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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:30:23 -0500
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Ucluelet girls tried to set victim afire, police say
Salim Jiwa, The Vancouver Province 12/14/99
Three teenaged girls tried to torch another girl with hairspray while
beating her, authorities say. School officials and RCMP in Ucluelet said
it's pure luck the makeshift flamethrower didn't work, even though the
girls held a lighter to the flammable spray.
RCMP Sgt. Chris Bomford said the victim was lured by another girl to a
secluded beach, where she was ambushed by three more girls wearing
masks. The girl was then beaten, but managed to flee. Bomford said the
assault could have proved fatal. "You get a group of young girls like that
and who knows where it's going to go," he said. "She's actually pretty
lucky. She has some bruises and some minor injuries
but the situation could have been much worse. It could have been fatal."
Three girls could face charges of assault with a weapon and wearing a
disguise while committing an offence. The fourth girl faces a charge of
assault. The fight was over the boyfriend of one of the suspects. The
victim had apparently said something about the boy that angered the
suspects, Bomford said. The attack happened after school Thursday.
Ucluelet secondary principal Kevin Luchies said authorities Friday arranged
crisis-counselling and anger
management sessions for students. The suspects have been suspended while
the probe proceeds. Police say they have forwarded the case to the Crown
prosecutor who will decide what charges to lay against the suspects -- all
girls aged 14 or 15 years.
15 YEAR OLD GIRL BEATEN BEYOND RECOGNITION
City teen beaten beyond recognition
House party in King George area turns violent, bloody
By Betty Ann Adam Saskatoon Star Phoenix 12/14/99
A 15-year-old girl, beaten so severely on Saturday night that fingerprints
were used to identify her, was abandoned in the yard of a King George-area
house for about an hour before an ambulance was called to help her. The
girl was taken to St. Paul's Hospital in critical condition and later
transferred to Royal University
Hospital, where her condition was serious on Monday.
"She's got a lot of very serious internal head injuries as
well as a lot of facial injuries. It took them a while to
identify her because of her face," said Staff Sgt. Glenn Thomson of the
city police. "They figure she was outside for about an hour before she was
located," he said. Alice Durocher, who lives at the house on Avenue L South
where the girl was found, said she wasn't home at the time of the beating
and thought the victim might be her own 16-year-old daughter. Durocher,
sitting in the living room of the shabby house, said a rowdy drinking party
there ended with
the vicious assault on the teen sometime before midnight Saturday.
On the floors, stairs, walls, cupboards and door of the house, black
felt-marker circles made by police marked the places where blood was found
during their investigation. A patch of blood-soaked snow beside the back
doorstep showed where ambulance personnel found
the girl. "There was beer bottles smashed everywhere when I came home,"
Durocher said of the sight she encountered when police finally allowed her
back into the house Monday morning. Durocher said her daughter and nephew,
both 16, were playing cards when she left the house Saturday and that they
had had the party there later.
Afterward, her nephew phoned her to say the police were at the house and
that a girl had been beaten up. Durocher said when she arrived at the house
police refused to let her go inside. They asked her to come with them to
St. Paul's Hospital to see if the injured girl was her daughter. "I
couldn't recognize her because she was beat up too
bad. It was scary," she said. "I thought it was her laying on the stretcher
there." The police took the girl's fingerprints and Durocher went downtown
with them to see if the prints matched
her daughter's, which the police had on file.
The prints didn't match but they did match those of another teen the police
had in their system. "I feel sorry for that girl. I can just imagine how
her family feels," Durocher said. Once the girl was
identified, her family was alerted and they went to hospital, Thomson said.
Durocher said she later learned that her daughter and
at least two other girls from the party had been taken into police custody.
The major crimes unit is investigating but have not laid
any charges in connection with the assault, Thomson said."They're talking
to people who were at the house that night but there's no arrests been made
yet," he said.
Teens face charges after beating of girl
Saskatoon Star Phoenix 12/15/99
Two teenage girls will appear in youth court this morning charged with
aggravated assault after an attack Saturday night left a 15-year-old girl
beaten beyond recognition. The teens, aged 14 and 16, have been in custody
since the weekend on charges from earlier that same evening. Under the
Young Offenders Act, their names cannot be published because of their ages.
The 14-year-old girl is already facing a charge of assault with a weapon
for allegedly attacking a man in a restaurant with a beer bottle at about 5
p.m. Saturday.
Both teens are also charged with uttering threats after an altercation with
a man in the 400 block of Avenue J South at 11:20 p.m. Saturday. Thirty
minutes later, it's alleged the two girls attacked the 15-year-old in a
residence at 617 Ave. L South.
She suffered serious head injuries and remains in hospital in serious but
stable condition, police said Tuesday.
Wednesday, December 15, 1999
Abuse claims won't be fast-tracked
By NICOLE BERGOT, EDMONTON SUN 12/15/99
An application to fast-track residential school abuse lawsuits to
prevent claims from dying when plaintiffs do is a no-go for now.
Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Terrence McMahon - in charge of
case-managing over 2,000 actions Alberta natives have
launched against the feds for sexual and physical residential school
abuses - dismissed an application Monday to fast-track claims
because it's too early in the process. "(But) it will clearly be an issue
to be addressed because generally speaking the claims die with the
claimants," said John Faulds, who represents close to 200 natives with his
firm Field Atkinson Perraton. Clients range in age from 40 to well into
their 90s. Of the 86 people who initially filed claims with Field Atkinson
Perraton in February, three have already died, said Dan Carroll, also with
the firm.
McMahon's decision was one of several made during case management
application hearings Monday and yesterday. Some 22 schools, the federal
government and various churches are defendants in the mass action claim
that's one of the largest in the province's history, said Faulds. Edmonton
lawyer Diana Goldie from First Street Law Office is also taking Ottawa and
the Catholic Church to court on behalf of about 200 residential school
survivors. Her clients suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of
priests, nuns and school workers who also tried to strip students of their
language and culture, Goldie said. While her clients are each asking for
more than $1 million in damages, Goldie said they're more interested in
having the injustice of their experiences publicly acknowledged.
"It's letting the public know this is what happened historically to an
entire people - and creating greater awareness with respect to the origins
of what's seen as a lot of dysfunction in a lot of aboriginal communities,"
she said.
Monday there was an application to strike Goldie's statements of
claim because she refused to identify her clients for reasons of
privacy.She was ordered to identify all of her clients unless they're
claiming sexual abuse. The next applications will be heard in Jan. 6 and 7
in Calgary, and Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Edmonton.
THREE-TIME RAPIST TO UNDERGO PSYCHIATRIC ASSESSMENT
Brantford Expositor staff 12/15/99
BRANTFORD _ A three-time convicted rapist will undergo a psychiatric
assessment at the Brantford Jail as part of a Crown application to have him
declared a dangerous offender. Crown Attorney Bob Kindon said Tuesday in
Superior court that ``horrific is the only word that comes to mind'' when
speaking of David Maracle's crimes, which include three serious sexual
offences -- one in 1987 and two in 1997. Kindon also told court that
Maracle's crimes are escalating in terms of violence. Maracle, 34, was
remanded in custody to Feb. 14 pending the results of the assessment. In
November, a jury found Maracle guilty of kidnapping, sexual assault causing
bodily harm, assault causing bodily harm, forcible confinement and
possession of a gun for the purpose of committing an offence. Convictions
were registered on all counts except assault causing bodily harm and
forcible confinement, which were part and parcel of the more serious
kidnapping and sexual assault convictions.
Maracle was found guilty of abducting a 14-year-old girl from a secluded
pathway in the Glebe property, near Glenwood Drive, on the morning of May
26, 1997. The girl was bound and blindfolded, driven to two locations and
raped repeatedly during her ordeal. Later that morning, her captor left her
in a remote laneway off the Fifth Line on the Six Nations.
Maracle was found guilty after a two-week jury trial held in Hamilton.
``This is not the first time he's been convicted of sexual assault,''
Kindon told court Tuesday. In January 1989, Maracle was found guilty,
following a trial, of sexual assault in connection with a 1987 attack on a
young woman he knew. The woman's clothes were pulled off and she was forced
to have sexual intercourse against her will, Kindon said. Maracle was
sentenced to 42 months in penitentiary for that offence. His second
sex-related conviction came in 1998 when he pleaded guilty to sexual
assault causing
bodily harm and choking in connection with a March 1997 attack on another
woman whom he knew, court heard.
Kindon said the ``degree of violence increased'' with this crime, which
again involved forced sexual intercourse. Maracle was sentenced to four and
one-half years in prison for that offence.
This offence took place two months before the May 1997 kidnapping and rape
of the young schoolgirl. Following that offence, Maracle was involved in
another violent incident during which he was shot by
police. In June 1997, Maracle broke into an apartment and assaulted a man
inside. Police arrived and Maracle was shot in the abdomen, court heard.
Maracle's criminal record begins in 1981 and includes convictions for other
offences such as common assault, drinking and driving and property
offences, court heard. Kindon said Maracle ``poses a risk to the community
given the violent nature'' of his past sexual assaults. He added that
Maracle's record indicates a pattern of repetitive violent behaviour and it
serves as
reasonable grounds that he may be found to be a dangerous offender.
In opposing the request that his client undergo a psychiatric assessment,
defence lawyer Michael O'Brien argued that the Crown had not established
the existence of persistent and repetitive violent
behaviour with regard to Maracle. O'Brien said there was a 10-year ``time
lag'' between the 1987 offence and the offences in 1997.
He admitted that Maracle's first offence of sexual assault occurred while
he was on a day pass and that the vehicle he had at the time was stolen.
O'Brien suggested that the Crown did not put any information before the
court which would suggest a likelihood of future harm based on his client's
past offences. ``We can't predict future behaviour,'' he said.
O'Brien said that his client has a bullet lodged in his spine as a result
of the 1997 shooting and he has been assaulted in jail and suffered
permanent injury to his leg. As well, Maracle has completed his high school
credits while in jail, has taken OAC courses while in Warkworth
penitentiary, has applied to the University of Waterloo and won a first
place prize for a best short story from the Literacy Council of Canada,
O'Brien said. ``He has made progress,'' O'Brien said. Justice James Kent
accepted that Maracle has made ``steps toward self-rehabilitation'' while
in custody, but he found in favour of a psychiatric assessment. Kent said
that where reasonable grounds are as strong as they are in this case, it
would be ``most
unusual'' not to make an order for an assessment. Court heard that the
results of the assessment may prompt the Crown to continue its dangerous
offender application or, alternatively, to proceed with a regular
sentencing hearing.
Police under fire
Native leaders say RCMP mishandled hate-crime incident after rock concert
Suzanne Fournier, The Province 12/15/99
Aboriginal leaders are calling for the RCMP's provincial hate-crime team to
investigate the recent vicious beating of a group of native
teens by older, larger non-native assailants in Kamloops. Despite a healing
circle last week with the RCMP's investigating officer, native leaders say
they're angry the police appear to have blamed the badly-injured youths for
the fracas and have failed to fully
investigate the fight that left four teens in hospital. "It's been very
hard to challenge the RCMP on this but we feel our kids will lose all faith
in the police and the system if we don't stand up for them and demand an
investigation," said Doreen Manuel of the Neskonlith band near Chase.
"My niece Melanie Manuel, who is 17 and very small, was punched in the
face. And Frances Saul, who is 15 and weighs 100 pounds, was hit and pinned
to the ground by a big man. "In the healing circle one of the girls said
she was afraid to go into town now and wouldn't call the police if
something happened to her again. They feel the police blamed them." The
youths have retained Kamloops lawyer Barb Morin and filed a human rights
complaint. The incident occurred Nov. 30 when several native teens left a
Moist rock concert to wait in downtown Kamloops for a ride to their
reserve. They say a non-native man began yelling racist slurs at them,
provoking a fight between him and Cory Gonzalez, 20, in which Cory was
pinned to the ground, punched and bitten in the groin. The assailant then
ran into a nearby bar and returned with three large men, who chased and
badly beat several of the teens. Cory's nose was broken and Tony Saul, 17
and about 5 feet, 4 inches tall, was pushed down and kicked in the face and
head.
United Native Nations president Viola Thomas has asked the B.C.
hate-crime unit, formed in 1997 by Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh, to
investigate both the beating, which she said appears to have been racially
motivated, and the RCMP's handling of the case. "After several older,
bigger men chased a group of teens, yelled racist slurs at them and beat
them very badly, the RCMP at the scene didn't even get the names of the
assailants who put the kids in hospital," said Thomas. "The RCMP said the
teens lied about a 'consensual' fight. "There needs to be more education
and cultural sensitivity training for RCMP working near rural reserves.
These kids are rural, reserve-based teens, not street-wise urban youth."
Myron Claridge, a Crown prosecutor for the hate-crime unit, said he can
investigate a crime that a victim feels was racially motivated but may not
have been handled that way by police. "Our usual protocol is to wait until
the police investigation is completed first." Kamloops RCMP Const. Cory
Quewezance said an investigation is "ongoing" but the only lead police got
at the scene was a car licence-plate number, which they've traced to
Golden. Quewezance denied he apologized at the healing circle for the RCMP
handling of the case. "Some of the youths weren't very cooperative and a
couple were intoxicated at the time. But I was trying to get them to feel I
was listening to them," he said. "The males who left the scene haven't
been located. But we'll try to find the car and interview the staff at the
bar."
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
For people like me, violence is the minotaur; we spend our lives
wandering its maze, looking for the exit. (Richard Rhodes)
Never befriend the oppressed
unless you are prepared to
take on the oppressor.
(Author unknown)
