A Tale of Two Cities

First up... the CBC...

"There's been no movement from government side or the police side. The community was trying very hard to do everything in their power but it's very limited what the community can do without the government's help." --

That's weird... that's not what the police are saying...

"The investigation is going to go nowhere without co-operation. We believe they know exactly who killed this guy and none of them will say," said Edmonton police homicide detective Bill Clark. "If we got co-operation, this one we could easily solve."

Clark estimates there were at least 100 people in the bar at the time of the shooting.

Instead of placing the blame on others, Clark said the Somali community needs to deal with young members of the community who are causing the bulk of the problems.

"A lot of these kids are gangsters and drug dealers," said Clark, who noted unco-operative witnesses is a common problem in many of the region's Somali shooting cases.

Same planet... different worlds.

P.S. -- watch for the usual suspects to start screaming for Detective Clark's head... for actually daring to say stuff like this out loud.

**********

RELATED: More gun-happy Albertans

**********

LAST WORD: Uh-huh... let's blame Canada

The group heard one Somali community leader speak of the "snitch factor." If one wounded man would testify, the trial could go forward, said Abdurahman Jibril, a community development worker and chair of the Somali Canadian National Congress chair.

"Kids are kids," he said of their response to efforts to encourage them to do so. "They say they won't snitch."

That's funny... that doesn't sound anything like my kid.

And, of course... it's all about our heartless, systemically racist Canadian system...

Then Ali broached the race factor.

"What's another black Somali who's been killed?" he asked as others nodded. "We feel it would have been handled in a different way if he was a white Canadian."

Yup, Ali... it would have been different. If it was a "white Canadian" who'd been murdered... his buddies would have testified and put the murderer away. There wouldn't have been any of this "code of the street" horseshit.

See, we're brought up here to work with the cops and the justice system. It's a lesson you might want to pass on to the rest of your community.

The Farmer Bob Rifle Registry

It's time to drive a stake through this "Two Billion Dollar" Monster's heart...

This is a non-partisan issue and I hope Bill C-301 will be supported by all federal parties. There are MPs in all parties who firmly believe hunters, farmers and sport shooters have been forced to comply with an onerous and costly registration process that makes no sense.

I would encourage all hunters, sport shooters and fiscally responsible Canadians to let your MP know that you want this bill passed.

Let’s all help Parliament switch its focus to opposing the bad guys.

**********

RELATED: Some database is GONNA FIX THIS???

SERIOUSLY?

The group heard one Somali community leader speak of the "snitch factor." If one wounded man would testify, the trial could go forward, said Abdurahman Jibril, a community development worker and chair of the Somali Canadian National Congress chair.

"Kids are kids," he said of their response to efforts to encourage them to do so. "They say they won't snitch. This is a culture we never had back (in Somalia)."

And the Red Star is quick to dispense total absolution to everyone involved...

"Tough questions were raised. Had authorities offered the families the support they needed? The victims must be traumatized. They must be scared."

The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

Thank goodness we got out in time.

**********

LAST WORD: Apparently... it's safer in Somalia

"Canada is nothing. ... The Canadian government is nothing," Ahmed Abdikarim Mohammed told the Toronto Sun in front of his modest bungalow.

"I go," said Mohammed, a 58-year-old Toronto cab driver. "My plan is this week to go, all together."

"I die in Somalia," Abdikarim's father told the Sun. "That's the end for me."

*

UPDATE: TORONTO HOMICIDE #36/2023

YET ANOTHER SHOOTING SHOCKER...

-- "The victim of the shooting in the Sherbourne Street and Shuter Street area has been identified as Mohamed Ahmed, 36, of Toronto." --

SNITCH INITIATIVE ILLUSTRATES COP CLUELESSNESS

-- "Toronto Police are also encouraging the public to report information anonymously to help make the streets safer." --

The Torontology subreddit is saying the dead guy (aka Arab) is the brother of Toronto rapper 'Mustafa the Poet.' Ah, yes... the music that soothes mens souls.

Remember when you were a kid...

...and people settled disagreements by severing major blood vessels?

-- TORONTO -- Emergency crews found the 18-year-old man stabbed near Davenport and Old Weston Rds. around 11:30 p.m. yesterday, Toronto Police homicide Det.-Sgt. Steve Ryan said this morning.

The victim was known to police, though investigators haven't found any gang affiliation.

Yeah... me neither.

**********

UPDATE: Latest murder victim identified

Kevin Boateng may have had his run-ins with police, but behind his tough facade was a warm heart, a "lovely boy," his heartbroken family said yesterday.

"He was a humble boy, a very special boy."

**********

LAST WORD: That's the most important thing, huh?

..."don't snitch"...

Toronto has recorded its fourth homicide of 2009 -- and the victim refused to co-operate with police even as he lay dying."

*

Later, babe.

And hey... thanks for the ride...

A 45-year-old woman driving her car was shot in a suspected ambush -- apparently after she was caught in an exchange of gunfire between her passenger and a gunman in another car in north Etobicoke.

The woman was hit in the left side as the gunman's car pulled up beside her at 11:58 p.m. Wednesday on Four Winds Dr., near John Garland Blvd. and Martin Grove Rd.

Her car was riddled with bullets, police said. Some residents said they heard more than a dozen shots.

Stasiak said the gunman's vehicle pulled beside the victim's car. "There were shots fired, she pulls over to the side of the road and we're not sure whether another occupant of the vehicle fires shots back at the suspect vehicle," Stasiak said.

That man then fled, abandoning the woman, he said.

The most important thing here though... I sure hope she didn't snitch this poor guy out.

There are rules ya know.

Regardless... no word yet from Mayor Miller's office... on which gun club the shooters belonged to.

*

Man... there's this little voice...

...in the back of my mind that keeps whispering "thunderdome"...

“I’m scared,” Gibbs said. “If I get labeled as a snitch or a goof, next thing I know I end up in a body bag or I disappear — if they can go out and kill a kid like that, what’s to stop them from doing the same to me?”

But yesterday on the witness stand, Gibbs stuck to a new story — memory loss.

“I don’t remember anything,” he said repeatedly.

**********

RELATED: The intolerable racism...

...of Toronto City Councillor Michael Thompson.

**********

LAST WORD: Hit me baby, one more time

Durham Regional Police are looking for a suspect after a man was shot outside a Pickering nightclub early Friday morning.

Just before 2 a.m. On April 16, a 22-year-old Toronto man was rushed to a Toronto hospital after being shot in the parking lot outside the Island Mix nightclub on Brock Road in Pickering.

Yet another shocker.

Debate? Debate?

Isn't that one of those "white privilige" deals where you actually have to answer questions? Count me out, baby.**********

POP QUIZ BONUS ROUND:

Which lushly self-described civil rights warrior was a paid FBI snitch in the 1980s?

More "Mormons Gone Wild" I guess

Jane & Finch... that sounds so familiar...

Four people have been injured in a shooting in North York including a 12-year-old boy, in the area of Jane Street and Strong Court, near Finch Avenue West.

No suspect descriptions were provided.

Call 'em "child soldiers" and look the other way? 

RELATED: But look who Justin is targeting

"Unfortunately, this snitch line is frequently used by a divorcing spouse to cause his or her gun-owning spouse some legal grief."

And what the hell is the “Evergreen Process?”

A caring, tightly knit "community"?

Just not when it comes to justice for the slain...

A second Crown witness who originally told police that she watched Jordan Manners being murdered testified Friday that she never saw the slaying but was repeating rumours sweeping the school.

The real anomaly here... is that witnesses actually talked to the cops in the first place.

**********

RELATED: The Jane-Finch "code of silence"

Pieters said the threats to kill Latchana were publicly made in two songs accusing the victim of being a snitch. One song said, "don't let me catch you 'cause those guns will spark ... I will find you after dark, I don't give a fuck man, 'cause the time is soft."

"I'll murder everybody in your family tree."

Ah yes... the healing power of music.

What's really weird is, these are the folks..

...who won't snitch when somebody gets murdered...

"The City of Brampton has issued its first ticket under its new physical distancing bylaw after a resident called 311 to report a backyard party in their neighbourhood."

Brampton, Brampton... that sounds so familiar.

At Canada's National Broadcaster...

...we're all sadz...Who knew that all their kids were "finding comfort in gangs, guns and drugs." Sounds pretty darned "uncomfortable" to my white privileged ass...

"Now a community is deep in mourning at the beginning of 2020," Coun. Kristyn-Wong Tam said. "We're tired of losing young people in the community," community advocate Sureya Ibrahim said. "We are tired of going to funerals."

Just not tired enough to point out murderers to the police...

Investigators believe a number of witnesses have not yet come forward and are reminding the public that tips can be left anonymously by calling Crime Stoppers.

I don't know why police have to act out this charade. None of the people in these communities are ever willing to "snitch"... no matter the crime.

Everyone makes excuses. So, so tired... you know... like the other guy in the car with poor dead Ahmed's brains soaking into his clothes.

**********

RELATED: No gun... no problem... Homicide #2 of 2020

Police say the victim, identified as 31-year-old Toronto resident Muhammad Waqar Alam, died in hospital on Jan. 2.

The accused, who has been identified as Sahand Norouz Zadeh, 19, is now facing one count of second-degree murder.

Why blame the triggerman...

When you can simply point fingers at the cops...

Pieters said yesterday the province failed to protect a Crown witness who testified against his accused killer after intervening in a swarming and saving a friend's life.

He said Latchana, also known as O.G., was not a Crips member and challenges Peel investigators to prove their claims.

So Selwyn... everybody in "the community" knew this guy was gonna be killed... but the cops hung him out to dry?

How do you know that?

Pieters said the threats to kill Latchana were publicly made in two songs accusing the victim of being a snitch.

One song said, "don't let me catch you 'cause those guns will spark ... I will find you after dark, I don't give a fuck man, 'cause the time is soft."

"I'll murder everybody in your family tree."

Ah yes... the healing power of hip-hop.

Now, call me wacky... but if I'm the acknowledged target of "a gang vendetta"... which Selwyn claims everybody and their dog knew about... I'm thinkin' spending all night gettin' wasted at the local boozecan might be a pretty dumb idea.

Of course, if Selwyn is suggesting that police should arrest ANY rapper who uses violent or abusive lyrics in their work... we've got a whole new ball game here.

Selwyn?

**********

UPDATE: Peel Police respond to accusations

Peel Police insisted today that investigators never knew that David Lachana, who was shot dead Nov. 3, was marked for death.

The force is also standing by its claims that Lachana's death was gang-related and that the young man was involved with the notorious Crips gang.

**********

LAST WORD: Toronto Star eulogises O'Neil Grant

-- KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Nothing was stolen. Police say the killing looks like a targeted hit.

"He was wanted and they came and got him," says Det. Robert Thompson, who is investigating the case, adding he has no idea who wanted Grant dead or why.

Most puzzling to Thompson was the Toronto Star's interest in the killing. This, after all, is a country where this year some 1,200 people have so far been killed – 80 per cent of them with guns.

Strangely enough... there's a "blame the cops, not the killer" theme here as well.

Det. Thompson says "it's only a matter of time" before Grant's murderer is arrested. Grant's friends dismiss that as fodder for foreign consumption. They fear police are more interested in keeping Grant's belongings than solving the crime.

Yeah... that makes sense.

Technorati Tags: David Latchana, Selwyn Pieters, O'Neil Grant

I'm looking forward to the...

...followup production... "Oppenheimer"... a story that “valorizes dead white scientists” and replaces it with black, Latino and multi-ethnic performers playing America’s seminal theoretical physicists...

The press representative for the show told CBS2’s Aiello the language in the notice, “seeking non-white performers,” was approved by Actors Equity.

But the Union General Counsel denied that, saying such language was not and would not be approved.

**********

IRONY ALERT: For the record...

"Alexander Hamilton favored the anti-liberty Alien and Sedition Acts AND the Electoral College that Democrats are trying to get rid of."

Ah, Barack... you've brought us all together. Enjoy your legacy.

And, while we're "airbrushing the Politburo"...

According to the book, after spending the summer golfing with Uncle Vernon Jordan, he admits to Hillary that, although he did play quidditch, he never put his bludger in the golden snitch.

Hillary thinks this is a lot of hufflepuff and, although he doesn't die, Billy finds himself under an impediment curse which means that for the rest of the book he hardly gets to take his wand out at all and Uncle Vernon starts calling him Nearly Headless Bill.

Once upon a socially just time, right?

**********

RELATED: FROM THE COMMENTS:

You've come a long way, Baby...

"Ms. Wynne appeared to be holding back tears".

And...

"Canadian Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland was choking back tears".

Is there anybody out there who isn't blubbering?

This is the type of freak...

...the phrase... "shot and pissed on"... was invented for.

He killed 43 people and got a chance to redeem himself, but he squandered it and went back to jail under the double stigma of being a snitch and a child molester.

The inmates truly are running the asylum.

Now terminally ill, Yves (Apache) Trudeau has received parole again, in perhaps the last chapter in the life of one of Canada's most cold-blooded killers.

The former Hells Angels hit man is dying from bone-marrow cancer and receiving palliative care.

Only in Canada.

**********

RELATED: And while we're on surreal...

...guess who could get charged with "war crimes."

-- BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian military intelligence used the Red Cross emblem in a rescue operation in which leftist guerrillas were duped into handing over 15 hostages, according to unpublished photographs and video viewed by CNN.

(h/t tim blair)

Bright lights, big city...

...apparently Hastings County isn't immune...

-- BELLEVILLE -- Shortly after midnight on April 6 of last year, here in the "Friendly City," a young woman was randomly attacked by a roaming pack of teenagers, thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly about the head -- dislocating her jaw, ripping her skin raw, and giving her whiplash.

It was a planned swarming, the victim inconsequential, with the attack committed by a dozen drinking-and-drugging kids, all under 17, for no other reason than 'for kicks' -- no iPod or cell phone robbery, just 'kicks'.

One of the gang even had his cell phone at the ready, and videotaped most of the incident -- showing the young woman being grabbed from behind and thrown to the sidewalk as she walked past the group, no provocation whatsoever, capturing the young woman's pleas for mercy, and then the profane, expletive-filled response of her attackers, primarily by the two girls putting the boots to her.

The obsessive new worlds of YouTube and Facebook had to be appeased with another video feed.

A witness called 911.

No cop car ever showed.

When the attack ended, and while the victim was still lying on the ground, bruised, bloodied and being consoled, a second 911 call was placed.

This time the caller was told no police car would be showing up, since all police units that night were involved in a "serious assault" that apparently included a stabbing.

"Come to the station," they were told.

Whatever the "serious assault" was that took precedence over two 911 calls, it should be noted that it never made it into the local Belleville Intelligencer, since no press release was ever issued on a major incident that reportedly necessitated the response of every available police unit in this city of 39,000 residents.

The young woman who was attacked, by the way, was my then 22-year-old daughter, Erin.

The trauma of that night changed her life.

With the attack happening in the middle of her final exams of her final year at Trent University, she had to bear down and fight the lost confidence that had invaded her.

And she had to do this with a dislocated jaw, around trips to Ottawa to see a specialist, and enduring treatments that quickly closed in on $5,000 and necessitated her wearing a dental appliance that makes her talk with a lisp -- all the while emotionally pondering the complexities of "why her" when, throughout her young life, she has been so good and so giving.

It was not an easy journey.

After all, it had all begun so innocently. Earlier that evening, she and her Ottawa-based boyfriend, Drew Paulusse, along with another couple, had attended a charity fundraising dinner in Belleville, and had then gone to a bar along Belleville's bar-motel strip to finish off the evening.

When one of their extended party wanted to check out another bar across the street, Erin and another girlfriend went with her for company and, upon their return, that's when the assault occurred.

Erin, still dressed to the nines from the charity dinner, was the smallest of the three -- 5' 3" -- and the only one the swarmers grabbed, this after the three were taunted by the gang as "sluts" as they walked up.

As one of her assailants later said, almost nonchalantly, "If it wasn't her, it would have been the next person."

All her attackers, as it turned out, were young offenders, some "known to police," including the two girls who were her primary attackers, and so it all fell under the protection and privacy offered by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Manning the phones at the Belleville police station on the night of the attack was Const. Gina Giouroukous, a veteran officer assigned to the duty desk.

When Erin, her face swollen and her eyes red with tears, arrived at the station with her friends, Gina Giouroukous, the constable who also happened to take the 911 calls that evening, told them to "get the fuck out of here" and come back in the morning when they were "sober."

No denials of this were ever tabled.

Four days later, following my personal involvement, a belatedly written general occurrence report appeared, penned by yet another officer with no first-hand knowledge, that claimed there was no response to the 911 call on "the alleged assault" because it "appeared to be a punchup in front of a bar with no serious injuries and, judging by the conversation, all parties involved had been drinking."

There were five people who showed up to give evidence at the police station that night, by taxi -- Erin, her boyfriend, the young woman who called 911, not once but twice, another male friend and, most importantly, the youth involved in the swarming who had taken the cell phone video and who, in a brief exhibition of remorse, had stayed back, helped Erin off the ground, and then supplied her with the names of the two girls who had been the primary assailants.

When told at the police station to "get the fuck out of here," however, he did just that -- taking the video evidence with him and vowing no more participation.

That, he said, would be the end of his involvement -- with fear of retaliation for being a snitch his prime motivation.

The following morning, Erin shows up at the Belleville police station to formally give her statement.

She is in severe pain, and on her way to the hospital for X-rays once her statement has been taken. Her jaw has now swollen to the point that she can barely open her mouth, impeding her from even brushing her teeth.

She is interviewed by a uniform cop named Bill Madden, a Belleville constable with a couple of decades on the job.

He hands her a piece of gum, noting he could still smell alcohol on her breath.

"You should not have been walking down the street that late at night," Madden tells her.

To which she replied, incredulously, "Pardon me?"

Throughout the interview, Madden continually refers to the assault as being "alleged."

As if.

Erin gives him the names of her "alleged" assailants, as well as the name of the youth from the swarming who had given her those names, who had taken the video, and who had also reluctantly come to the station the night before when he was still feeling a twinge of guilt.

Following being kicked out of the police station, however, he had gone to ground.

He would now have to be tracked down.

Days later, I accompany Erin to Belleville for her second interview with Madden who, in the meantime, has secured the video from the youth whose name Erin had given him.

First time around, he had been dismissive -- to Erin in person, and later to me on the phone.

After seeing the video, however, he is now calling the attack "brutal and obviously unprovoked."

"This happens all the time in Belleville," he says, so matter-of-factly that it caught me off guard.

"Just kids with nothing better to do," he says, shrugging.

When asked about Erin's treatment at the Belleville police station the night of the attack after experiencing no response to two 911 calls, Madden then says this.

"What did you expect when she shows up at the station with her posse in tow?" he asks.

It was an unfortunate choice of words, and out of context with the reality.

"Posse?" I reply. "Did you say posse?"

He doesn't know quite how to respond.

"By posse, do you mean Erin's boyfriend, who happens to be a law-abiding university graduate and a environment technologist in Ottawa? Is he posse?" I say.

"Or how about the female witness? Is she posse?

"Or the other young man with them, who just happened to be a police cadet at the time, and is now a full-fledged member of the OPP?"

"Is he posse? I ask.

Madden has no answer.

The file is eventually turned over to Det. Tom Sweet of the Belleville Police criminal investigation unit.

Weeks pass.

Two girls -- both 15 -- are finally charged with assault causing bodily harm, and ordered to steer clear of each other as conditions for their pre-trial release.

On the very first night, the ringleader messages the other online as if it were all a joke, and is charged with breach of her bail conditions when the other girl's mother contacts police and turns her in.

And so the justice system begins ...

mark.bonokoski@sunmedia.ca or 416-947-2445 --

*