Fear and Loathing in Vancouver

Vancouver's gang war, the UN Gang vs Red Scorpions, got boring, so I had stopped commenting on it months ago. The police chief recently admitted on camera that local politicians had been twisting his arm, demanding he not admit what all the bodies in the gutter imply... that it is a war. Many of you get your daily drip of gore from the Vancouver SUN, which gooses each edition with crime news, and links news coverage to Bolan's Blog on the same website. The SUN is now requiring its writing staff to participate in building a web-presence for the newspaper...The inevitable is just over the horizon. The expensive printing and distribution crews will get their pink slips... look for it in 2012, and the paper will go to online subscription.

This morning's SUN story on the Bacon family appearing at the courthouse, featured handsome Jarrod Bacon looking like he wanted to audition for a part in a Bond movie. His photo prompts an anecdote shared with me last week by a Grade 12 student who had just taken his Transitions Exit Interview, a process required by the B.C. curriculum. The student wanted to impress, so he bought a new suit and had his hair cut for the interview. He told me that when he walked into the room the first words out of the teacher's mouth were, "Wow, you look just like a UN gang member!"

I found his story a tad funny because it indicates an apparent shift in local perceptions of criminality. We have a whole new image of what might now be making many local women jittery. Good looking young men... those who keep themselves fit and are well groomed and well dressed, may now be deemed physically threatening.

This prompts the question, "What is the investigative profile of the man who killed Wendy Ladner-Beaudry at Pacific Spirit Park last Friday?" The brutal death of Ms. Ladner, who was a member of Vancouver's ruling elite, has shocked fellow residents of the West Side, those who have always believed that money and class insulated them from the more sordid aspects of Vancouver's social evolution. Are the police looking for some bedraggled, long haired transient, or are the looking for some buffed up young bloke, who was seen in expensive runners and designer sunglasses? Ms. Ladner's husband insists that his wife would have met any attacker with a barrage of blows. It was interesting to read that, in spite of their being overtaxed by almost daily gang killings, the V.P.D. was able to deploy 75 officers and 20 vehicles to the scene of Ms. Ladner's murder, and maintain those assignments ever since. Apparently we have more law enforcement capability than we've been told.

And what to make of the recent Paul Rogers story "FROM HEAVEN TO HELL" published in the THE INDEPENDENT ? (Many opinions held by Vancouver residents are posted online under Rogers' article. Have a read.) Rogers, a visiting scholar at SFU, bit into some tender political flesh with that story. Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell offered reporters an identical denunciation - "a cheap shot", apparently annoyed that foreign media are unwilling to fall into lockstep with the local media.

Mr. Beaudry, who is distraught and angry, told the Vancouver Courier "If there's any good in this, it's that we can't give in to terror. We can't fold. Terror is a great tool, but we can't let terror take over."

Linda Lorraine Howe (seen here in Dec. 2008 Xmas party photo) alleges that she was allowed to slip through the mesh of Canada's social safety net.

What are we to make of Linda Howe? This is the woman who recently brandished two weapons inside a nursing home at Gibson's B.C., when attendants tried to evict her from a room she was no longer entitled to. Ms. Howe's response was to barricade herself in the room. After shooting an attendant she had to be taken down by a police tactical unit. I can understand how Ms. Howe managed to conceal a small Argentinian auto pistol in her room, but how did she manage to cache a .303 Enfield Rifle?

Ms. Howe is here seen in a surveillance photo, taken inside her room at the care home.

Linda Lorraine Howe of Gibsons, B.C. was armed with a 7.65 Bersa auto pistol, which was manufactured in Argentina in the 1970s. Which of her beau's was stupid enough to give this gun to a woman with emotional problems?

Ms. Howe has been alleging for years that our "system" has let her down. Which node of the system in particular? DND, ICBC, BC Health, et al. Howe has told anyone who will listen that she is a Canadian "veteran" of the Gulf War, suffering from "post Traumatic Stress Disorder". Her family have told news media that she made up the Gulf War service but I read in today's GLOBE AND MAIL that she enrolled in a Vancouver Military Reserve Unit for a few months in 1990. On the strength of that abortive attempt to fit in, the GLOBE today dubs Ms. Howe a "Veteran". How does someone who doesn't take enough reserve training to get Trade Qualified, warrant the honour of "Veteran"? Gee whiz !

This screen capture is precious, isn't it? Ms. Howe's crimes are deemed "alleged" but the neophyte reporter confirms her supposed status as a "military veteran". (Based on a few months on the nominal roll of reserve unit.) Ouch. I guess we really did let Linda down.

DEC. 20, 2010 - we learn today that Ms. Howe was sentenced to seven years of detention.