Archive for: July 2007

… And God damned good that it did, too. Sorry for not posting this sooner, but I’ve had me one hell of a busy day on Monday. For whoever hasn’t heard yet, the jury in Medicine Hat took less than four hours of deliberation to come to the same conclusion that everyone else with a brain in their head had already come to long ago:

Jasmine Richardson is guilty as sin.

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. (CP) – After deliberating for less than four hours, a Court of Queen’s Bench jury returned Monday with a decisive verdict for a 13-year-old girl accused in the grisly killings of her parents and little brother: guilty of first-degree murder on all three counts.

The accused began weeping silently and then put her hand over her mouth as the foreman of the seven-man, five-woman jury read out the verdicts. Her lawyer, Tim Foster, stared at the ground and appeared to be struggling even to look at his client, but then later moved to the prisoner’s box to put a comforting arm around her.

Minutes later, the jurors filed out of the courtroom one by one, a few stealing glances at the girl as they passed by her but most just looking away.

Looking away in disgust, no doubt. Can you blame them? This little bitch (and no, I don’t care how old she is; that’s still going easy on her in the language department after what she did) would be damn near enough to make me puke, too. The problem now is that she’s still not going to be properly punished for what she did. Commentor Ann pointed this out the other day:

[…] And I agree with your opinion on the YJA. What a joke. Though the verdict is now in, I doubt this little whore will do more than 3.5 years in custody (don’t forget she’ll be credited with 1.5 years of time served).

Actually, Ann, it’s even worse than that. According to reports, the court has scheduled the sentencing for Aug. 23, which means that Jasmine will have spent about 16 months of “dead time” (how’s that for ironic slang?) since her arrest in late April, 2006. This means that, under the bullshit 2-for-1 system that judges in this country use to credit time awaiting trial, she’ll be getting 32 months of credit for time served. In other words, she’ll be out and on the streets again no later than December, 2010. Just in time for Christmas, no doubt. And even that‘s assuming that her lawyer doesn’t pull some stunt to delay sentencing in order to rack up more 2-for-1 credit (not an unheard-of tactic).

Her family, however — her mother, father and eight-year old brother — will still be dead. But that won’t stop the pro-YCJA shitheads; hell, no! It won’t even slow ’em down. There’s already rumblings and bumping in the night going on in the dark corners of the Charter-heads…

But more in that later. For now, I’m gathering up some of the sleaze that the jury didn’t get to look at. Believe me folks, it makes you wonder how much faster they would have convicted her…

— MORE SOURCES —
canada.com
National Post
TO Star
Times Online (UK)
BBC News
Globe & Mail

[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…

Holy crap, Batman! It seems that there actually is a Lefty someplace in this country that isn’t waiting on a brain donor. Mr. Cameron Campbell, apparently from somewhere in La Belle Province, is a regular commentor over at The Torch and a guy with a serious social pedigree, has gone and gotten utterly sick and tired of Jumpin’ Jack! Jerkweed. In a recent Torch post, he shares a letter that he recently sent the little smirkin’ gherkin and I gotta tell ya, this is one damn smart Lefty…

Mr. Jack Layton,

On your biography page it says that you believe in practical solutions for problems. And yet you keep saying things like “The strategy being followed by NATO right now is producing the precise opposite effect to the one that the promoters of this mission are suggesting should be the goal,” Layton said. “In other words, growth of support for the Taliban because of these air strikes.”

Only a comprehensive peace process — not armed conflict — can resolve the crisis in Afghanistan, he argued, noting that “students of history will know that all major conflicts are resolved ultimately through peace-oriented discussions.””

Actually history shows us that peace happens when several conditions exist, not the least of which being that one side feels like they’ve lost, so your argument, respectfully, is utter crap.

I’m being quite serious, “peace-oriented discussions” (also known as peace negotiations or talks – who writes for you? They should be fired.) require that 1) everyone wants peace 2) there is a central authority to negotiate with 3) that the end of conflict will not immediately be replaced with some new, different kind of conflict (like, say, a series of genocidal massacres based on, say, supporting democracy and western style ideals of same).

So your thesis fails on point one horribly, on point two it’s laughable, and on point three you’re displaying a callousness towards human life that makes me want to vomit.

The reality is that there is no peace to keep, no peace to negotiate for, no one to negotiate with and no secure area to negotiate within. Pretending that these conditions exist is a fantasy.

Once the left was populated by people like my Uncles who fought in WW2, by people like Orwell and Trumbo, who could tell wrong from right and could figure out that something had to be done about it.

Now it’s populated by people like you who believe in a pacifist unilateralism that appears to me to be suicidal. Certainly we don’t get to negotiate peace with allies, but suggesting that the way forward in Afghanistan is via a policy of unidimensional ” peace-oriented discussions” (still thinking that someone should loose their job over that..) ignores the reality and the complexity of the situation. This knee jerk reaction towards anything involving the US (and increasingly, NATO) is, frankly, childish and simplistic.

I think the current regime in the US are a pack of corrupt, right wing demagogues, most of whom need a good sending to bed without dinner (and/or jail time) but in my read, that has bugger all to do with the fact that the Canadian Forces presence in the reconstruction and (horrors) combat operations in Afghanistan is accomplishing good.

Additionally sir, the tying of Canadian troops, even tangentially, to what you seem to believe is a NATO policy of bombing civilians for sport is disgusting. It does your position utterly no good at all. It’s wrong.

I know that journalists seek you out every time a Canadian is killed in Afghanistan and why not? You give good clip. But the constant sight of you scoring cheap political points with the deaths of our military personal? It wears sir. A suggestion, one that would ratchet up many peoples respect for you by something like 100%, would be to tell the journalists a variation on “There will be time to discuss the mission later, today our thoughts are with our brave soldiers and their families.” Trite? Maybe. Lacking in the fun oomph of scoring cheap shots? Oh yes. Respectful and classy? Indeed.

I come from a family who’s political views range from red Tory all the way to charter members of the CCF (my Great Aunt and Uncle were XXXX and XXXX), with stops along the way in trade unionism, full on communists and just about every other colour of the socially progressive rainbow. I’ve voted for your party in the past (and in the absence of your party running a viable candidate in my riding, for M. Duceppe), so it pains me to say this: I will never vote for the NDP while you are at it’s helm.

Never.

I’ll vote for a fringe party, the Monarchists, the Communist party, whatever local looney has managed to get together the deposit by borrowing the money from his friend, but never ever again the NDP.

I expect no response to this letter, I expect that you won’t even see it or have it read to you (Hello, by the way, to the intern reading this. I hope you’re having a great summer, my jobs always sucked and involved lifting boxes or digging holes, good on you for scoring a good one. Enjoy it, and good luck next semester. Stay in school.), I know that democracy no longer works that way but it felt like the least I could do.

With great regret,

Cameron Campbell

Now just how the hell am I supposed to convincingly explain to people what idiots socialists are, when one of them goes around saying stuff like that?? 😕

And a big ol’ top o’ the chapeau to Babbling Brooks, who is the one that I got word of this from. His own commentary was pretty damned good, too, so check it out.

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, I can’t say that I’m surprised by this. At all.

I may have been a little hesitant at first — and there were plenty of people emailing in to call me on it — but after the early revelations, my mind got changed in a hurry and what we have here now should surprise absolutely no one. I’ve gotten quite a few emails speculating about just how the murders of the Richardson family in Medicine hat were carried out, and most of them shared a common theory: Steinke killed the parents and Jasmine killed her 8-year old brother herself.

Well, so much for that being a wild theory:

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – A 13-year-old girl accused of killing a Medicine Hat family broke down twice on the witness stand yesterday while admitting to stabbing an eight-year-old boy who was begging for his life.

Speaking in a barely audible voice, she admitted to stabbing eight-year-old Jacob Richardson in the upper part of his body.

“I’m scared, I’m too young to die,” the girl told the court, recalling what the boy said during the April 23, 2006, massacre.

There you have it. Sweet, innocent little Jasmine Richardson stuck a knife in her little brother while he begged for his life. Of course, she’s trying to hang it all on Steinke, but that’s not the way the evidence is piling up:

After three weeks of Crown evidence about the grisly crime scene and a rebellious adolescent who hated her parents and the rules they tried to impose, Tuesday’s testimony was the first time the jury heard full details of the murderous encounter.

She was angry because her parents grounded her and took away her computer privileges in an attempt to cool her relationship with the 23-year-old Steinke. She told the jury she often “vented” to her boyfriend as they talked on the phone late at night after her family had gone to sleep and admitted she’d had several “hypothetical conversations” with him about killing her parents.

As if all this weren’t bad enough, little Jasmine isn’t ever going to be held really accountable, regardless of the verdict. Thanks to the piece-of-shit YCJA that the Shawinigan Strangler saddled us with, she can’t possibly be handed a sentence of more than 10 years. And thanks to other idiocies like statutory release, she won’t do any more than six years inside, likely living with more creature comforts while she’s in there than most of you do out in the working world. Tack onto that the fact that she’s going to get 2-for-1 credit for the “dead time” that she’s served before her final sentencing, and she’ll be back on the streets before she’s old enough to drink.

And here’s the kicker: all the social-worker/hug-a-thug shitheads out there that think the YCJA is so lovely are going to try to tell you that you have no right to know who she is!

That’s right. In the all-too-near future, Jasmine’s going to be out on the same streets as your kids. Maybe, like my boy, your kids are about Jasmine’s age. And those sanctimonious assholes have the gall to try and tell me that I can’t warn him about this future Squeaky Fromme that’s going to be prowling the streets.

Like hell I can’t. My kids and my grandkids (whenever they show up) have a right to know if there’s a murderer in their midst.

Your kids have that right, too.

Oh, yeah; last but not least:

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – A 13-year-old girl says she showed little emotion after stabbing her terrified little brother – knowing her parents were also dead – because the enormity of the act was “too big to cry about.”

Just one more thing to chew on…