18721 replies to this topic

[pontcanna]

Crime index paints skewed picture of small town life

• Times Colonist
• 14 Aug 2022

Every year when Statistics Canada releases its Crime Severity Index there are two things people can bank on – larger cities using it to claim it highlights the need for more resources and a new approach to policing, while many small towns around the country will roll their eyes and dismiss the index as a poor indication of the level of crime in their communities.

 

Turns out, both reactions may have equal merit.

 

Rob Gillezeau, assistant professor of economics at the University of Victoria who has studied the economics of policing, said high numbers, especially in smaller communities, may paint a misleading picture.

 

That’s because the index, which measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime in any given year, is designed to try to provide a more meaningful interpretation of broad statistics by weighing the severity of crimes reported.

 

The idea behind giving more weight to more serious crimes is to stop people drawing the wrong conclusions about crime rates based on high numbers of minor crimes like petty theft.

 

“Part of this is just going to be genuine variation in crime and the type of crime across municipalities,” said Gillezeau. “When we get into smaller cities, it takes fewer incidents to meaningfully shift the value of the CSI.

 

That may be why the top five highest index ratings in B.C. for 2021 were for small communities, where a single homicide or one major incident can have a dramatic effect.

 

Fort St. James tops the list at 293, followed by Hope at 291, Quesnel at 246, Prince George at 223 and Agassiz at 215. By comparison Victoria was 148, Greater Victoria was 71.5 and Vancouver was 90. The provincial average was 93.

 

The highest index ratings on Vancouver Island were for Port Hardy at 211, Duncan at 192 and Port Alberni at 176.

 

Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions said that rating is not necessarily an accurate reflection of how safe the community is.

 

Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples shares that frustration.

 

It’s the same problem that faces Victoria. The city has a rating of 148 because it is the entertainment centre and playground for the entire region. Greater Victoria as a whole has a much lower rating of 70.

 

RCMP spokesman Alex Berube said the index needs to be properly analyzed as it may not reflect what is happening in a region after you’ve factored in the size of the population, and the number of incidents.

 

More: https://digitaltimes...281612424183576

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pontcanna]

Six arrested after hours-long Campbell River standoff

Police units deployed after multiple reports of gunshots; residents told to stay indoors

RCMP units flooded a neighbourhood in Campbell River in the early morning hours Sunday after multiple reports of shots fired.

A standoff ensued for several hours as front-line RCMP, police in tactical gear, canine units and an armoured vehicle surrounded a home in an area around Dogwood Street and Alpine Avenue.

Six people were eventually arrested, police said.

The incident saw several social media posts about the police buildup, which Voller said puts officers and the public at risk..

No injuries were reported, police said.

More: https://www.timescol...tandoff-5696089

 

 

[pontcanna]

House fire victim identified, Nanaimo RCMP consider incident a homicide

Aug 15, 2022

NANAIMO — Local Mounties consider a recent house fire in Nanaimo’s south end to be a homicide.

In a bid to further their investigation, Nanaimo RCMP confirmed the man found inside a home on Athletic St. on Thursday, Aug. 11, was 40-year-old Trevor Lawrence Stross.

Reserve Cst. Gary O’Brien told NanaimoNewsNOW Stross was of no fixed address.

“Stross was known to have recently arrived in Nanaimo and was known to travel between Nanaimo and Victoria.”

Police are not revealing whether Stross died prior to or during the fire. They are also not releasing any information about the owner or residents of the home where Stross was found.

According to court records, Stross was charged with ten offences in relation to alleged crimes in the Victoria area last year. Those offences involved property crimes and allegations of fraud.

More: https://nanaimonewsn...ent-a-homicide/

 

 

[Victoria Watcher]

And I'm sure after their release, they returned home to the taxpayer-funded apartment. 

 

 

 

 

 

https://vicpd.ca/202...search-warrant/

 

 

VicPD officers arrested a man and a woman, and seized firearms, body armour, and additional weapons after executing a search warrant in Victoria in July.

 

On the afternoon of Saturday, July 16^th, Patrol officers and the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT) executed a search warrant at a suite in a supportive housing facility in the 800-block of Johnson Street.  During the search of the suite, officers located several firearms, including a shotgun with ammunition and two handguns with ammunition. Officers also located several replica firearms.

 

In addition, officers seized body armour and other weapons such as brass knuckles, a taser, a sword, and batons.

 

 

 

Photographs of the seized items are below.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 August 2022 - 12:51 PM.

[Sparky]

So it takes a month for VICPD to cough up this gem.

Who are they? Where did they live exactly? Have they been released from custody? Were they ever in custody?

If you are sincerely seeking the public’s help in connection with this “incident “ for Christ’s sake, quit keeping everything secret.

[Nparker]

#mostvulnerable

[Victoria Watcher]

A lot of pleading down of murder charges lately. Prosecutors don’t want to go to trial?



Man pleads guilty to second-degree murder in 2017 killing of Nanaimo teen

Steven Bacon has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of 16-year-old Makayla Chang, who disappeared in March 2017.

https://www.timescol...mo-teen-5700751



Apart from the guy that killed his kids in Oak Bay, when was the last trial? Maybe a local mother that killed her baby?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 August 2022 - 03:51 PM.

[pontcanna]

I'm just concerned that Bacon's motivation behind getting the charge dropped to 2nd degree is so he can try dodging the obvious kiddie-sex thing (that plays very poorly "inside") and instead come up with a bogus "argument/accident" scenario for Makayla's death.

[pontcanna]

Man stabbed multiple times in the head at bus exchange in downtown Nanaimo

51-year-old female suspect arrested for aggravated assault

Aug. 15, 2022  

A man is recovering in hospital after he was stabbed in the head multiple times in downtown Nanaimo.

RCMP responded at about 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, to the bus exchange on Front Street near Port Place Shopping Centre, where they found a man suffering from multiple stab wounds.

“When officers arrived they found a 27-year-old male in serious condition with several stab wounds to the head,” said reserve Const. Gary O’Brien. “Officers conducted emergency first aid until they were relieved by [Emergency Health Services], who also transported him to the hospital where he is now considered to be in stable condition.”

O’Brien said a 51-year-old female suspect was arrested without incident a short distance from the scene for aggravated assault.

More: https://www.nanaimob...wntown-nanaimo/

 

[Victoria Watcher]

I believe in Canada it’s always a jury trial for murder, and the jury can conclude manslaughter, first or second degree murder. Or not guilty. So I’m not sure why the crown is always so motivated to plead down to a lesser offence.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 August 2022 - 04:01 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I'm just concerned that Bacon's motivation behind getting the charge dropped to 2nd degree is so he can try dodging the obvious kiddie-sex thing (that plays very poorly "inside") and instead come up with a bogus "argument/accident" scenario for Makayla's death.

Most pleas still require the agreed facts/details to be read at sentencing though.

Of course when the victim is dead, their side of the story goes unheard.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 August 2022 - 04:03 PM.

[lanforod]

Ultimately it’s probably due to limited resources. It’s gotta be orders of magnitude cheaper to convict them for shorter sentencing on a lower severity charge than to go to trial for the correct charge. Especially when even if they get convicted in trial, the sentencing is a joke anyways.

[Victoria Watcher]

Ultimately it’s probably due to limited resources. It’s gotta be orders of magnitude cheaper to convict them for shorter sentencing on a lower severity charge than to go to trial for the correct charge. Especially when even if they get convicted in trial, the sentencing is a joke anyways.

 

A finding of “not guilty” was the result in just more than 3% of the more than 390,000 criminal cases in the country in 2008-2009, according to data recently released by Statistics Canada.

 

If Quebec is excluded from the totals the percentage drops to a little more than 1% — just 3,570 people acquitted in the rest of the country last year.

 

The data contained in the annual Adult Criminal Court Statistics needs to be looked at with some context though, say those involved in the criminal justice system.

 

For example, it does not mean that everyone charged with a criminal offence is eventually found guilty.The Statistics Canada report shows that one in three cases across the country is withdrawn by the Crown without any criminal conviction because of a lack of evidence. Ontario is even higher than the national average, with more than 40% of cases withdrawn before they get to trial.

 

It is the remaining two-thirds of cases in which the prosecution does not withdraw, that a finding of guilt is registered nearly 99% of the time, except in Quebec.

____________________________________

 

In about 95% of cases in which the Crown proceeds to trial, there is a plea bargain. “Guilty to a lesser offence may engage many of the same important public interests as an acquittal,” Mr. Burstein said. “It does not mean police got it right,” he said.

 

 

https://nationalpost...end-in-aquittal

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 16 August 2022 - 12:24 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

A 27-year-old man is in stable condition hospital and a 51-year-old woman is in custody after the man was stabbed several time in his head Sunday morning.

 

Nanaimo RCMP Const. Gary O’Brien said police received a report about the stabbing at 9:30 a.m. He said officers arrived quickly and performed first-aid before turning things over to ambulance paramedics.

 

“Those actions probably saved his life.”

 

 

https://www.timescol...he-head-5701415

[Mike K.]

There are very intimidating parts of Duncan now, downtown Nanaimo is a disaster, and Courtenay has a particularly bad area in the south side of the city and into its downtown. Locals say it’s the worst they’ve ever seen it.

Campbell River, of course, has been in the news so often that it’s clearly dealing with serious criminality it never had before.

Since 2020 this Island has changed.

[LJ]

Since 2020 this Island has changed.

Yeah, I'm with ya brother, today somebody rifled through my recycling and took a bunch of plastics and glass. 

[pontcanna]

Victoria’s restaurant industry continues its sexual assault reckoning

Eighteen months after rape allegations shook the industry, here’s how things have changed

By Martin Bauman, Capital Daily
Aug 16, 2022

Halle Shedden has been working to create a safe space at Taco Justice after previous experiences of being sexually harassed within Victoria's restaurant industry.

Halle Shedden can list the times she’s been sexually harassed and abused—or witnessed others face similar fates—working in restaurants in Victoria. From Tacofino, to Little Jumbo, to Il Covo, to The Penny Farthing, she has a story for nearly every kitchen she’s worked in since moving to Victoria in 2015.

There’s the former coworker from Little Jumbo who shared nude photos of her with his male colleagues; the kitchen she worked in where bosses told her coworker that it smelled like fish, and that “she should shut her legs”; the Tacofino staff party where she blacked out and woke up in another man’s house, covered in bruises.

“Three staff members asked me if he was ‘a good lay.’”

She recalls each instance with clarity—and, since taking over as manager at Taco Justice, she’s been working to ensure that behaviour has no place anywhere.

Eighteen months since rape allegations sparked an industry-wide reckoning in Victoria, she’s far from the only one.

.........................................................................................

Shedden has noticed some things change since the early days of 2021, when some of the first stories involving allegations of abuse came to light.

“People are talking about it as a dialogue now, when before, it was like no one wanted to say anything, which is a huge difference,” she says.

She has modelled that with her own team at Taco Justice, with efforts to create an inclusive atmosphere that’s free of harassment. She calls the reckoning overdue.

“You don't want your staff to feel scared to come to work every day, when before it was kind of like, ‘Just show up, do your thing. Boys will be boys.’

“I feel like a lot of people were ashamed of feeling [alone]. And we all kind of realized, ‘Hey, we've all had this happen to us.’ And we don't have to let this keep happening.”

 

More: https://www.capitald...ult-allegations

 

[Mike K.]

Yeah, I'm with ya brother, today somebody rifled through my recycling and took a bunch of plastics and glass.

Geez. That still happens?

[pontcanna]

- ERT for a guy walking in Fernwood?

 

UPDATE | GVERT Arrests Wanted Man Cameron Gamble

Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2022 - File: #22-30394

 

Victoria, BC – Cameron Gamble, who was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant, has been arrested by members of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT).

 

Shortly before 7 p.m. last night, GVERT officers located and arrested Cameron Gamble, who was on foot in the area of Begbie Street and Gladstone Avenue. No one was injured during the arrest.

 

Cameron Gamble was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant after failing to return to his community-based residential facility in Victoria. He is serving a more than two-year federal sentence for firearms-related offences. Cameron Gamble remains in custody.

 

 

[Victoria Watcher]

Shortly before 7 p.m. last night, GVERT officers located and arrested Cameron Gamble, who was on foot in the area of Begbie Street and Gladstone Avenue.



That’s one slow get-away.