly and I loved the anger. It killed fear. It was easier to attack than to run.
It felt better to be lion not a rabbit. Oh, the pain of being a rabbit.
Once upon a time there was born a baby boy, a lovely indian boy as sweet and fat cheeked and gifted by the crater as any baby anywhere.
Except for the slightly darker hair and skin, he would have looked like your little boy and like your little boy he was born innocent, as innocent as a puppy.
Now take a puppy, when he comes up to you, tail wagging, you pick him up and love him, if you kick that innocent puppy instead “just kick him” and when he’s hungry you throw him out in the cold without food, and when he wants to be warm and safe you let the vicious neighbourhood dogs rip and tear at him, well, what about that, puppy?
How will that innocent puppy grow up?
A baby doesn’t choose where or to whom he is born, nor nationality, think, the nationality of an innocent baby is judged, treated.
An innocent baby deserves not to be torn apart from its mother, well the baby is the wrong nationality, expendable, send the child away, damn the damage this may cause.
The innocent child’s mind can not understand, “who are these strangers?” “WHY?” Why do they tease and torment and hurt this child body and soul?
The child’s psyche tortured, and with the innocent wonder of a child he can’t understand why the rights that even a puppy understands were taken from him, why as a member of this human species on the face of the earth he was do despised when he was so innocent.
He has only loved his mother, he had only done no wrong, but he was so despised and he felt the horrid heat of hate against him — why did they stomp out the last tiny vestiges of self-worth from this child? What wrong had he committed? Why was he kicked and beaten, raped and abused in both mind and body? Why?
The pain, the shame, the guilt, the confusion, this lost soul of a child (illegible word).
A path of anger, stealing, living on the streets, never enough drugs to escape the pain, dull the memories, the nightmares. A young boy in a man prison, a lost young man in prison, a middle-aged man in prison throughout all, a dim light, glimmer of hope a feeling of worth.
Ask for help unload the shame.
I’m wanting and worthy of a better life!”
-30-
Why was Shawn Lamb out of jail?
(Carolyn Sinclair)
Looking at the math, either I’m missing something about the recent release date of accused serial killer Shawn Lamb, or we need to seriously re-examine the early-release provisions regarding career criminals.
Today, Lamb is facing three second-degree murder charges in connection to the deaths of:
Tanya Nepinak (on Sept. 13, 2011)
Carolyn Sinclair (Dec. 18, 2011)
Lorna Blacksmith (Jan. 11, 2012)
On May 26, 2010, Lamb was sentenced by Judge Linda Giesbrecht (now retired) to the following after admitting guilt to 16 charges, including two violent robberies of innocent people.
27 months at double credit (his charges pre-dated the legislative amendment forbidding granting this to him) for time served on the robberies.
PLUS 19 months going forward of real jail for possession of property obtained by crime and forgery and theft, fraud and utter forged documents.
ONLY after this period of jail was served would the many months remaining on a Conditional Sentence he was given in Jan. 2009 for attempted robbery then begin to resume (to be followed by three years of supervised probation — court heard the sentence handed down in May 2010 would ultimately mean he’d be supervised in various forms for six years).
The Crown attorney was very specific in how she wanted the sentence structured.
If he was sentenced to 19 months real jail, that takes us to December 2011 before that in-custody period expired.
Looking at the offence dates police say the women were killed, that raises an issue. It would appear, on the surface, that Lamb was released many months prior to when he was supposed to be from a provincial jail.
I can accept in some cases early-release provisions apply for both federal and provincial inmates.
But in Lamb’s case, I can’t. This is an accused person with more than 100 prior convictions, many of them for violent acts and court order breaches — along with parole and statutory release violations.
How it was determined that he be granted early release — given his prior history — needs to be examined in detail.
Homicide and violence reduction
(James Turner)
It’s official. Winnipeg has broken its annual record for total number of homicides following the death of a man in the downtown Saturday.
That makes 35 ‘officially tallied’ killings (Criminal negligence causing death, dangerous driving causing death and impaired drive cause death cases aren’t counted.)
Now, it bears mentioning that five killings happened in once instance, during an alleged firebombing in Point Douglas this summer.
Nevertheless, here we are. A sad marker for our city, one that nobody likes to see.
On a positive note, I present here a few — a few — examples of what other cities with high rates of violent crime have tried to do to address the issue.
It’s interesting stuff all around.
1] Chicago:
Chicago’s CeaseFire program evaluation
2] Jacksonville, FLA.
Reducing Murder: A community response
3] District of Columbia
4] Richmond, Virginia
5] TAVIS Toronto (link)
The Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy
-30-
