Posts Tagged ‘murder’
Chris Campbell: Another tragic case of under-resourced mental health/criminal justice services?
While many facts remain yet to be proven or tested, it’s pretty clear something appears to have gone horribly wrong with Christopher Mackenzie Campbell. Campbell, at age 42, currently stands … Continue reading
Earned Parole: its time is now
“… The typical offender tends to have a history of substance abuse, a previous criminal history, a previous negative correctional history (escape, segregation, revocation of parole), low program completion rates and higher levels of imposed residency conditions at release.” — Correctional Service of Canada on Earned Parole I’ve said it before, and I’m sure it won’t [...]
Phoenix Inquiry: Truth and its consequences
Phoenix Sinclair
”People can’t make choices they didn’t know they had” — wise Manitoba lawyer
————-
I’ve never met Steve Sinclair. I don’t really know the first thing about him.
But over the past few weeks I’ve had to really watch myself — to guard against the conceit that I somehow do.
Ever since testimony really got underway in the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry a few weeks back, I’ve spent more than a few moments pondering her dad.
To be more specific: I’ve been trying to put my head around what it might be like to see intimate personal details about your troubled life through your childhood and young adulthood be cast out into the street for all to bear witness to day after day after day for all to see.
Manitoba is undertaking an inquiry into Phoenix Sinclair’s short existence, for sure — but in many instances it’s also appeared to have taken on the shape and form of a microscopic examination of Steve’s life as well.
I suppose it’s unavoidable. No. That’s just wrong. It is unavoidable.
It would be simply impossible to get to the bottom of what actions CFS took (or, as it’s becoming more clear didn’t take but maybe could have) during Phoenix’s all-too-short lifetime without proffering explicit details about Sinclair’s life and the circumstances which informed it before and after after his daughter was born.
We’ve been given a lot of information about Sinclair’s troubled past and, it must be said, reputed failings as a father. But those observations have largely all been filtered through the sieve of the minds, priorities and discretionary note-taking and observations of social workers and other CFS officials.
Sinclair drank heavily at times, we’re told. Couldn’t stay sober enough to hang on to Phoenix at one point. Appears to have abandoned her and vanished at another. Came from a background of CFS involvement and family abuse. Was on welfare. Didn’t seem to work.
And, it perhaps goes without saying: At least one time in his life Sinclair displayed horrible taste in whom he became romantically involved with.
But lost in the bureaucratic morass of case summaries, field visits and wrangling over lost notes and the imprecise departmental distinctions between safety and risk, there’s clearly another side to Sinclair.
To put it simply: It’s pretty apparent he tried.
Tried to play by the CFS rules to be a good dad despite a gloomy history of involvement with CFS agencies, its agents and foster homes over his lifetime. Tried to be a dad to his daughter in circumstances most would find beyond trying or manageable.
And likely, although it hasn’t been explicitly stated, seems to have tried to overcome his reputation as a “passive resistant” CFS client.
Hell, his real name is Nelson Draper Steve Sinclair, but consistently CFS workers refer and referred to him as “Steven.” [I've done this too in two separate reports and I felt horribly.]
Think about how remarkable Sinclair’s efforts are, really. Think of them in the context of the sickening and judgemental tenor of our society’s (mostly anonymous) gum-flapping about “welfare bums” and “natives” abusing the social-welfare system. Not to mention within the often-mentioned reality that aboriginal communities need fathers to step up. (More: Here).
More kids equals more free government assistance cash. Blah, blah, blah. (God, how our criticisms have become dismally uninformed and trite.)
I’m asking you to regard Sinclair within the context of the inquiry’s evidence so far.
That being: Sinclair as a young aboriginal man who clearly had little to no material wealth or grand future prospects and who didn’t just throw up his hands when his daughter was born and seized by CFS.
He agreed to work with the agency. And he did. As far as we’ve been made aware, between April 2000 and at least February 2001, he met all the demands placed on him. He, Kematch and Phoenix appeared to have a stable home life.
Then came April 2001 and the birth of Echo, his second daughter. It’s impossible to really know whether it was a lack of CFS diligence which allowed he and Kematch to leave the hospital without any CFS intervention (It was Delores Chief-Abigosis’s file at this point) or if it was because there were no child-protection concerns for Echo at the time.
Nevertheless, it’s pretty clear by now who was viewed as the real risk to Phoenix, and it wasn’t Sinclair.
When Kematch left their home a few weeks later with Echo in tow, it was Steve who picked up the ball and ran with it.
A couple of days later Kematch brought Echo back in a filthy state , leaving Sinclair a single dad who cared for both the kids, ostensibly with some help from friends. When Chief-Abigosis visited with him in July 2001, Steve was the person feeding Echo, holding her.
He and his sisters organized a sit-down with a worker this month to lay bare their concerns about what was going on in Steve’s life.
Then, Echo died suddenly of a respiratory infection, through no fault of Sinclair’s. Police quickly determined there was no foul play involved.
In the wake of Echo’s death, CFS says they offered Steve services on a voluntary basis. We don’t know yet why he rejected them — but it’s clear he was still working with community resources of some kind. I’ve never experienced such a great loss, so I won’t presume to get into Sinclair’s head as to what he was going through.
Months passed without apparent incident, except for Phoenix being brought to hospital in early 2003 with a thing in her nose, which may have been there for months. Worker Laura Forrest met with him soon after — at the same home he had lived in for about two years at this point.
She described Sinclair as “foul but sober” in her dealings with him. Insisting she’d return to see Phoenix, his reply, according to her, was “we’ll see about that.” How to interpret that properly? It’s impossible to know, really.
Phoenix would be be apprehended again June 22, 2003 after Sinclair apparently couldn’t get his act together enough to satisfy pairs of CFS workers he was able to care for Phoenix. There was no evidence whatsoever she was being abused in any way. Possible neglect was the real worry. Possible.
Phoenix was described emphatically by workers who sat with her in her the Place Louis Riel hotel room emergency placement as “well behaved,” as well as potty trained — so there had to be some parenting happening, some measure of honest care, in her life.
And although Kematch resurfaced at this point, making overtures to parent Phoenix, it was Sinclair who turned up in court on Aug. 13, 2003 with worker Stan Williams to say he wanted to resume parenting once he got things together.
Williams isn’t alive today to share his version and impressions of Steve, but through his boss, we learned he became a fierce advocate for the 21-year-old dad, believed in him to the point he’d basically — for right or wrong — convince his boss to get CFS to hand Phoenix back to Sinclair unconditionally on Oct. 2, 2003.
From there, it’s hard to say what the hell happened.
We do know CFS believes Phoenix somehow wound up in the care of Kematch for a while before she then mysteriously made her way to the safety of foster parent Rohan Stephenson, who, along with his ex, Kim, were good and trusted friends of Sinclair’s — people he (and CFS) trusted to care for Phoenix.
Had Sinclair gone off the rails and ditched out on being a dad?
He was hard to find — but it’s clear that when a worker finally spoke with him on Feb. 5, 2004, he agreed the best thing for Phoenix was for her to stay with the Stephensons as an unofficial place of safety. In a sense — that action was his doing right by Phoenix.
And that’s where we’re left off for now. Yes, there are gaps. Yes, there are some questionable decisions Sinclair made.
But he didn’t ever, ever appear to hurt his little girl — and he certainly didn’t murder her. Neglect her at times, perhaps, sure.
Wednesday morning, Sinclair is scheduled to take the witness stand.
We’re going to hear first-hand his side of the story. Why he chose to act as he did.
But to me, the inquiry — the most expensive such public proceeding in Manitoba’s history, and probably the most contentious — wouldn’t be possible without some major buy-in from Steve Sinclair, some continued effort on his part to see some kind of answers to what sounds like an easy question:
What the hell happened here?
Even in light of Phoenix’s death, Sinclair’s participation in the inquiry, to me, shows he was a father who cared.
And that’s a lot more than many, many other kids in Manitoba have.
We’re not in a position to judge Steve Sinclair.
People can’t make choices they didn’t know they had.
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)
Home, home on the range
Milner Ridge is the provincial jail where MOB [Most Organized Brothers] Gang members are held.
Everyone but the killer’s mom, that is.
And possibly provincial court Judge Judith Elliott.
It was a rare proceeding in court Tuesday where the now-18-year-old convicted murderer and confirmed MOB gang member was seeking a transfer from the youth facility he’s currently being housed in and into an adult facility to serve out the remaining years on the custody portion of his seven-year-long youth sentence.
The young man — and he is a man now — is serving the time after stepping forward and pleading guilty to second-degree murder for the “senseless and unprovoked” shooting death of young dad Scott MacGillivray in his own backyard in August 2009. This guy was the one who pulled the trigger.
He and a co-accused (the story link above references him — also MOB) had just committed an armed home invasion down the street from MacGillivray’s North End home when McGillivray encountered the pair trying to ditch the gun.
He’s been locked up at Agassiz Youth Centre, the Manitoba Youth Centre or at various times in lockdown solitary confinement at the Lakewood Correctional Centre for youths since his arrest for the killing.
And now, under section 92 of Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act, he’s requested a transfer into the adult system, ostensibly because he’s sick and tired of being surrounded by kids and their juvenile behaviour.
Judge Elliott must determine whether it’s in his best interest to go adult [she doesn't believe it is] or in the public interest to remove him. He can’t just do it, despite being an adult in law.
His mom, as stated above, opposes the move.
“I don’t agree with him going to an adult facility,” she told Elliott Tuesday. “I don’t want him to … [but] he decided that’s what he wants to do,” she said, adding in adult jail, he won’t be at the receiving end of hugs from relatives who want to see him do better.
Yes, she told him, she understands the kids in juvie get on his nerves, but “there are a lot of adults who can be immature too,” she warned him. “Some of them don’t give a shit either.”
A provincial civil lawyer representing the provincial correctional department wants him out of the youth system too, saying his anger issues present a “real risk” to kids in the system with him, that he poses an “increased likelihood of serious harm” if he stays.
Why, just on Sunday, Elliott was told, there was an incident where an inmate complained of being bruised and battered — an incident described by the killer as “horseplay” apparently gone too far. It’s possible he could face charges from it.
“There’s a propensity for unpredictable violence,” the Crown lawyer said. “We see it being safer … having him transferred to an adult facility.”
As well, the province says, the murderer has exhausted all avenues of rehabilitation programming available to him in the youth system.
But if he is, he’s in for a long wait to get a bed at Milner Ridge, the provincial jail where adult MOB gang members are held, a senior corrections official testified.
MOB members waiting months for transfer
Alan Peacock, a chief correctional officer/manager at the Winnipeg Remand Centre told court that there are currently three MOB members at the downtown facility waiting to get a cell/bed at Milner.
Right now, Peacock says, the MOB range at Milner is double bunked and full. Any prospective additions to the range could wait from a week to six months to get there.
Currently, there are three MOB members in the remand centre on the wait list. One of them has been waiting about 3-4 months to get moved to Milner.
There was little talk of the killer disavowing the gang life. And even if he did, he’d have to prove he’s had two years of non-activity in order to be put in general population.
He can’t dodge his gang label, Peacock said.
“That’s the community he lives in,” said defence lawyer Iain MacNair. “He’s going to continue to be exposed to it … rehabilitation right now does not seem to be progressing at a steady rate at Agassiz (youth jail),” MacNair said.
“We can’t just arbitrarily take a gang label off of somebody,” Peacock told Elliott. Even if Corrections did, inmates in jail “have their own communications grapevine” throughout the adult and youth systems to find out who’s who in the zoo and who’s charged with what, he said.
If the killer is transferred — and Peacock has no stake in the game, really — he’s likely to spend all his time at the remand centre on 23-hour-a-day segregation with limited access to programming or recreation because there’s no room to put him while keeping he and other inmates safe.
As it is, he was headed back to youth segregation after court Tuesday because of Sunday’s violence.
Peacock was queried about what programming the killer would be able to access in the adult system. He said while he couldn’t really speak for jails where sentenced prisoners are held, there is more offered — if offenders choose to avail themselves of it.
“It all depends on the individual, we can’t force anybody,” said Peacock. “We can identify and recommend,” but can’t force inmates out of their units and into classrooms or workshops.
Is putting someone who’s just 18 on an adult gang range in his best interest?, asked Elliott.
“If somebody wants to get out of a gang, that’s not going to help them,” Peacock said. “You fall under the hierarchy and leadership of that gang,” he said.
Judge unconvinced — maybe she should be?
Elliott, by the end of the hour-long hearing — she herself is a former probation officer — was blunt about having to possibly take him out of the youth system and onto the MOB range at Milner — when and if he can get there.
“I’m certainly not of the view it’s in his best interest to be transferred to Milner Ridge,” she said.
She asked for a youth correctional official from Agassiz Youth Centre be called to testify before her about the young killer’s case in coming weeks before coming to a decision.
All I say is — he’s 18, an adult. If he wants to go there, let him go — especially if he’s in any way interfering with the potential rehabilitation of a young offender in the youth system.
Even the killer conceded if he’s charged for Sunday’s violence, he’ll be charged as an adult and sent packing to the remand centre.
“I’m just stating facts,” he told Elliott, without guile.
-30-
Home, home on the range
Milner is the provincial jail where all sentenced MOB (Most Organized Brothers) street gangsters are held, court was told Tuesday.
Everyone — the Manitoba government, youth corrections staff, even the young cold-blooded murderer himself — wants to see him transferred out of the young offenders corrections system and into an adult jail.
Everyone but the killer’s mom, that is.
And possibly provincial court Judge Judith Elliott.
It was a rare proceeding in court Tuesday where the now-18-year-old convicted murderer and confirmed MOB gang member was seeking a transfer from the youth facility he’s currently being housed in and into an adult facility to serve out the remaining years on the custody portion of his seven-year-long youth sentence.
The young man — and he is a man now — is serving the time after stepping forward and pleading guilty to second-degree murder for the “senseless and unprovoked” shooting death of young dad Scott MacGillivray in his own backyard in August 2009. This guy was the one who pulled the trigger.
He and a co-accused (the story link above references him — also MOB) had just committed an armed home invasion down the street from MacGillivray’s North End home when McGillivray encountered the pair trying to ditch the gun.
He’s been locked up at Agassiz Youth Centre, the Manitoba Youth Centre or at various times in lockdown solitary confinement at the Lakewood Correctional Centre for youths since his arrest for the killing.
And now, under section 92 of Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act, he’s requested a transfer into the adult system, ostensibly because he’s sick and tired of being surrounded by kids and their juvenile behaviour.
Judge Elliott must determine whether it’s in his best interest to go adult [she doesn't believe it is] or in the public interest to remove him. He can’t just do it, despite being an adult in law.
His mom, as stated above, opposes the move.
“I don’t agree with him going to an adult facility,” she told Elliott Tuesday. “I don’t want him to … [but] he decided that’s what he wants to do,” she said, adding in adult jail, he won’t be at the receiving end of hugs from relatives who want to see him do better.
Yes, she told him, she understands the kids in juvie get on his nerves, but “there are a lot of adults who can be immature too,” she warned him. “Some of them don’t give a shit either.”
A provincial civil lawyer representing the provincial correctional department wants him out of the youth system too, saying his anger issues present a “real risk” to kids in the system with him, that he poses an “increased likelihood of serious harm” if he stays.
Why, just on Sunday, Elliott was told, there was an incident where an inmate complained of being bruised and battered — an incident described by the killer as “horseplay” apparently gone too far. It’s possible he could face charges from it.
“There’s a propensity for unpredictable violence,” the Crown lawyer said. “We see it being safer … having him transferred to an adult facility.”
As well, the province says, the murderer has exhausted all avenues of rehabilitation programming available to him in the youth system.
But if he is, he’s in for a long wait to get a bed at Milner Ridge, the provincial jail where adult MOB gang members are held, a senior corrections official testified.
MOB members waiting months for transfer
Alan Peacock, a chief correctional officer/manager at the Winnipeg Remand Centre told court that there are currently three MOB members at the downtown facility waiting to get a cell/bed at Milner.
Right now, Peacock says, the MOB range at Milner is double bunked and full. Any prospective additions to the range could wait from a week to six months to get there.
Currently, there are three MOB members in the remand centre on the wait list. One of them has been waiting about 3-4 months to get moved to Milner.
There was little talk of the killer disavowing the gang life. And even if he did, he’d have to prove he’s had two years of non-activity in order to be put in general population.
He can’t dodge his gang label, Peacock said.
“That’s the community he lives in,” said defence lawyer Iain MacNair. “He’s going to continue to be exposed to it … rehabilitation right now does not seem to be progressing at a steady rate at Agassiz (youth jail),” MacNair said.
“We can’t just arbitrarily take a gang label off of somebody,” Peacock told Elliott. Even if Corrections did, inmates in jail “have their own communications grapevine” throughout the adult and youth systems to find out who’s who in the zoo and who’s charged with what, he said.
If the killer is transferred — and Peacock has no stake in the game, really — he’s likely to spend all his time at the remand centre on 23-hour-a-day segregation with limited access to programming or recreation because there’s no room to put him while keeping he and other inmates safe.
As it is, he was headed back to youth segregation after court Tuesday because of Sunday’s violence.
Peacock was queried about what programming the killer would be able to access in the adult system. He said while he couldn’t really speak for jails where sentenced prisoners are held, there is more offered — if offenders choose to avail themselves of it.
“It all depends on the individual, we can’t force anybody,” said Peacock. “We can identify and recommend,” but can’t force inmates out of their units and into classrooms or workshops.
Is putting someone who’s just 18 on an adult gang range in his best interest?, asked Elliott.
“If somebody wants to get out of a gang, that’s not going to help them,” Peacock said. “You fall under the hierarchy and leadership of that gang,” he said.
Judge unconvinced — maybe she should be?
Elliott, by the end of the hour-long hearing — she herself is a former probation officer — was blunt about having to possibly take him out of the youth system and onto the MOB range at Milner — when and if he can get there.
“I’m certainly not of the view it’s in his best interest to be transferred to Milner Ridge,” she said.
She asked for a youth correctional official from Agassiz Youth Centre be called to testify before her about the young killer’s case in coming weeks before coming to a decision.
All I say is — he’s 18, an adult. If he wants to go there, let him go — especially if he’s in any way interfering with the potential rehabilitation of a young offender in the youth system.
Even the killer conceded if he’s charged for Sunday’s violence, he’ll be charged as an adult and sent packing to the remand centre.
“I’m just stating facts,” he told Elliott, without guile.
-30-
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: Where does the buck stop in Manitoba Justice?
(Carolyn Sinclair, one of Lamb's alleged victims)
After having a couple of days now to be immersed in the information on suspected city serial murderer Shawn Cameron Lamb, there’s still so many more questions than answers.
And it’s not the usual questions eating away at me.
For me, and I admit it’s really gotten under my skin, the number one thing that’s been eating away at my mind is:
Why was Lamb free prior to the full expiry of his 19-month jail sentence (from May 26, 2010).
He served only 13 of the months despite his horrendous record.
But more importantly:
Why was a provincial judge’s order regarding how Lamb’s sentence should be served either totally ignored or at least countermanded by Manitoba Corrections?
It’s a little convoluted, but please bear with me – the context is uber-important.
In January 2009, Lamb got a major break from Judge Wanda Garreck: an 18-month long conditional sentence and three years of probation (supervised) for an attempted robbery of a mom who simply happened to be in the area pushing her baby near where Lamb was smoking crack.
As it’s often touted, a CSO is “a jail sentence” where a criminal is allowed to serve it in the community, usually tied to several stringent conditions which are supposed to be supervised and enforced by a “sentence supervisor” and probation officers.
Breaching CSO conditions is supposed to lead to immediate rearrest and incarceration and the possibility of having the remainder of the CSO terminated and turned into real jail time in a real locked jail.
Some of Lamb’s CSO conditions included: mandatory counselling, mandatory residential rehab, Narcotics and Alcoholics anonymous provisions, 100 hours of community service, no drugs, no drinking, seeking and maintaining employment or schooling, medical or psychiatric treatment as directed.
Most importantly, it included a strict curfew, structured as follows:
First 6 months: Absolute. 24-7 curfew.
Second 6 months: 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Third 6 months: 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.
So. Lamb walks out of the Remand that day and roughly a week later is re-involved, or as the Crown put it: “He gets right back to work.”
Lamb swipes a Ford Taurus from a banquet hall and then forges signatures on 9 cheques stolen from inside the vehicle. He’s not arrested right away because police didn’t immediately recognize him on surveillance tapes.
He’s not arrested until April 2009, not until after he’s committed two “opportunistic” violent robberies and admits he’s been using crack while out on his conditional release.
Anyhow, he sits in jail for 13.5 months until that fateful day when Lamb appears before Judge Linda Giesbrecht on May 26, 2010.
She’s told of his horrendous record, the facts of his slew of crimes and given a complete breakdown of how many violent convictions he’s had.
Giesbrecht said Lamb’s rap sheet was “coming very close” to the worst she’d ever seen.
Lamb, when given the opportunity, goes on an extremely lengthy tirade about how he’s changed, the steps he’s taken to correct his life; that he was “doomed to fail” when he was granted the CSO in 2009 because things didn’t immediately fall in place for him as expected.
He’s taken responsibility and doesn’t want to hurt anyone any more, he says.
(Remember, Lamb’s been in front of 45 or more sentencing judges since 1976. He’s old hat at how things work by now.)
A joint recommendation for a sentence is proposed, and accepted for guilty pleas to 16 charges.
The sentence was: 13.5 months of time-served at double time credit (27 months), 19 months going forward,and an order that the remaining months of the previous conditional sentence (Y’know, the one he totally breached within a week or so of being out on it) would not start up again until he was released from jail on the new 19-month term.
Importantly, the Crown stayed an allegation he breached the conditional sentence order. This is key. The CSO was not converted into jail time.
It was simply suspended — held “in abeyance” is how it was put in court. There was discussion between the lawyers as to whether this was the case, and it was agreed: The clock on the CSO stopped ticking when he was rearrested and was not completed.
In pronouncing Lamb’s sentence, Giesbrecht couldn’t have been more direct as to her wishes.
“It’s clear when you’re released the conditional sentence — whatever’s left of that — starts up, and that will be a considerable restriction on your liberty,” she said. “There’s going to be lots of help for you in the community when you’re released.”
She repeated same a few minutes later:
“That (CSO) will not run while you continue to serve your 19-month sentence … and whatever is remaining (13-14 months) will continue to run after you’re released for your 19-month sentence.”
But it didn’t. The province confirmed as much on Tuesday.
Seemingly adding insult to injury, Lamb — despite his extensive record of giving his middle finger to the law — still got automatic “earned remission,” and had six months lopped off his jail time.
So much for community supervision. So much for Giesbrecht’s ruling.
I asked the province the following prior to writing on this in Wednesday’s Winnipeg Sun.
“Just wondering about that request I asked for on Shawn Lamb’s release date last year?
Also, is there a chance I could please speak with someone in corrections about this case?
Upon his release last year, Lamb was supposed to have completed the remainder of an 18 month conditional sentence handed to him in January 2009 (he was rearrested a few months (after) it started and held in abayance until his 2010 sentence was complete.
Wondering if that’s the case here.”
Here’s the two sentence response I got:
LAMB was released on June 24, 2011 (including 27 months of remand credit).
On the question of serving out the Conditional sentence order – for all intents and purposes the conditional sentence was satisfied, including the period of incarceration, so it had been served and all conditions and requirements had been met when he was released on June 24, 2011.
My request to speak with an official in corrections was not addressed.
(To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to be. For the largest department in Manitoba Justice, you strangely seldom hear a scurrying word about their operations.)
Justice Minister Andrew Swan wouldn’t comment when asked about Lamb’s early release, citing the start of the criminal prosecution and ongoing police investigation.
I’d ask you to note how this issue really has nothing, except very tangentially, to do with the murder or sexual assault allegations Lamb now faces.
It does, however, have everything to do with where the buck stops in Manitoba’s justice system.
The only way I can see to put it is like this: A judge’s order regarding how best to sentence Lamb was either disobeyed, ignored or countermanded by corrections officials.
I don’t know who allows the department to do this.
The public expects that a judge’s decision is final and should be obeyed.
If a Manitoba Justice department doesn’t seem to take judges’ rulings on sentences seriously, why should criminals? Why should you or I?
I expect that a judge’s decision be respected and followed as it was directed.
In this serious case, it wasn’t. We don’t know if Lamb took the mandatory rehab and psychological programming. Did he complete the 100 hours of community service? We don’t know.
We’re not really allowed to know and it’s ridiculous.
And I think we all deserve answers what happened here.
-30-
In Mark Stobbe’s defence, for the record
(Chris Procaylo/Sun Media/QMI Agency)
Mark Stobbe’s lawyer spoke with media following his acquittal on Thursday.
Tim Killeen makes a number of insightful comments about the case and Stobbe’s defence, presented here in full for the record.
On fighting the Crown’s circumstantial murder case
We focused on what had occurred. And the difficulty in this case is it was always clear that there was no motive whatsoever advanced, and there was no connection. She clearly had been killed in the yard and her body moved.
We focused on that and unfortunately, there was a tremendous amount of evidence dealing with the possibility that somebody had ridden a cycle back — sadly disregarded the fact that there was a pretty clear indication right from Oct. 25th that the car wasn’t there until well after the time when all the cyclists were talking about.
The other issue had been always, the DNA was an issue — I don’t know how it was disregarded.
On the decision to prosecute Stobbe after Alberta said ‘no,’ and the false widespread impression something had evolved about the evidence in the case over the years.
Frankly, I don’t know why this prosecution proceeded the way it did.
“As some of you know, the original opinions — plural — from prosecutors in Alberta was not to lay a charge and that decision was countermanded, effectively when it was sent to British Columbia for a decision on prosecution.
Nothing whatsoever had changed. The difficulty in deciding to prosecute this case was that you had the entire community left with the impression that there was something new or different or more substantial than there had been before and there wasn’t.
There was never additional evidence.
“Inaccurate, unflattering and disrespectful”
The way in which the case proceeded with the motive left a very inaccurate and unflattering and disrespectful picture that really shouldn’t have been put forward. It wasn’t accurate at all.
On the decision to have Stobbe testify and lose last word to the jury
It was pretty clear at the end of the Crown’s case that there really was not anything there that had not been anticipated, and at the end of the day I thought there was a big problem.The tough decision, always, is when you have somebody who says ‘I didn’t do it,’ and wants to be able to advance that story you have to consider the tactical disadvantage that comes from then having to address the jury first and not have the final word.
Nothing to ‘tie him in’
What we wanted to establish all always was that what occurred here was a horrible tragedy — the most tragic thing that could of occurred.
Clearly whatever had happened it would naturally cause suspicion to be pointed at Mr. Stobbe.
But as you heard after an extraordinarily thorough investigation involving 100s of witnesses, 100s of wiretap conversations … there really was nothing whatsoever to tie him in and at the end of the day that clearly is the way the case ended.
There just was nothing there to tie him into this.
The RCMP and ‘tunnel vision’
As I said, there was a very thorough investigation. Most of the investigation did exactly what it should have done.
There was … some concern — bear in mind that we didn’t know what the case was until Mr. Stobbe was charged many years later.
It, I think it would be fair to say, that the DNA which seemed critical to us really wasn’t given much consideration.
And the fact of this bicycle issue really was important to them but at the time we looked at it seemed to be an absurd issue. It was clear that despite the fact the witnesses said they only saw one cyclist, there were clearly at least four different cyclists out there.
It was also clear … that the car (Rowbotham was found dead in) wasn’t there until after 1 a.m.
