Crime

All criminal charges have been dropped against three Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers who were accused in a deadly police shooting that killed a father and toddler in Kawartha Lakes, Ont.

The incident happened on Nov. 26, 2020, when a child abduction was reported to police, later ending with the fatal shooting of both 18-month-old Jameson Shapiro and his 33-year-old father William Shapiro. Jameson was found dead at the scene, while his father was taken to hospital and died on Dec. 2. The shooting also left an OPP officer seriously injured.

The increase in retail thefts has forced companies and businesses to rethink their security measures.

The LCBO’s latest attempt to stop crime comes in the form of a “resource protection team,” complete with vehicles that it hopes will serve as a deterrent for wannabe thieves.

The rampage of John Robichaud, the Boston underworld’s version of Michael Myers

I could do the rest of my time on Block 10 standing on my head!” he hollered at the deputy superintendent of Walpole State Prison after a hearing didn’t go his way. “How do you think you’re going to straighten me out—you fuckin’ knob-head guinea!” He’d target every authority figure he could—“From now on, you better keep your right up!” Especially the guards—“Why don’t you resign like Angus did? You’re yellow just like him, I scared him, and now you’re scared!” He threw his urine and stools at them so often that they wore raincoats during their rounds.

The Canadian experiment in free-range, low-consequence crime has failed miserably. It’s time for its enablers — the bleeding-heart politicians, judges and non-profit operators who insist on forcing the Canadian population to bear the burden of criminality — to call it off.

I hold just the tiniest bit of pity for Toronto Police Constable Marco Ricciardi, who sounded like he just wanted to be helpful when he made international headlines for his advice at a town hall on how to prevent violence during home invasions: leave your car keys by the front door. “They’re breaking into your home to steal your car,” he said in February. “They don’t want anything else.”

This is the type of realpolitik advice that no one wants to hear, but many quietly take to heart anyway. Indeed, women don’t want to be told they should stagger their keys between their fingers when walking home alone at night – they want to be able to take a walk without worrying about getting attacked – but many fish their keys out of their purse anyway, just in case.

In Los Angeles, a task force of detectives is battling organized retail theft, in which boosted goods often end up for sale online—or commingled on store shelves with legitimate items.

A dozen detectives from the California Highway Patrol gathered in a Los Angeles-area parking lot the other morning for an operational briefing. In about twenty minutes, they would drive to a nearby Home Depot, where customers were known to regularly wheel carts of merchandise out the door without paying, and to stick power tools down their pants. The investigators had planned a nightlong “blitz”—surveillance, arrest, repeat. Anyone caught stealing would be handcuffed, led to a back room, and questioned: What did you plan to do with these items? Did you take them on behalf of someone else? The goal was not to micro-police shoplifting but to discover and disrupt networks engaged in organized retail crime, a burgeoning area of criminal investigation.

When it comes to skyrocketing auto theft across Canada—double-digit percentage increases more frequently tied to carjackings and breaking into homes in search of keys—recent frank personal safety advice from the Toronto Police Service has sent a clear and unfortunate message to Canadians: You are on your own.

Canada’s illegal tobacco trade is not just a domestic issue but a substantial financial boon to organized crime and terrorist organizations worldwide, including terrorist groups like Hamas.

Ignoring Canada’s growing illegal tobacco trade also results in provinces losing billions in tax revenue while enriching organized criminal networks both domestically and internationally.

As of 2023, the RCMP estimates that 175 criminal organizations are involved in illicit tobacco. They are taking advantage of high cigarette taxes and lax enforcement of the Indian Act’s on-reserve tax exemption intended only for First Nations people.

Link fixed.

Defence lawyers painted the death of a Toronto police officer who was crushed by a vehicle as a tragic accident caused by panic and confusion Wednesday as prosecutors argued it was the result of a series of choices made in a matter of moments.

Two drastically different narratives of the events that led to the death of Const. Jeffrey Northrup were laid out in a packed Toronto courtroom as the Crown and defence made their opening statements in the murder trial of Umar Zameer.

Zameer has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

Wahdan Yahia Ismaeil kissed his girlfriend and hugged friends and family before being taken straight back to jail.

Following his goodbyes to those who turned up for his sentencing at Saskatoon provincial court on Monday, Ismaeil was taken away to serve his sentence for two counts of assault causing bodily harm and other charges. In February, Ismaeil pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm for stabbing two people during a brawl at Divas Nightclub in downtown Saskatoon in the early hours of Dec. 4, 2021.

h/t JB