Lockdown

In some Toronto schools, cops walk the halls. Call it an upgrade from Hall Monitor.

Concern has been growing over the past few years, and the safety of school children seems to be in greater and greater peril. Thus, the Toronto District School Board decided it was time to patroll the classroom.

But we're only a couple weeks into the school year, and the number of school "lockdowns" in this city is astonishing. It almost seems like a daily occurance. Like recess.

At one point today -- nine schools were locked down.

Nine.

Granted, three of them were related to the same incident, the one you've no doubt heard about:

A 16-year-old boy is fighting for his life after being shot today outside an east end Toronto high school.
Bendale Business and Technical Institute on Midland Ave., north of Lawrence Ave E., was locked down after the student - identified by friends as Taimone Moore - was shot just before noon.

Nearby Donwood Park Junior Public School and David and Mary Thompson Collegiate Institute and Highbrook Learning Centre were also locked down but those were lifted around 2:30 p.m., just in time for regular dismissal.

The Star

When I went to school, not even the Cold War was a threat. The days of kids learning how to "Duck and Cover" in case of a nuclear attack were long over.

One day we had Elmer the Safety Elephant come and talk to us about safety, and how we shouldn't talk to strangers... but other than that... the thought of someone getting shot on school premisis was absurd.

These days, I imagine it's part of the daily curriculum. Parents must be having "the talk", with their kids, where they explain the importance of following strict protocols when there is a S.W.A.T. team running in your school hallway.

I know things weren't actually that much safer back then. After all, the Centennial Secondary School massacre happened in Brampton in 1975. But it was not a plausible threat. It was abstract. It was... a nightmare unlikely ever to happen.

Toronto 2008 is a different place.

I miss Elmer.

Duck and cover, kids. We're in lockdown.

Cloak and Dagger

Thirsty people take heed. When searching out that local watering hole, you may want to pay attention to the name. Those ironic, clever, and sometimes non-sequitious pub names often say more than you may know...

A man is lucky to be alive and has many people to thank after he was stabbed at a College Street bar early Saturday morning.

Police allege that a fight escalated and the young man was attacked.

"Currently we're investigating an altercation that took place here at the Cloak and Dagger," confirms Sgt Dan Pravica of Toronto Police.

It "resulted in one male suffering some stab wounds in the lower back portion of his body," he continued.

CityNews

It seems to me police may very well recover the dagger in this case, but what about the cloak?

I prefer to choose pubs with less threatening titles. Names like "Pogue Mahones" (Gaelic for "Kiss my ass"), "The Brazen Head", or even "The Village Idiot". While they may not have the warmest, most welcoming connotation, at least there are no references to weaponry.

There are, mind you, a few places that offer more than a pint. Sin and Redemption offers a chance at both damnation and salvation in one sitting. The Dog's Bollocks(not yet open), offers... well... I shudder to think.

My personal favourite Toronto pub name was "The Pawnbroker's Daughter", which is long gone. While the Dostoyevski reference was lost on most patrons, the potential to make a pretentious idiot of yourself was always most welcome. Once, a waiter asked me if I'd made a choice. I said, "I can't decide between Crime or Punishment." He said he didn't think they had either but he would check.

I ended up with Guiness.

Bus Stop Killer

News broke last night on the arrest of Daimon Sinclair. The 18-year-old Toronto man is charged with second-degree murder for the shooting death of Stephen Barton.

It is alleged that he gunned him down at a bus stop last week.

Recall the sounds you heard, on that morning, over the radio? They were the sounds of violent screams and verbal abuse... not directed toward the young man's killer, but to the police.

Apparently, friends of the victim were angry that his body was left on the scene of the crime, most indignant, for far too long. They wanted him left alone. Left in peace.

Of course, it was much too late for peace. Whatever peace he would find, he'd already found.

During the initial hours of the investigation, these very same friends refused to cooperate with the men and women committed to bringing his killer to justice.

That's Toronto.

One Toronto Sun Columnists wrote:

Friends of 18-year-old Stephen Barton, shot to death Monday afternoon at a bus stop near Keele St. and Eglinton Ave. W., need to realize something.

That is that their foolish, youthful bravado, which included rushing a police line demanding to see his body on Monday and since then refusing to co-operate with homicide investigators, was utterly misguided.

But, thankfully, people are coming around. A growing number of witnesses have been willing to supply information. Thus, a break in the case.

An optimist would express hope that this was a sign that Toronto's code of silence on youth violence is breaking, that people are learning there is nothing to be gained by hiding in the shadows.

I am not an optimist.

If you are... dare to dream.

Death's Highway

A forensic tent on the 401 is not an Ontario destination. Unlike the Big Apple outside of Colbourne, the Giant Goose in Wawa, or the Great Nickel that towers over Sudbury, this roadside attraction marks a different part of our heritage.

Homicide #49

Toronto police are investigating the shooting death of a man whose body was dumped from a speeding car on Highway 401 yesterday afternoon, creating traffic mayhem.

After the car, a gold-coloured Lexus, sped away, stunned motorists stopped to call police, turning Canada's busiest highway at Keele St. into a parking lot just as rush hour began.

The Toronto Star

In the aftermath, there is confusion and speculation. Those of us with the most morbid of imaginations wonder if the man was shot and dumped, or shot while trying to escape a speeding vehicle. We envision the final moments of his journey. The sight of the gun, the fear, the terror. The choice: open the door and take your chances on the freeway… or get a bullet in the head.

And the motive?

There is much speculation…

So far, no arrests have been made and police refuse to speculate on a link to the fatal bus stop shooting that claimed the life of 18-year-old Stephen Barton Monday afternoon. Authorities say they have no reason to believe, right now, that the two crimes are connected.

CityNews

There is, of course, one indisputable connection. Both men are dead. And, both men… were in transit. Moving from point A… and not quite arriving at point B.

Sometimes life’s journies can be a nightmare. They don’t bring us where we expect, or where we want to go.

They bring us to hell.

And there’s no coming back.

Grand Theft Cycle

It seems like years since I pleaded with video game producers to come up with a Toronto version of True Crime.

I’m still waiting.

But now, it seems, the stars are aligned to create the perfect marketing storm for setting a game in the dirty, grimy streets of T.O.

Grand Theft Cycle.

Imagine, similar to the lead character in Grand Theft Auto IV, you get to play a Russian immigrant who comes to Toronto with the promise of free health care, good employment opportunities, and a low crime rate. But instead you arrive to find out hospital wait times take forever, the jobs are all leaving due to the high loonie and energy prices, and crime is on the rise. What’s more, your cousin isn’t a rich entrepreneur living the Canadian dream. Instead, he drives a taxi and pretends to run a prostitution ring.

So, you’re forced back into that life of crime you thought you left behind in the mother land.

But then you meet this guy… Igor Kenk.

Kenk gives you a chance, an opportunity, to make something of yourself. All you have to do is steal bikes from around the city, and deliver them to a depot "chop shop" on Queen Street West.

Of course, to live up to the drama and excitement of Grand Theft Auto, you’d have to work for these bikes. But instead of dragging the rightful owners out of their cars and beating them down with a baseball bat or… shooting them in the head… you basically get to complain your victims to death.

You whine about the smog, the shitty transit system, the traffic, the ineffectiveness of city council, and the fact that everyone in the rest of the country hates Torontonians. Once your victim begins their own rant (which they will, 9 times out of 10), you hop on their bike and ride off.

Now, one has to allow for variances. That one time out of ten you meet a happy, contented Torontonian who doesn’t complain… you shoot him in the head.

Yes, of course you’ll have to battle Toronto Police Services as well. They’ll come after you if they see you steal a bike. But, all you really need to do is ride super fast, turn into a park, get far enough out of their surveillance zone, and they’ll forget you ever existed.

At the end of the game comes the twist. A major takedown by TPS nails your boss, Igor Kenk, to the wall. They confiscate thousands of stolen bikes and… low and behold… Kenk sells you out. He sings like a canary.

You’re screwed until you come up with the most brilliant disguise ever. One that will fool the press, the cops, and the law…

You get a shave and a haircut.

You just beat the game.

(BTW, you earn extra points if you find the bike lanes that are hidden throughout the city on secret, go-nowhere, inconvenient roads).

Katelynn Angel Sampson

If looks could kill

It is a sharp talent... capturing a moment like this. I'm always amazed at the precision and skill of courtroom artists, as they freeze time and create these images for public consumption.

Here we see the silent response of the accused to the emotional cry of the victim's mother. But what is behind that face? Rage? Disbelief? Or is it a solemn guilt, an acknowledgement of her crime?

It matters not to little Katelynn Angel Sampson, the child who was so brutally beaten, even the most seasoned police officers were shocked and horrified.

The accused is Donna Irving, the woman who had been entrusted to care for Katelynn: a woman with a criminal record; a woman with an alleged violent past.

How she ended up with custody of this child is a mystery. Nobody seems to know. Nobody has a clue.

Katelynn's legal guardian, 29-year-old Donna Irving, has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the girl's slaying. Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan confirmed that Irving has been charged and convicted of violent crimes in the past.

According to Ryan, Irving was granted sole custody of Katelynn in January, although she has had contact with the girl since May 2007.

Court documents obtained by CBC News show Irving took final custody of Katelynn in June. The documents said that both Katelynn's mother, Bernise Sampson, and her father were drug addicts.

According to the documents, Irving said Katelynn had been living with her since May 2003.

Outside her west-end home Tuesday, Sampson said she was unaware of Irving's violent past.

"I do not know about Donna's past and I don't want to hear about no custody and what I did and what I didn't do. Everybody makes a mistake in life, there's nobody perfect. But I thought I had a friend," Sampson said.

CBC Report

Katlynn didn't stand a chance. Her network of caregivers was severely lacking in basic common sense, to say the least. She would have been better off left to be raised by wolves than the lot she was given. Fate was cruel to this poor child, and whatever social safety networks we pretend to have in the province of Ontario... we failed dismally on this count.

What a bloody waste.

Please Kill Me

A death wish is redundant.



A wish for death is always fulfilled.

But asking for it to be administered by another, is something else entirely. It is a desperate plea from one fleeing his demons in terror, unable to face himself or the things he's done.

And yet, sometimes it is the most appealing option.

When your chip goes off and you do something you may have thought... may have believed... yourself to be incapable of, what happens when you wake up? When the cloud clears and all that's left is a shadowy image of yourself holding the severed head of a fellow human being, how do you go on?

So many questions linger on that prairie road where the bus stopped. Brutal images haunt the air, and they bring no solace.

Did he have a death wish? Did he come to this country to die? Is that why he committed this heinous act?

If it is, he came to the wrong country. Here, he will live a long time. His demons will eat away at his soul for years before he finally succumbs.

Whatever happened to Vince Weiguang Li... whatever made him do this... it's sad.

It's sad that this man is what he is, and has done what he's done. It's sad that this man has a monster at heart that led to such gross indecency and such a savage breach of human trust. It's sad that he must himself in the real world.

But he must.

Whatever he is at heart, here, on this earth, he's a killer.

It's just sad.