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Friday the 13th arrived one week early for a couple of RCMP officers in the central Labrador community of Sheshatshiu. Last Friday, while responding to an assault complaint, one of the officers tried to subdue a man with pepper spray when the man nabbed the spray, escaped the house and took off — in their police car.

So far so good.

A passing motorist came to the officers’ aid and eventually they tracked down their stolen vehicle with the culprit still inside.

According to the officers, the man drove toward them in so menacing a fashion that one of the officers drew his weapon and fired upon the vehicle.

But their volunteer chauffeur, who witnessed the event, says the man started driving away from the officers, at which point both pulled out their piece, each emptying a chamber into the car’s back windshield.

It’s hard not to believe the second version of events, given the officers’ sheer incompetence leading up to that point vs. the witness, who volunteered his services to the officers, presumably in the interest of actually serving justice. Also, he’s got nothing he needs to cover up, whereas the officers just might

Furthermore, why would anyone fire at a vehicle coming towards them? Supposedly, the officer who claims to have fired on the vehicle did so in self defense. But you’d think you’d have a better chance of escaping the harm of an oncoming vehicle by, I don’t know, getting out of its way than you would by shooting at it.

But hey, what’s a couple of stray bullets in a residential area when you’ve already endangered people’s lives by handing your pepper spray and your vehicle over to a belligerent drunk?

Here’s hoping that, unlike with most bad buddy cop movies, this one doesn’t get a sequel.

[via CBC.ca]

darcyf Crime buddy cop, friday the 13th, pepper spray, police car, rcmp, sheshatshiu

Four people in their 20’s were arrested Tuesday night when they were found to be in possession of a loaded 9mm Beretta and 2 stun guns. One of them was wearing body armor.

From The Telegram:

At approximately 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, a call was received from Avalon Mall security advising that a male was inside the mall and suspected of carrying a firearm. As police responded, a vehicle suspected of being involved was stopped on Kenmount Road near the entrance of the Avalon Mall.

It’s unclear how their vehicle came to be suspected by the police, but I assume it must be akin to how when I was a kid my mom always knew what kind of shit I was getting into even when she wasn’t around. Magic powers and whatnot.

Dozens of charges are expected to be laid.

darcyf Crime avalon mall, body armor, magic powers, police, young guns

Note: this is not a photo of the actual crash.

At around 3am this morning a guy was caught speeding by a cop in the east end. Rather than simply pull over, he crashed his pickup into a house.

The man then got out of the truck and assaulted the officer before running away, police said.

He was arrested a short time later.

The driver faces a total of seven charges, including assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, impaired driving and refusing a breathalyzer.

Cripes dude, stay home and smoke a toke next time instead.

[photo via]

darcyf Crime cbc, crash, drinking and driving, house, toke, truck

The news hit today like a fan full of shit: Ed Byrne has been released from prison after serving four and a half months of a two years less a day sentence.

Byrne was found guilty of stealing defrauding $117,812 in taxpayers’ money and sent to the Bishop Falls Correctional Facility last spring. He is now out of prison and back in St. John’s where he must wear an electronic monitoring device around his ankle, though not much is known about why or for how long.

If the comments on both the CBC and Telegram stories are any indication, the people of this province are unimpressed.

[note: Telegram comments can be linked to directly while CBC comments cannot]

Nasty Nate:

We are ALL to be treated equal under the eyes of the law. Time to practice what we preach for a change rather than lie to the population to make it look as if you have done your jobs properly and ethically.

wannabeflea:

Some people such as politicians, judges, Dr’s, lawyers have more privileges in today’s society. How foolish are we to believe that the judicial system is for everyone!

I bet you when Danny Williams went to the Health Sciences with his back he waited for hours in emergency like the rest of us. Again we are fools to believe that the world is fair and equal.

your kidding!:

I wonder if motor vehicle will accept one sixth of the traffic fines I have outstanding, or Revenue Canada will accept one sixth of my outstanding taxes I owe? If they will, sh*t I’ll gladly wear a bracelet for a few months.

QZPM75:

Amazing. Once again we have to ask how long he would have gotten if he had stolen $117,000 by robbing liquor stores. Stealing this money does real harm to people. That amount of money could have built several units of affordable housing, or run an entire literacy program for a semester.

darcyf Crime, Politics cbc, ed byrne, free, jail, prison, telegram

According to a report from The Telegram today, The RCMP flew their AS 350B3 helicopter up and down the island’s west coast last week in search of marijuana grow sites and bagged themselves eight of them. In total there were 136 plants seized.

As a discerning commenter on the story noted, “136 plants in 8 sites = 17 plants per site. Grow ops? They have to be kidding.”

In fact, none of the commenters so far seem impressed with the RCMP’s latest big bust, with some crying out for the drug to be legalized so that more focus can be given to combating the real crimes, such as acts of violence and theft, being committed in our province.

No arrests are noted in the story.

Update:

CBC Early Edition News just confirmed that there were no charges laid over these grow sites. You would think the RCMP would be more interested in busting the perpetrators than simply confiscating the plants.

Now that the headlines are abuzz with the bust, there’s no chance a stake out of the areas would yield anything.

darcyf Crime drugs, grow op, helicopter, legalize, marijuana, rcmp, telegram

From oversized classrooms to overworked parents, today’s kids are pretty much left to their own devices. As a result, it seems they’ve started going feral.

From VOCM.com:

The City of Mount Pearl is stepping up enforcement in light of a vicious assault in the city. A 34 year old man received serious facial injuries after he was attacked by a group of young people on the weekend. Mayor Randy Simms says while it was a disturbing incident, it was an isolated one. Simms says they will be talking with Municipal Enforcement and RNC. He says this event has taken them aback, but he wants to assure that Mount Pearl is still a safe city. He reminds people to use common sense precautions while walking the trails.

Common sense precautions like what? Avoid young people?

Sorry b’ys, but these aren’t an isolated group of kids who suddenly decided to go savage, and simply beefing up security isn’t going to make this problem go away.

I suppose we could blame the drug dealers and their irresistible candy.

I mean, there’s got to be some direction other than towards ourselves that we can look, right?

[image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/arisvl/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

darcyf Community, Crime assault, candy, dealers, drugs, feral, isolated incident, kids, Mount Pearl, vocm, young people