Category: Law & Order

Well now, doesn’t this just suck?  Years ago, I decided that I’d move to London rather than TO for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the lower crime rate. Now, you may think that I was just being a naive, small-town rube (and maybe I was) but I liked the idea of living in a place where your chances were relatively low of getting shot, stabbed, robbed, or just having some punks break into your house and steal your booze.

Well, it looks like all that happy horseshit is up and gone like a FIberal election promise after the buggers get a majority…

Crime in the London area increased more than anywhere else in Canada last year, just as the national crime rate dropped to record lows, new numbers show.

Statistics Canada reported yesterday the nation’s crime rate dipped by three per cent in 2006, mainly due to fewer non-violent offences such as break-ins and minor thefts.

But in the census area that includes London, St. Thomas, Strathroy and Middlesex County, the overall crime rate jumped by nine per cent — the highest climb in the country.

I swear to God, Alberta keeps looking better and better as time goes on…

Okay, I know that London’s getting to be more and more like the ArseholeOf The Universeâ„¢ as the days and months go on but this is just a little too creepy, even by my admittedly somewhat cynical standards.

It seems like the whole damned tactical squad got called out about 11 o’clock last night and weren’t in the mood to take any shit.  I haven’t been able to get any real details on just what the hell happened yet, but judging by what the Freeps had to say this morning, those boys were definitely in full move-your-ass-we’re-not-screwing-around-here mode.

If anybody has any details, I’d be interested…

A flurry of police, including heavily armed tactical officers, swooped down on a London highrise late last night, catching some residents by surprise.

Residents said police arrived just before 11 p.m. and sealed off the 14th floor of one of the twin CityPlace towers, at 405 Waterloo St., near Dundas, and ordered no one be allowed up to that floor.

One resident said police were seen racing to the nearby Holiday Inn Express, and from there were visible in a stairwell window staring over at the highrise.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had triggered the heavy police response, and no one was available to comment.

A woman staying at the Holiday Inn said she went up the stairwell to see what was happening and came across two officers on the 10th-floor landing, wearing what she described as “big goggles.”

“I walked in and said, ‘Is everything OK? And they said, ‘Go downstairs,’ ” said hotel guest Ashley Morrison.

An officer was seen out on one of the 14th-floor balconies at the apartment building.

[Updated and bumped, see below -D]

Those who stopped by yesterday already know that cops in TO are looking for a 16-year old “person of interest” in connection with the 37th and 38th Toronto homicides of 2007. Today, the cops released details, at about 10:30 or so this morning, on just who it is that they’re looking for (the original post on the Toronto Police Service site can be found here, while it lasts): 16-year old Livingston Davis is wanted as a suspect in two counts of homicide. Full text of the police release follows (click the photo for a larger image):

Homicides #37/2007 and #38/2007,
Update,
Judicial authorization permits identification of
Young Offender for five days,
Name and photograph of suspect released,
Livingston Davis, 16

Homicide Squad
416-808-7400

On Wednesday July 4, 2007, at about 3:50 a.m., police were called to a home on Rylander Boulevard regarding a shooting.

Police found a man, aged 34, inside the home and a man, aged 43, in a vehicle nearby, both with obvious signs of trauma.

The two men were taken to hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries.

See previous release.

Judicial authorization to identify the suspect, Livingston Davis, 16, has been granted in this case. That authorization prohibits any publication which identifies, or would tend to identify, him after 9:30 p.m., on Monday, July 9, 2007.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Homicide Squad at 416-808-7400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or online at www.222tips.com.

Constable Isabelle Cotton, Public Information, for Detective Sergeant Pauline Gray, Homicide Squad

Keep your eyes peeled, folks; he’s out there somewhere…

UPDATE:
No time to do up a whole post on this right now, so I’ll just point you over to the Halls of Macadamia, where you can check out what Neo has on this little darling…

Whoah. I had totally thought that things like this were a thing of the past. 😯 Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. It’s just that I was under the impression that this kind of wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee common sense had, at some time, fallen by the wayside in oh-so-progressive Ontario.

It’s nice to be wrong every now and then. It seems that there’s at least one county in my home province that isn’t falling for all the touchy-feely bullcrap that the would-be Dr. Spocks of the world are trying to foist on us…

Summer in Lambton County means sun, surf — and no kids out alone after midnight.

Underlining the point, Lambton OPP scooped up nine youths out past midnight this week for violating a public curfew after several reports of theft and vehicle break-ins.

The seasonal crackdown, to curb mischief, vandalism and theft, allows authorities to apprehend youths under 16.

“It does get the word out to youth that we mean business and there is zero tolerance for it,” Petrolia Mayor John McCharles said yesterday.

“Police are not out to get kids but to keep them safe,” he said. “It also sends the message to parents that if they don’t keep track of their kids, they’ll be picked up by police.”

Damn. Keep that kind of stuff up and your kids might just grow up right, if you’re not careful…

This time from the Armpit Of The Universe®, as police announce that they are looking for a “16-year old male” in connection with a double homicide in which two men were gunned down sometime just before 04:00 this morning. The Ministry Of What You Should Think has some video here of the story.

So far, the cops haven’t yet released any name of photo of the “person of interest” (a fancypants, politically correct word for “suspect“) … yet …

Homicide detectives are trying to unravel a bizarre double murder after finding two men shot dead in Scarborough’s east end early Wednesday.

[…]

At the scene, Insp. Peter Yuen said police are looking for a teenage boy who’s a “person of interest” at this point.

The teen is described as about 16 years old with a shaved head, 5-foot-7, with a medium build and wearing dark clothes.

Yup, another little criminal bastard “youth offender” that you won’t be allowed to know anything at all about as soon as it’s politically correct to shove you back into the dark. As usual, I’ll have more on this as it comes up…

Well, isn’t this just God damned jolly?

It’s been more than a decade and a half since the poop hit the windmaker in Oka, Quebec and now, if you believe what some media outlets are coughing up, we’re pretty much smack-dab right back where we started, waiting for it to blow up again. Reading the Freeps and the Winterpeg Sun, you’d think the whole thing was a powder shed, with a chimp playing with matches inside…

The war never ended in Kanesatake, the Mohawk community at the centre of the Oka crisis, and now the government has been put on notice history might repeat itself.

Ottawa’s lead negotiator on the Kanesatake file has received two letters this year from the Kanesatake Women’s Coalition warning the federal government to stop negotiating with the band council. The letters say they could throw up a highway blockade or worse to force the issue.

“I do not have to remind you that this is exactly what happened back in 1990. The chief and council of the day did not have the authority or the mandate to negotiate our land rights in the pines for the expansion of the Oka golf course,” says one of the letters.

“The Mohawk women of Kanesatake warned the federal Conservative government of that day and its negotiator that if they continued to negotiate with the council without the community’s input there will be war and war did break out.”

War, my ass. For those of you that don’t remember all too well: as soon as the army started moving forward, all the “Mohawk warriors” started moving back. Yeah, big surprise. This reserve has been known more for its lawlessness than any other one in the country that I can think of. For example, take a look at what happened a little over three years ago:

An incident on Jan. 12, 2004 triggered it all. When 67 police and auxiliary officers from outside communities descended on Kanesatake armed with three submachine guns, a sniper rifle, two automatic rifles, a semi automatic rifle, two pump-action shotguns and thousands of rounds of ammunition, all hell broke loose. Warriors and community members laid siege to the police station for two days. The force was eventually let out of the community and Gabriel’s [referring to Former Grand Chief James Gabriel] house was burned down.

Nice, huh? As if that weren’t bad enough, this fiasco also has its lips firmly locked on the public teat, to boot:

The official says Ottawa has spent $51 million on the Kanesatake negotiating process since 1994. Of that, $35 million was spent on the acquisition of 178 pieces of property, $4 million was spent on negotiations for the government side and $9 million for the Kanesatake side, according to the official.

This is getting ridiculous. Granted, the Tories haven’t had this file for too long and they’ve had other things on their plate, but there hasn’t been any indication that I’ve seen that they’re going to deal with this properly any more than the Grits did. And with all the talk about a nation-wide “day of action” (read: “shit-disturbing”) this coming Friday, you have to wonder: just when the hell is the government going to put its foot down and say, “the law is the law and you damned well follow it whether like it or not and no, we don’t give a shit what colour you are.”

Granted, the current system for land claim resolution sucks. But Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice recently unveiled a plan to fix that mess. In the meantime, however, the government should be lowering the boom on any lawlessness they see and NO band should get anything until they damned well get it through their heads that yes, the law applies to them, too.