Category: Law & Order

Some of you might find this post a little befuddling, especially in light of my opinions on the Farmer Bob Varmint Gun Registryâ„¢ and other idiocies that the anti-gun wackos puke up from time to time. The fact of the matter is that, contrary to what some of my friends and coworkers might tell you, I actually do believe in having some gun control under the law.

No, I haven’t changed my mind. Registration is still useless but licensing makes sense. Registration only kicks in after you have a gun. It’s a licensing that keeps guns out of the hands of the wrong people in the first place, or at least makes it harder for them to get one.

A lot of states in the US have the right idea: if you have a felony conviction, you can’t get a gun. Waiting times make sense, too. Seriously now, just what the hell can be going on in your day that you need a gun right now?? Smells fishy to me.

But just having a licensing regimen isn’t enough; it has to be done right. Which makes the story on the front page of today’s Freeps all that much more disturbing:

ST. THOMAS — Factory worker Nelson Merritt has struggled for years with mental health problems and drug dependency.

He has an anxiety and bi-polar disorder. He’s been depressed and had suicidal thoughts.

And when he emptied the clip of his Glock 9 mm handgun into Bobby Thorpe Jr., shooting him 10 times, Merritt was the licensed owner of three handguns, two rifles and two shotguns.

I’m going to resist the temptation to go on a complete rant about how this is yet another murder that the Long Gun Registry failed to do anything about. The real question here is: how the hell did someone with a long history of drug abuse and mental illness get a PAL for not one but THREE, COUNT ‘EM: THREE RESTRICTED WEAPONS!?!? 😯 If that doesn’t redline your WTF-o-meter, nothing will.

I’ve said it before and, you guessed it, I’m saying it again: the problem isn’t guns, the problem is PEOPLE. You want to curb gun crime? First, you have a licensing system that is based on common sense (if you have trouble figuring out what that is, just go to your local sportsman’s or hunters’ & anglers’ association and ask around) instead of moonbattery. Second you need to really punish gun crime. As in: use a gun, do ten years BEHIND BARS and make it REAL TIME. That means:

• No TV
• No radio
• No gym
• No yard
• No Club Fed
• No smokes
• No methodone or other such bullshit
• And no Goddamn trailer where your ol’ lady can come in and grease your pole on the weekends.

You don’t stop gun crime by hassling law-abiding people. You do it by demanding responsible access and by going after the troublemakers — with a damned big stick.

…that doing the right thing would ever be easy. London top cop Murray Faulkner has likely had that on his mind quite a bit lately.

To the surprise of no one, the parents of David Lucio have begun demanding a full inquest into how the case was handled (not that I blame them — if my son were killed, I’d want every damned detail gone over with an electron microscope) and Faulkner has likely spent some very self-critical time in front of the mirror lately. Now there’s a guy that I don’t envy…

The outraged parents of a former London police officer killed by another in a murder-suicide want an inquest into how police handled the case.

But while police Chief Murray Faulkner rejects that, yesterday — for the first time — he said he will ask an outside party to assess what happened and how police missed any signs of trouble brewing.

Just how formal such an outside examination would be, Faulkner couldn’t say. “I am not sure of the process yet.”

Now, before we all hop on the bullshit bandwagon and start pillorying Faulkner for “not knowing what to do,” let’s just pull the hell off the sanctimony superhighway, shall we? I don’t think there is any police chief anywhere on this continent, let alone in Canada, with any experience in a matter like this. The most senior female officer on the entire force — often referred to even now as a “rising star” — murders a former police superintendent, in what is looking more and more like a fit of jealousy, and then takes her own life, eliminating the possibility of a trial.

Contrary to what some arseholes will tell you, there’s one hell of a lot more to cops than going through life blindly following procedure and shining their badges in their off hours. These people have lives; wives, husbands, kids, bills, mortgages, hopes, dreams… you name it. Just like you.  And when they lose one of their own, it’s like a cold slap in the face that reminds them that every time they put on that uniform and walk out the door, they might not come back.  Their wives or husbands might have to carry on alone.  Their kids might have to grow up without a mom or dad.  Their parents might be left to endure the frustrations that torment David Lucio’s parents…

An angry Doug Lucio, father of the slain retired officer, contacted The Free Press to vent his frustrations. “She killed him. She murdered him — premeditated. Nobody’s saying that,” the father, 80, said.

Angry about the handling of the case, including what the public was told and when, the father insists discussion about the tragedy has been stifled.

“Out of discussion comes action plans. And out of action plans comes results,” he said.

“I will not tolerate this. (An inquest could) let people stop it from happening again.”

No, Doug, it wouldn’t.  I don’t blame you for being pissed; God knows you’re entitled (never thought I’d use that phrase).  But as much as we may wish otherwise, there are still some things in this life that we just can’t see coming, no matter how hard we try.  You’re absolutely right about one thing, though.  People aren’t being direct about what happened, so here it is:

That bitch murdered your son in cold blood.  Period.  She wasn’t any kind of a victim; she had no excuse. There was a victim here but it sure as hell wasn’t her. She was just as bad as some asshole that kills his wife because she’s leaving him.  In fact, she was worse.  Worse because she was in a position of authority and trust.

There you have it, for whatever it’s worth.  Getting back to Faulkner, though, the senior Lucio also has some other damned good questions that deserve to be answered:

Among other things, Lucio wants to know why Faulkner met with the family of Johnson — the shooter — but didn’t call he and his wife, the parents of her victim and a fellow although retired officer.

He also wants to know why police didn’t erase any public doubts about which of the two was the shooter — thus clearing Lucio’s name — when the truth was clear long before autopsy results were released five days after the shootings.

“They knew. So how come it just came out the day of his funeral (June 11)?” he asked.

Lucio described a dramatic confrontation with Faulkner at his son’s funeral Monday.

“I said to him, ‘You got a hold of (Johnson’s former) husband and you got a hold of her father.’ Then I said to him, ‘Why didn’t you call his mother and I?”

Face it, Murray.  No matter how you slice it, you owe that man some answers.

I guess this just goes to show you that sometimes, a thing really is just what it looks like. Police have now confirmed what just about everybody had already suspected ever since last Thursday: the deaths of Acting Insp. Kelly Johnson and retired superintendent David Lucio were in fact a murder-suicide.

Johnson first shot Lucio and then turned the gun on herself. At this point, no one knows why.

The truth of it is that we may never know…

LONDON, Ont. (CP) — Police in London, Ont., have determined that the deaths of a high-ranking female police officer and a retired officer last week were a murder-suicide.

Investigators have concluded that Acting Insp. Kelly Johnson, 40, shot and killed retired superintendent David Lucio, 57, then turned the gun on herself inside the vehicle Lucio was driving.

The regional coroner has determined that Lucio and Johnson both died from single gunshot wounds.

Police were called to the scene early Thursday morning by witnesses who saw a van crash into a building, and officers found the two bodies inside, along with Johnson’s service pistol.

Johnson and Lucio were ex-lovers, but the nature of their relationship was unclear at the time of their deaths.

Lucio’s funeral takes place today in London.

UPDATE

For all of those of you that have been wondering, speculating, and other things ending with “ing,” the answer may have come out:

London police officer Kelly Johnson learned two days before she killed David Lucio and herself that he was leaving her for his wife, Lucio’s best friend said yesterday.

Lucio, a retired superintendent, told acting inspector Johnson he was moving back home, retired RCMP officer Gord Brodie said yesterday.

The whole story from today’s Freeps is here.

Being somebody that follows politics, you’d think that I’d be used to some things not making any sense after all this time. But there are some things that will get into your head and just won’t let go of your brain.

If you live in London — or even near it, for that matter — you likely know by now about what happened to Kelly Johnson and David Lucio. Just after midnight last night, the van that Lucio was driving slammed into an apartment building on Picton St. Neighbours rushed to the scene to be confronted with a gruesome sight. Both Lucio and Johnson dead from gunshot wounds.

Johnson’s service weapon was on her lap.

Speculation is that it’s a case of murder/suicide but, as Chief Murray Faulkner pointed out: “we need to have proof, not just speculation, not just opinion.” Amen to that. The fact is that, right now, nobody’s sure of anything…

‘An irrational act’

Fri, June 8, 2007

Top-ranking female officer, retired superintendent found in scene of horror The service pistol used belonged to Kelly Johnson, a leader in fighting domestic violence.

By RANDY RICHMOND AND KELLY PEDRO, SUN MEDIA

Acting Insp. Kelly Johnso

Just before London police’s “rising female star” and her ex-lover, a retired officer, were killed in a murder- suicide, she made a mysterious stop at the police station. Then, Acting Insp. Kelly Johnson, the force’s highest- ranking female officer, jumped into a waiting van. Minutes later, two gunshots were fired inside a van before it crashed into a brick wall six blocks away from the station, outside Johnson’s apartment building at 7 Picton St. Stunned neighbours found Johnson, 40, dead, her face bloody, her 9 mm Glock service pistol — which she wasn’t authorized to have with her — on her lap. Beside her, the driver of the van and her ex-lover, retired superintendent David Lucio, 57, was slumped over with what witnesses called a bullet wound to the head.

I’m tempted, at first sight, to say that it must be just what it looks like. But that nagging little voice in the back of my head just won’t shut up. And the more I read, the louder it gets.

[PARENTAL ADVISORY: While I do try to do my best to tone myself down to make this site at least somewhat family-friendly, the following post contains the kind of language that you probably don’t want your kids to read. And lots of it.]

Well, as if we didn’t already have enough reasons to lose faith in our country’s balls-challenged “justice system” (there’s a fucking oxymoron for ya), the London courthouse’s Resident Retard®, “Jackoff” Jack Carrol has gone and fucked up again.

For those of you not familiar with this black-robed bag of shit, he’s the dickhead that gave Ahmed Moalin Mohamed the keys to the revolving jailhouse door after he shot four people last Thanksgiving weekend. Nobody knows where the fuck that asshole is now. Yeah, that shithead.

So, what did this overpaid, walking sack of maggot jism do this time?

Why, he did what he does best, of course: letting criminal shitbags stroll out of the courthouse for no fucking reason! This time it was some little 16-year-old shit with 17 previous criminal convictions — five for not following court orders and two drug-related offences — that got his little pat on the head from Carrol before he strolled off and promptly robbed a gas station with a knife. Naturally, we’re not allowed to know who this little fuck is; thank you ever so fucking much, Chretien.

Yup, that’s right. You’d think that having Moalin-Mohamed go bye-bye on him would have smartened this shitskulled waste of my hard-earned tax dollars up, but nnnnoooooooo….. He’s just as big a fucking idiot as he ever was. Even London’s top cop, Chief Murray Faulkner is pissed as shit at this jerkoff and is thinking about bitching to the Ontario Justices of the Peace Review Council.

What’s possibly the worst of all this bullshit is just why he decided to spring this little bastard on the rest of us. This little son of a bitch got his get out of jail free card because Carrol got himself into a snit because the Crown Attorney was running late.

Without a bail hearing, a surety or reasons, a 16-year-old was released from custody May 15, just hours after his arrest, because justice of the peace Jack Carroll was irritated the Crown was late for court. Only a week later, the teen became the main suspect in a knife-point robbery of a gas bar last weekend.

[…]

He was taken to court that day but when Carroll opened proceedings, there was no prosecutor to handle the case. Carroll asked that one be paged.

Shortly after that, he told the clerk to tell the Crown’s office he would be “releasing everybody . . . if the Crown does not show up.”

Why can I never be making this shit up? Just once? Our judicial system is fucked up enough without having some cocksucker like Carrol sitting on the bench, acting like a petulant little brat!

DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND GET THE FUCK OFF THE BENCH, YOU WORTHLESS BAG OF WEASEL SHIT!!!

I’d like to start off today by thanking both Artur Pawlowski and the Calgary Sun’s Licia Corbella for their help in putting this post together; I couldn’t have done it without ’em. I managed to speak briefly with Mr. Pawlowski from his home in Calgary and I have to tell you, he’s one of the nicest folks I’ve talked to in quite a while.

You might recall from two of my previous posts that Art is the guy who was arrested and jailed in Calgary back in August of last year for reading the Bible and praying in a public park.

Let me say that again: Arrested. And jailed. For praying. In Canada.

I Am Not Making This Upâ„¢.

I said yesterday that I was going to try to find the video footage of Art’s arrest, so I figured “who better to ask than… well, Art?” So, after getting ahold of a number for him, I gave him a call. While he didn’t have the footage in a digital format himself, he was able to direct me to the page for Paul Arthur’s show, Insight, at www.miraclechannel.ca (which you can check out yourself here) where I was able to download one of the shows that features a clip from the footage that Art’s brother shot the day he got busted. It’s a fairly long vid (about an hour) and the footage from the arrest only runs from 8:38 to 9:32 but on the whole, the whole vid is worth watching (you can download it to your hard drive here, if you like)…
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