Crime & Punishment

In order to keep up with traffic, I have moved from Blogspot to Wordpress. The move will allow much more ability to evolve from a post and rudimentary comment page to a more integrated and interactive blog.  I hope to integrate poll questions and twitter updates as we move forward. Thank you for stopping by and for all the support in the past and I hope you like the new look. Leo Knight primetimecrime@gmail.com

Well, election madness is upon us, whether we wanted it or not.  And one of the things we know inherently is that we are about to be subjected to spin on an unprecedented scale.I received this email yesterday that I thought worth sharing with you.  I thought it particularly poignant.Hi Leo,I just watched a local news station do a story on the dirty politics between Stephane Dion and the conservative government.  They actually said that Dion wanted to "increase" the restrictions on several kinds of firearms, "including the type that was used in the Montreal Dawson College shooting."  Then the story ends and they go on with the next really quickly to a service for those who recently lost their lives in the CF.What many people don't already know is that at the time that massacre occurred, those Beretta Storm's were restricted firearms.  Now they are already prohibited, at least according to my local gun store.  As are all bullpup arms.  So how can they increase any further restrictions on a prohibited firearm?This upsets me because they don't bother to explain to the public the difference between non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited.  They just use an angle that serves their purpose -- at the shameful expense of those victims.I would greatly appreciate it if you could do a blog entry on firearms and this liberal spin thats been going through the news and schools.  Criminals don't get guns by going through the RCMP, they illegally import them, or steal them...

Since the tragic shootings in Mayerthorpe, the country has been paying some attention to the sad state of our justice system. It won't last unfortunately, but for the moment at least Canadians appear to be opening their eyes to some of the issues at any rate.The story on the front page of PTC about the criminal history of James Roszko is truly a sad condemnation of our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, that story is not all that unique.A regular reader, CJ, who is a police officer and can't post under his real name as a result, wrote a piece this week about an alternative to the usual methods of crime prevention. It's called Incarceration. It's available on the Contributing Writers page of PTC and I'd suggest you give it a read.While a bit extreme in that you simply cannot and should not jail everyone, the concept of incarceration is simply no longer applicable in this country no matter how many times the young offender comes to the attention of the police. It's been said the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) really stands for You Can't Jail Adolescents. It would be funny were in not so horribly accurate.The real problem in this country is one of accountbility. Years of successive "soft on crime" liberal governments have given the criminal classes, who start their activities as teenagers, absolutely no reason to change their behaviours. Simply put, there are no consequences for criminal behaviour and therefore no reason to correct or change...

While I would never accuse the bureaucrats in Corrections Services Canada of being in touch with reality, I think some recent policy decisions are suggesting they no longer reside on this planet.Last week the Surete de Quebec were trying to button-hole an escaped piece of excrement known as Kevin Smith who had escaped from Montée St-François Institution in the Montreal area on Oct. 9th, 2007. They had a photo of the fleeing fugitive, but it was so old they believed it no longer looked like him. CSC did not issue an updated photo of Smith ostensibly because it would have violated his privacy rights. The reason the police photo was outdated was because the last time they dealt with him was in 1991 when he was arrested, charged and convicted of murder. Last week, the SQ thought they had Smith corralled in the Estrie area of the Eastern Townships. But alas, he slipped through their fingers. They didn't specifically say it was because they didn't have a recent photo of Smith, but reading between the lines in the news story from the Sherbrooke Record pretty much tells the tale. Now I don't know about you, but when a guy is convicted of murder and gets shuffled off to prison for a couple of decades, I think if he leaves before he is entitled to, he ought not to have any right to privacy. I may be old fashioned, but if he hasn't got the right to freedom...

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is either one of the most disingenuous local politicians in a long time or one of the dumbest.When, in the last civic election campaign it became known that Sullivan had given an addict money to purchase drugs and had driven him around in his van ostensibly because Sullivan wanted to learn more about addiction or some such nonsense, I thought he must be an idiot.But, he managed to run a successful campaign and in the year and a half or so since he has been mayor of Canada’s third largest city, he hasn’t done anything really outrageous or spectacular for that matter.But, his statements in the media yesterday after the media reported that the Drake Hotel, purchased by the city for three times its assessed value, was owned by a numbered company which had Hells Angel East End chapter president John Peter Bryce as the sole company officer, was a surprise to him is outrageous.Notwithstanding any other of the numerous public source reports, last year the Vancouver Sun ran a series about the biker gang called Hells Angels Inc. in which they detailed in depth the various business holdings of the Hells Angels and central to that were the real estate holdings of Bryce and other gang members.Does Sullivan not read front page stories in major media about what is happening in the city he presides over? Equally, a minimum of research by city staffers doing due diligence on the purchase would have uncovered the...

In August of 1982, Ronald Smith, a drifter from Alberta, murdered two men in cold blood for the thrill of it.  That event took place, in Glacier National Park in Montana, not in Canada.Smith, in a plea arrangement asked for the death penalty, which I might add, was deservedly granted.  He also reiterated that request in March of 1983.  In the intervening years Smith has been on death row in a State that is relatively slow to carry out capital case executions.For years the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin had their diplomats play the game with Montana authorities seeking, at least on the surface, some form of clemency for Smith, from the hangman's noose.  Metaphorically speaking of course.  I am not sure how Montana gets rid of its Death Row inmates.  Although what is ironic in all of this is that the State of Montana seems poised to get rid of the death penalty.  Their House of Representatives is to hold a vote later this spring on the matter.Smith also seems to have had a change of heart in that he has availed himself of every legal avenue to try and delay or commute his richly deserved death sentence.  With the election of a Conservative government, a different view was taken on the Canadian tradition of diplomatic intervention in death penalty cases.  The Tories said, and rightly so in my view, that they would not intervene with democratic countries with the death penalty in cases of...

Every now and again a court renders a decision that would appear, for all intents and purposes, that the members of that court have lost whatever touch with the reality to which they might have, at one time, laid claim.And then there's the Manitoba Court of Appeal and their incredible - no, unbelieveable - decision, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press (Hells Angel allowed to chat with biker buddies, says high court), in the case of Hells Angel Shane Kirton who had pled guilty to an unprovoked, vicious assault on an unsuspecting bar patron. And not, I might add, his first go 'round with the law. But, back to the decision at hand. The Court of Appeal overturned the decision of Queen's Bench Justice Holly Beard to impose conditions on Kirton that he refrain from contact with his brother Hells Angels for the duration of his probation. Apparently, according to the Appeal Court, that condition infringes on his right to freedom of association guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the lower court should not have taken judicial notice that the Hells Angels are a criminal organization. Chief Justice Richard Scott said, "It is hard to escape the conclusion that the sentencing judge was led astray by her preoccupation with the accused’s involvement with the Hells Angels.” Oh? And why would she not? They have been found to be a criminal organization by superior courts in Ontario and British Columbia. The presumably well-read justices of...

The aquittal in BC Supreme Court yesterday of Hells Angel Glen Jonathan Hehn is outrageous. Justice Peter Leask further outraged the public by using profanity during the closing arguments of prosecutor Ernie Froess. And not just profanity. He chose to defy logic when doing so.Froess submitted that the locker where a large amount of cocaine was located had been rented by the accused, Leask said: "But to be really clear, he'd have had to have been out of his f. . .in' mind to store it in his own locker, all right? I mean, that's for sure he wouldn't do that. Let's not spend any time on that theory."Theory? One has to ask if Leask is out of his mind. Or perhaps someone got to him in a different way? Perhaps a suggestion was made to Mr. Justice Leask that caused him to defy logic in what should have been an air-tight case?I don't know and can only guess what caused Leask to acquit in this case. Whatever it was though, it resulted in a f***ing travesty of justice.Leo Knightprimetimecrime@gmail.com

Another senseless murder of an innocent person committed by someone who should not have been on the streets but for a weak, broken justice system. Yesterday, police in Calgary charged Christopher James Watcheston, 21, with the murder of Arcelie Laoagan, a 41 year old mother of five whose battered body was found a week ago near a public transit station. He was on bail at the time of the murder.Lawyer and justice commentator Scott Newark had this to say in an email about this case. It's worth sharing:************************************************************So let's see.....guy gets charged with three assaults and doesn't make bail for a couple of weeks. That suggests maybe a history not revealed in story. Shortly after release he commits more crimes...while on bail which is literally a promise he wouldn't commit more crimes if court released him from charges of first set of crimes...but again he is released on bail and now charged in this murder.A) We should be keeping track of this "profile" because quite literally the state had the capacity to have prevented this crime by taking notice of his continuing criminality but chose....consciously...to let him go...again....and take a chance...again....B) There is a need for a review of the circumstances of the release of this person independent of the criminal trial. Did the Crown seek revocation of the original bail and oppose his release. If not, why not? Did the JP or provincial court judge reject such requests and order the release? Did someone say they would serve...

Yesterday the IIO's Chief Civilian Director (CCD) Ron MacDonald released his conclusions into the circumstance of a police involved fatal shooting near Slocan, BC on October 13, 2014. Yes you read that right, 2014. The Commanding Officer of the RCMP in BC, Deputy Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr promptly released a statement decrying the long delay. “The protracted nature of this review is unacceptable,” she said. The incident involved a manhunt in the mountains of the back country near Slocan, the town itself in lockdown for nearly five days. Think of it as a mini-Boston in the hours after the marathon bombings. Where this started was the police attending a rural location to investigate a dispute/possible assault call. They were met with an armed man who exchanged shots with police and fled into the back country. She continued, “This was a dynamic and dramatic series of events that has forever changed the police officers involved, a community and a family which lost a loved one. The techniques used and the resulting time delays in determining the circumstances compounded the trauma and severely limited the ability of many to move forward. The police officers were consistent in their participation in the IIO BC investigation and remained professional throughout the lengthy process. However, the delays have contributed unnecessarily to a state of extended uncertainty and stress that could have been avoided.” In his final report on the case, MacDonald, the newly appointed CCD  said this: “This investigation has taken an unfortunate length of time. This resulted from operational pressures within...