Prime Time Crime is collected and published by Leo Knight, a former Canadian police officer, security expert and media commentator.  Site edited by Chris.

Prime Time Crime

Click on Headlines for the full story

Blog with Leo

2007 columns

Index for previous years

Asia Pacific News Service

 

Contributing Writers 2008

 

Recent Headline Index

 

PTC Comments

 

Entertainment Stuff

 

 

Links, Links & more Links

Crime Links

Canadian Media

Canadian Publications

US Media

International Publications

Canadian Police

Selected Links

 

Google

www PrimeTimeCrime

Google Language tools

 

Memorial Ribbon Society

CPA: The Memorial

 Officer Down

 

Have we missed a good story? Click here to send us the link.

 

Disclaimer

 

POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS    POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS

 

UN to resume food flights

 

AP

 

YANGON - The World Food Programme says it will resume aid flights to Burma (Myanmar) on Saturday, despite a row over the local authorities impounding deliveries.  The government said it had taken control of the aid to distribute it. (BBC)

 

MORE:  UN suspends aid shipments   Burma shuns foreign aid workers   WFP donors

PREVIOUS:  Chaos in Burma   Deaths may top 100,000   Prisoners 'executed'   Cyclone Nargis    NASA   2007 anti-government protests

 

Gunmen overrun West Beirut

 

AFP

 

BEIRUT - Hezbollah fighters seized control of rival pro-Government strongholds in Beirut today as gunbattles rocked the Lebanese capital for a third day, edging the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.  Gunfire and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed across west Beirut, where the fighting was concentrated between Sunni militants loyal to the Western-backed Government and gunmen from the Shia opposition.  (Times online)

 

MORE:  Hezbollah's hostile takeover   Shitte gunmen seize key parts of Beirut

PREVIOUS: 2007 Lebanon conflict   1975-1990 civil war

 

Armed gangs spreading violence

 

THE PAS/HOBBEMA - In the past five years, aboriginal gangs (ABOC), as they are classified by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, have surpassed outlaw motorcycle gangs and Italian organized crime syndicates as the largest single group held in federal prisons, with 536 members serving federal sentences. 90% of them are doing time on the Prairies, dominated by three established gangs: the Indian Posse, the Native Syndicate and the Warriors. (Globe & Mail)

 

PRISON GANG PROFILE:  Alberta Warriors   Indian Posse   Manitoba Warriors   Native Syndicate   Redd Alert

PREVIOUS:  Aboriginal gangs in 'crisis proportions'   Gangs

 

Police hunting girl gang

 

Daily Mail

 

LONDON - Police are hunting for a gang of girls who were seen pouring a mysterious purple liquid through the letterbox of a house at the centre of a deadly blast in North West London.   The incident happened about 10 hours before the property in Stanley Road, South Harrow, was levelled in a blast, which also destroyed two other houses and killed a man living next door. The man has been named locally as Emad Qureshi, 26.

(Times online)

 

MORE:  Girl gang 'blew up Harrow house for revenge'

 

Violence as an infectious disease

 

It's always been a fantasy in utopian, and dystopian, science fiction: Human beings will somehow find a cure, a magical vaccine, to eradicate gang violence.  The theory is that a shooting, or whatever else might trigger murderous rage in the gang world, leads to a virulent outbreak of anger. This leads to an impulsive and often temporary desire by individuals to retaliate, both for revenge and face-saving machismo. If those people can be isolated - much like a person infected with a deadly virus - and treated (that is, reasoned out of their violent response), the transmission of violence can be stopped.  (Vancouver Sun)

 

PREVIOUS:  CeaseFire   Crime in Chicago

 

Williams lashes inquiry for 'inquisitorial methods'

 

St. JOHN’S - Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams had sharp words Thursday for how the breast cancer inquiry that his government struck a year ago is performing.  "I think a lot of people are concerned by the inquiry- not so much the format of the inquiry, but the style of the inquiry," Williams said Thursday evening after a high-level meeting with medical officials aimed at solving a crisis in staffing levels among pathologists and other professionals.  (CBC)

 

PREVIOUS:  Cameron inquiry  Review of pathology results   College defends 'problematic' testing   700 cases reviewed      The Entitled

 

Law allows disclosure of health info

 

Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian, and BC counterpart David Loukidelis, say privacy laws do not prevent contacting a family if there are real concerns someone might seriously hurt themselves.  Cavoukian adds that if someone uses common sense and good faith to disclose information, her office will not "come down on them,'' adding "privacy is important, but preserving life is more important.''  (CP)

 

Hate allegation made against Herald cartoon

 

Bruce MacKinnon

 

HALIFAX - Police are investigating an allegation that an editorial cartoon in The Chronicle Herald promoted hatred.  The cartoon by award-winning Herald staff cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon appeared on April 18 and depicted Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a former Nova Scotia woman now living in Ontario. She had told the Herald that she would seek millions of dollars in compensation from the federal government after terrorism-related charges against her husband, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, were stayed.  (Halifax Chronicle Herald)  

 

MORE:   Another Islamic group files a hate speech complaint     Battle of Khartoon comes to Halifax

PREVIOUS:  Big Brother

 

Oda admits she failed to report fees

 

OTTAWA - Conservative cabinet minister Bev Oda acknowledged to the House of Commons yesterday that she failed to publicly report thousands of dollars in limo bills.  After being outed this week by an access-to-information request by the NDP, Oda told the Commons that "administrative errors" were responsible for the oversight.  (Toronto Star)  

 

PREVIOUS:  Oda accused of 'conflict' over broadcast executives fundraiser

 

Bernier and the biker babe

 

Julie Couillard & Maxime Bernier

 

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is brushing off security concerns over the relationship between a top cabinet minister and an ex-girlfriend with past ties to the Hells Angels.  (CP)

 

COMMENT:  Not much at all

PREVIOUS:  Bernier to Opposition: mind your own business   Minister's onetime partner was target

 

'Dramatic escalation of attacks'

 

Robert Mugabe   Thabo Mbeki

 

HARARE - President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa arrived in Zimbabwe on Friday for talks with the country's longtime leader, Robert Mugabe, as fresh evidence emerged that forces sponsored by Mugabe's government are accelerating their attacks on the political opposition.  (IHT)  

 

PREVIOUS:   Zimbabwean election 2008

 

President agrees to vote of confidence

 

Evo Morales

 

BOLIVIA - President Evo Morales said Thursday he supports a congressional decision to hold a referendum on whether he and his administration should remain in power amid a move for autonomy that he opposes.

(CNN)

 

PREVIOUS:   Vote for autonomy   Morales rejects autonomy vote   Revolt against the peasant president

Politics of Bolivia

 

AIG reports a $7.8B loss in quarter

 

NEW YORK - The fortunes of the world's biggest insurance company, American International Group, rise and fall on precise calculations of risk.  Last quarter, those calculations went seriously awry.  In the worst three months of the company's 89-year history, AIG lost $7.81 billion, primarily from bad investments in complex financial instruments.  (IHT)  

 

COMMENT:  Why piggy banks are in vogue

 

PREVIOUS:  Credit default swap   Arcane market is next to face big credit test   UK repossession claims rise by 16%   US repossession rate doubles   Subprime mortgage crisis

 

BBC sorry for keeping charity cash

 

LONDON - The BBC today apologised for keeping £106,000 made from premium-rate phone calls on about two dozen shows that should have been given to charity.  The issue involved the BBC Worldwide subsidiary Audiocall, which provides premium-rate phone lines to many BBC shows.  (Guardian UK)

 

'No sign' Canada is keeping track of illegal migrants

 

Sheila Fraser

 

OTTAWA - Canada's border agency's failure to track down 41,000 illegal migrants may be only the tip of the iceberg as an unknown number of people simply overstay in the country after their visas expire, a security expert warns.  With the federal government's rapid expansion of the temporary foreign worker program, many of these overseas workers may just want to stay here - legally or not - after their work permits end and simply go underground, said Martin Collacott of the Fraser Institute.  (Toronto Star) 

 

REPORT:  May 2008 - Immigration and Security  .pdf

COMMENT:  Plenty of room for more tax cuts

 

PREVIOUS:  2008 May report of the AG of Canada    41,000 rejects lost in our midst   AG's report lacks lightning bolts of history   Sponsorship Scandal

 

Terror threats 'scare us'

 

OTTAWA - The RCMP is investigating seven suspected terrorist plots so disturbing they "keep me awake at night," the senior Mountie for national security disclosed yesterday.  The seven cases are among an unprecedented 848 national security cases, most related to terrorism, currently under investigation, Assistant Commissioner McDonell told an Ottawa conference on critical infrastructure protection.  (Ottawa Citizen)

 

PREVIOUS:  CSIS keeping tabs on protesters   Protests 'to get more violent'   Extremist activity associated with 2010  A changed perspective

 

Putin passes power, or does he?

 

Vladimir Putin & Dmitry Medvedev

 

MOSCOW - Dmitri Medvedev, the Kremlin insider and unprepossessing lawyer who had never held elected office before, was sworn in as the Russian president Wednesday inside the Grand Kremlin Palace.  The ceremony, mixing czarist splendor with renewed Russian confidence, marked the passing of formal power from President Vladimir Putin to his young and untested protégé.  But the events also served as a tribute to the enduring stature and popularity of Putin, who Medvedev nominated as prime minister within hours of taking office.  (IHT)

 

PREVIOUS:  Russia and the return of the FSB

Federal Security Service (FSB)

 

Suspect caught

 

Wayne Nelson Corliss

 

PARIS - Police detained a suspected pedophile in New Jersey Thursday, just two days after Interpol made a rare appeal for public help in the international manhunt to catch him, the police agency said.   Wayne Nelson Corliss, 58, was detained in Union City, N.J., Interpol said. He is suspected of sexually abusing at least three boys from Southeast Asia thought to have been as young as 6 to 10 years old, the international police agency said.  (AP)

 

PREVIOUS:  Worldwide search  Images of 'paedophile' released    Interpol Wanted

 

Taxes are fueling Organized Crime

 

NEW YORK - While the problem first surfaced during the Great Depression, tax hikes in the early 1960s created a major profit opportunity for smugglers and kicked the epidemic into high gear.  By 1967, a quarter of the cigarettes consumed in the Empire State were bootlegged.  New York City's finance administrator labeled cigarette smuggling the "principal stoking facility of the engine of organized crime."   (Wall Street Journal)

 

MORE:   RCMP sounds alarm over illegal smokes

 

FBI withdraws national security letter

 

SAN FRANCISCO - A non-profit digital library has successfully fought an FBI attempt to seize information about one of its users, and is calling on other groups to challenge government agencies attempting to obtain online customer information without a judge's order. The FBI presented the San Francisco-based Internet Archive with a national security letter in November asking for a library patron's records.  The group sued the agency a month later, alleging the letter violated free speech rights because they prohibit recipients from talking to anyone else about them.   (AP)

 

Is the fix in on new copyright laws?

 

OTTAWA - Representatives of the US government and the entertainment industry met on Wednesday night with a group of MPs studying intellectual property to talk about cracking down on copyright infringements.  Caucus members are also planning a trip to Washington before the new law is introduced to meet with the congressional leaders and other groups working on copyright and piracy issues.  Industry Minister Jim Prentice was set to table the legislation last December, but pulled it at the last minute amid concerns the Canadian legislation too closely resembled the US law.  (CanWest)

 

PREVIOUS:   Geist: Copyright Canada   Copyrights and regulated markets

 

Vallejo, looking to bankruptcy

 

VALLEJO, Calif. - In the wake of the city of Vallejo's decision to declare bankruptcy, city officials Wednesday assured citizens that municipal services will continue uninterrupted and that a move to bankruptcy court will begin immediately.  The City Council late Tuesday night unanimously agreed to seek bankruptcy protection, after two months of intensive mediation sessions with employee unions failed to produce a long-term fiscal plan.  (Times-Herald)  

 

MORE:  Vallejo, residents foresee cuts as bankruptcy looms

 

DND's cloak of secrecy covers would-be suppliers

 

OTTAWA - The Defence Department has increased the secrecy around the way it spends taxpayers' money by bringing in a new rule that prevents companies interested in bidding on equipment projects from talking publicly.  That stipulation, however, does not have to do with security aspects of the project and is aimed more at controlling what the media might write, defence industry insiders say.  (Ottawa Citizen)   

 

PREVIOUS:  AG balks at vetting by PMO   Why did fed kill information registry   CAIRS   Tories kill information registry   No respect

 

'He just thought it was his duty to serve'

 

Michael Starker

 

KANDAHAR - Cpl. Michael Starker had already dedicated years of his life to the Canadian military when volunteers were sought to serve in the dangerous Afghan mission.  Despite having a wife and a career as a Calgary paramedic, the local medic felt the need to serve one more time.   (Calgary Herald)

 

MORE:  Militants kill medic   Medic killed in ambush

RELATED:  Mission shifting toward development: incoming commander

 

10M children die

 

MANILA - More than 200 million children worldwide under age 5 do not get basic health care, leading to nearly 10 million deaths annually from treatable ailments like diarrhea and pneumonia, a US-based charity said Wednesday.  Use of existing, low-cost tools and knowledge could save more than 6 million of the 9.7 million children who die yearly from easily preventable or curable causes, the report said.  They include antibiotics that cost less than $0.30 to treat pneumonia, the top killer of children under 5, and oral rehydration therapy (cost about $0.10) for diarrhea, the second top killer.  (AP)  

 

REPORT:  Annual Report 2007   .pdf

RELATED:  State of the World's Mothers 2008  .pdf

Kind of makes you wonder about the righteousness of Canadians screaming for money for their special interests doesn’t it. – Chris

 

Federal agents raid office of Special Counsel

 

Scott J. Bloch

 

WASHINGTON - Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice.  Agents fanned out yesterday morning in the agency's building on M Street, where they sequestered Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch for questioning, served grand-jury subpoenas on 17 employees and shut down access to computer networks in a search lasting more than five hours.

(Washington Post)

 

MORE:  Bloch misused own task force

 

Colombia extradites militia head

 

Carlos Mario Jimenez

 

BOGOTÁ - Colombia has extradited of a former paramilitary leader to the US to face drug-trafficking and terrorism charges.  The Colombian president's office said Carlos Mario Jimenez, also known as Macaco, was flown to Washington on a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane.  (BBC)  

 

MORE:  Colombia extradites warlord

 

Possible 'Smiley Face Gang' link

 

 

New details have emerged in the search for missing 19-year-old Middlebury College freshman Nicholas Garza that could link him to the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," which a group of retired detectives believes is responsible for the apparent drowning deaths of dozens of young men across the country.  (Fox)

 

PREVIOUS:   FBI: 'No evidence to support' 'Smiley face gang'   'Smiling face' gang   Detectives chase murder mystery   Murder connects dozens around country

 

Guilty

 

    

             Uma Thurman                Jack Jordan

 

NEW YORK - A lovesick former mental patient was convicted Tuesday of stalking and harassing Uma Thurman for more than two years, showing up on her front doorstep and movie set and sending the actress a series of creepy love letters.  Jack Jordan, a 37-year-old out-of-work lifeguard and pool cleaner, faces up to a year in jail. He was convicted of stalking and one count of aggravated harassment, and acquitted of two other harassment counts.  (AP)

 

Johnson bans alcohol on public transport

 

Boris Johnson

 

LONDON - Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, made his first policy announcement today - banning the consumption of alcohol on all public transport in the capital from June 1.  However, the move immediately drew criticism from transport unions claiming the policy could endanger transport staff.  (Guardian UK)

 

PREVIOUS:  Johnson vows to fight crime   Johnson pledges to fight crime   Labour Party vows to learn lessons after poll defeat

RELATED:  CCTV has failed to cut crime   Don't count vandalism

 

Chelsea siege gunman was a barrister

 

LONDON - A gunman shot dead by police after a five-hour stand-off in an luxury townhouse in Chelsea, West London, was named today as Mark Saunders, a 32-year-old Oxford-educated divorce lawyer. (Times online)

 

MORE:  Gunman 'was divorce barrister'

 

Canada faces UN probe over greenhouse gases

 

OSLO - Canada will be probed on suspicion of violating rules for registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a UN-led fight against global warming, official documents show.  Ottawa could be suspended from rights to trade carbon dioxide if found to be in breach of the rules by the enforcement branch of the UN's Kyoto Protocol.  Greece was suspended last month, the first nation to face such a sanction under Kyoto.  (Globe & Mail)

 

COMMENT:  Brits offer a taste of Kyoto

PREVIOUS:  Climate Debate

 

System used to label food is 'awful'

 

OTTAWA - The former head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency conceded yesterday that Canada's food labelling system is "awful."  "It significantly undermines innovation. It significantly undermines competition," said Ronald Doering, who was instrumental in setting up the food inspection agency a decade ago and served as its first president.  Appearing before a House of Commons committee, Mr. Doering provided his frank assessment as parliamentarians wrap up their review of the controversial Product of Canada label.  (Ottawa Citizen)

 

COMMENT:  Time to fix our food labelling fiasco

 

Virus infection nears 20,000

 

BEIJING - The number of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) cases reported in China this year jumped to 19,962 as of Wednesday, resulting in 28 deaths, according to a Xinhua tally of local official figures.  The figure stood at 15,799 on Tuesday.  (Xinhua)

 

PREVIOUS:  China issues alert   Nationwide fight against fatal virus

 

UBS banker held in US tax probe

 

MIAMI - Martin Liechti, a senior banker at UBS, has been detained by US authorities investigating whether the Swiss banking giant helped its American clients to avoid taxes.    (Times online)

 

Emergency evacuation

 

AP

 

SANTIAGO - Lava started to spew from an erupting volcano in southern Chile on Tuesday, authorities said, ordering the immediate evacuation of all remaining residents and journalists from a nearby town.  Chaiten volcano, in Patagonia around 760 miles south of the capital of Santiago, began erupting on Friday, sending a towering plume of ash into the sky that has since coated the surrounding area and reached as far as Argentina.  (Reuters)  

 

PREVIOUS:  Chile volcano spews ash   Volcanoes in Chile

 

2nd day of riots

 

Javno

 

MOGADISHU  - Residents protested for a second day on Tuesday against food traders who are rejecting old currency notes, fuelling tension as residents go hungrier, witnesses said.  Hundreds of youths barricaded roads, stoned vehicles and burned tires in parts of the bombed-out Somali capital demanding that traders accept the worn-out Somali notes from residents desperately in need of food and other essentials.  (Reuters)

 

MORE:  Somalia riot   Food, currency riot

 

Tigers sought $3M from Canada

 

TORONTO - RCMP counterterrorism investigators in Toronto have seized a letter signed by the leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers (LTTE) guerrillas directing Canadian Tamils to send him $3-million, according to police files released yesterday by the Federal Court.

(National Post)

 

MORE:  Tigers using electoral list  Text of letter to 'Canadian Office' .pdf   Directives to foreign agents  .pdf

PREVIOUS:  Tamil terror group's manual revealed   Tamil Tigers operations manual   Rising desperation

 

No reason to kill off Insite

 

Neil Boyd

 

VANCOUVER - There is a case to be made for establishing safe-injection sites in other cities plagued by drugs, says Neil Boyd, the Simon Fraser criminologist hired by the federal government to study Insite, Vancouver's supervised drug-injection site.  Boyd said his research shows the site in the Downtown Eastside has not contributed to drug dealing and other crimes and that there has been a "modest decline" in drug use on the streets.  (CanWest)  

 

MORE:  Nears its expiry date   Safe injection site improves 'public order'

PREVIOUS:  Neil Boyd articles   Neil Boyd books    Mixed review   Expert Advisory Committee on supervised injection site research

 

Livent founders scammed half a billion dollars, Crown alleges

 

  

             Garth Drabinsky           Myron Gottlie

 

TORONTO - Theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky and his business partner Myron Gottlieb falsified the books and bilked investors and creditors out of half a billion dollars when they were at the helm of theatre producer Livent Inc. and its predecessor companies, a court was told today.  (Toronto Star)

 

PREVIOUS:  Livent trial: Showtime  Livent's fate tied to Westsun, Crocus   How Canada's dawdling cost US an opportunity to deter crime   Regulators

 

POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS     POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS

POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS     POLICE LINE   DO NOT CROSS

 

Brawl ends in death

 

Vancouver Sun

 

VANCOUVER - A 30-year-old Richmond man is dead and another injured after a double shooting at the Cecil Hotel that police say started with a "Wild West-style" brawl in the strip bar.  "A fight broke out between two groups of people and fists, chairs and bottles were flying inside, when a shot was heard - a flash was seen inside the bar," said Vancouver police Const. Tim Fanning.  The two shot men were gang associates known to police and to each other.  (Vancouver Province)

 

MORE:  Fight leads to slaying

PREVIOUS:  Details emerge   One dead in downtown shooting   One dead after Cecil Hotel shootout

 

Man familiar to police shot dead

 

VANCOUVER - A man well known to police has been killed in the Lower Mainland's latest shooting. The 40-year old was found dead in the doorway of a home in Abbotsford late last night.   (NEWS1130)

 

Victim identified

 

Calgary Herald

 

CALGARY - Police have identified the man shot and killed in the northwest Calgary Wednesday as 18-year-old Levan James Van Der Ross.  Van Der Ross and a 17-year-old who has not been identified were shot Wednesday afternoon while sitting in a red Jeep in the Varsity Area, around the intersection of Vandergrift Crescent and Valiant Drive N.W.  (CBC)

 

MORE:  Teen promised to be home for Mother's day

Teen called loving kid

PREVIOUS:  Daylight shooting   Man gunned down

 

Body discovered in the Fraser River

 

VANCOUVER - The RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says it will be a while before they are able to identify the body discovered in the Fraser River in Richmond Thursday evening.   Corporal Dale Carr says the body had been in the water for weeks.

(News1130)

 

Men sought

 

TORONTO - Murder arrest warrants were issued for two more men wanted for the February shooting death of a Scarborough man in what homicide detectives believe was a drug rip-off.  Police are searching for Ron Joseph Williams, 20, and Dwayne Gordon, 24, both of no fixed address and both wanted for first-degree murder, in the death of Jonathan Rodrigues, 21, in his Golfhaven Dr. home.  Police had earlier arrested Mohmed Ahmed Nakhuda, 36 on Easter Sunday thanks to a tip.   (Sun Media)

 

MORE:  1 suspect surrenders

PREVIOUS:  Man shot dead in east end