Last week infamous thief Tracy Lloyd Caza was breached by his parole officer and will likely serve the rest of his sentence. The warrant holding him in custody will expire in the days before Christmas.
He will be deemed to have paid his debt to society for brazenly stealing jewelry from the fingers of elderly patients in hospitals when they are most vulnerable. Whatever conditions still remain that were court imposed, he will inevitably ignore. He will then be free to wreak whatever havoc he will upon seniors in Vancouver until he is caught and a judge puts him back in jail. Again.
And it will happen again. Just as sure as God makes little green apples. He’s got nearly 60 convictions dating back to 1977 and dozens more arrests where charges were bargained away in a guilty plea deal. He has no trade, craft or other marketable skill, save and except being a thief, robber and a con man who preys on those most unable to help themselves.
No matter what, neither provincial nor federal corrections services have been able to alter Caza’s criminal ways despite more attempts than Carter has little liver pills. At what point should we say enough?
And Caza isn’t the worst. A few years ago I wrote a piece about Kevin Wayne Morgan. He had a remarkable 188 criminal convictions when I learned about him from business owners on Commercial Drive in speaking with them during a security seminar. It turned out there would have been no need for the seminar, were it not for Morgan.
One guy, terrorizing a whole community and he keeps being allowed out to continue the crime spree virtually uninterrupted save and except his frequent arrests by the police who dutifully place him, yet again, before the courts to get, yet again, another couple of weeks in jail to clean up and get released for another crime spree.
It’s unbelievable really. Morgan has amassed in his life in the vicinity of 200 criminal convictions. One of the tenets of sentencing guidelines is that judges must consider the protection of the public. As near as I can tell, in Morgan’s criminal career this consideration has been totally ignored. How else can you explain when I was watching his 189th conviction that he was given a sentence of 14 days for a crime that had a maximum penalty of ten years in the Criminal Code?
When is enough, really enough?
Leo Knight
primetimecrime@gmail.com
Enough will be enough when we use their tactics against them. They know how to avoid jail and get away with all their crime. So, we should learn from that.. They dedicate their lives to being better at avoiding police; if they had to attribute the same risk-factors to non-police, they will probably give it up. The answer is to give citizens some power. When something bad happens, citizens are always the first ones on the scene, therefore we are our country’s first line of defense.
Ever seen the movie, “The Watchmen”? Police officers “had enough” with the criminals wearing masks, so they started wearing masks. When police start drawing parallels between “defending yourself” and “vigilantism,” its gone too far. Defend yourself. Defend your home. Defend your community. This is not vigilantism. Vigilantism is when someone brings their own “version of justice” which unravels everything we built in this great nation. However, the direction of things we’ve built in recent times, such as losing cases because evidence was thrown out, its become far too easy to avoid jail based on something most people consider ridiculous. And many people consider the law a joke, mostly criminals… and their unfortunate victims. When something happens to me, and I have proof and everything else that should put that guy away for 10+ years, and he lets go free based on some loophole or he pleabargains for a 3-month stint, that only marginalizes the law-abiding folk.
And when I rolled through an intersection that just turned yellow doing 30km/h with an interceptor waiting for their light to change with two LEO’s with their heads down, and they pull me over for running a red and give me a ticket for not doing anything wrong, it is upsetting, to say the least. And I had to pleabargain for “not following lane light” to save my points. I even had a witness, but when it came to LEO’s word vs my word, who do u think is listened to?
Then with the “slut walk”, resulting from a LEO saying basically its their fault… “I punched him in the face because he looked stupid. Clearly it was his fault.” Then the official report: “Don’t look stupid.”
Victims are being treated as criminals, and criminals are being treated as victims.. Such as when that grocery store in Toronto arrested a repeat-offending shoplifter, and the police wanted to reduce or drop charges against him so he would cooperate with prosecuting the store owner!
Something has got to change.
More like, when will the rest of us have had enough of them? A lot of people are becoming vigilant.. I saw a shoplifter a few months ago who peppersprayed some old man, and stole someone’s purse, and she got chased down by a mob! We have had enough.
I really consider this specific post , âWhen will enough be enough for habitual
criminals? « Crime & Punishmentâ, really compelling and also it was in fact a wonderful read.
Regards-Steve