COVID Lockdown in Lock-Step With Diminished Crime

"[The COVID-19 pandemic is] the largest criminological experiment in history. It's like a natural lab [and the public its test subjects]."                                              "'The stay-at-home' mandates brought about the most wide reaching, significant, and sudden alteration of the lives of billions of people in human history." "Practically overnight, the entire country ceased or significantly reduced day-to-day travels, eliminating commutes from home to work, as well as leisure activities, shopping trips, social gatherings, the ability to dine out, and more."               "Across the United States and around the world, a positive byproduct of these unprecedented events is a dramatic drop in crime rates." "                                   The basic population didn't change. The racial composition of communities remained the same. Poverty and inequality did not disappear or increase overnight. There is not much change in the basic social structure."                                             "So this is a natural test of the routine activity approach."                                             Marcus Felson, criminology professor, Texas State University

Jason Overbo, owner of the Brooklyn Clothing Co. in Vancouver, has had two break-ins at his store since the COVID-19 crisis began. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

"We saw a drop in motor vehicle collisions and impaired driving offences as people were staying home. Other trends we saw were increases in stunt driving offences, as well as a rise in domestic incidents. We attribute the rise in family domestic incidents to more people being at home with one another for long periods of time as they were isolating."                                                                                            "In the past week we have had three homicides in York Region where the victims were shot. We have been seeing an increase in impaired driving incidents again as people return to socializing and consuming alcohol or drugs in places other than their homes."                                                                                                       "Since July, as the province reopens and things start to get back to the new normal, we are seeing crime on the rise back to historical levels."                                         Sgt. Andy Pattenden, York Regional Police, Ontario

"Break-and-enters in particular have declined and, while I couldn't directly attribute it specifically to     COVID, I think it could be argued with more people at home there are less likely to be break-ins."                                                                         Toronto police spokeswoman Connie Osborne

"The pandemic certainly has [done] some collateral damage to folks' levels of stress and strain. For some, this may manifest into violent behaviour." "For most, this is not likely to show up in severe acts of violence."                                          Adam Vaughan, Canadian health criminologist, Texas State University

Some Canadian police forces report increases, decreases in crimes. (David Donnelly/CBC)

Dr.Felson has a long acquaintanceship with crime. He created the "routine activity theory" of crime over 40 years ago, representing an understanding of criminology away from focusing on offenders, instead a move to understand why crime occurs, and to study the circumstances which lead to crime. Crime, according to Dr.Felson's premise, occurs when three sets of circumstances converge; a capable offender, a suitable target, and the absence of an appropriate guardian; somewhat like crime-dependent-on-opportunity. Lacking a deterrent element, crime is a circumstantial occurrence dependent on crime-favourable conditions.

With the sudden appearance of a dread pathogen that has roiled the world community, the perfect confluence of circumstances has arisen to produce a living laboratory whereby Professor Felson sees an opportunity of rare proportions and circumstance to prove his generally accepted theory. Global data is now available which without the presence of COVID-19 never would be possible. With the entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing the novel coronavirus to strike at will, necessitating lockdown conditions, that opportunity arose.

At last his theory could be tested in an aura of emergency isolation orders, border closures, social distancing regulations and mandated lockdowns. All unsettlingly inconvenient and upsetting to the natural order of civic life as we know it, but a godsend to a professional criminologist who has staked his professional reputation on an educated theory which could now be put to the test. An answer to why crime occurs, how to predict its occurrence and how to reduce its impact.

Sgt.Andy Pattenden: increases in commercial break-and-enters north of Toronto. (CBC)

Giving Professor Felson the opportunity to produce a study highlighting a dramatic drop in crime rates, a study he co-authored with Professor Ben Stickle of Middle Tennessee State University. Some crimes, it appears, rose, while other types fell. And Professor Felson felt confident that dissecting the interplay of the rise and fall at a unique time in history when human routines and activities were undergoing massive change could be the key to fully comprehending the whys and wherefores.

Crime rates were seen to have diminished by double digits almost immediately when the routine activities of massive populations reacted suddenly to the changes in civic behaviour mandated by their government authorities. Routine activity during lockdown had an inhibiting effect on capable offenders unable to meet up with crime targets. When offices and businesses are closed, opportunities for crime are enhanced for 'guardans' are absent. Researchers worldwide now use Felson's theory to analyze how COVID restrictions have altered crime patterns in various communities, cities and regions.

A British study found a large drop in total reported crime in Lancashire county, led by shoplifting, for when shops are closed, access is denied shoplifters, just as pickpockets are out of luck when there are no longer bustling crowds of distracted people to enable their criminal pickpocketing activities, according to a Stockholm study of crime. As well, fewer home break-ins occur when people are in lockdown and remain in their homes, expressing the present 'guardian' principle.

A shooting victim was found in this vehicle in Toronto. (Paul Smith/CBC)

Outside the routine reportage of ordinary social crimes of opportunity, there are the extreme crime breakouts; mass murders, police shootouts, assassination attempts. Anecdotal and published accounts through news media suggest violent incidents may be linked to stress, loneliness and psychosocial changes resulting from the pandemic, that under lockdown, some people lost access to normal coping mechanisms; bars, friends, church, therapy, shopping.

In the end, the hope is that the theory that Dr.Felson placed so much of his experienced belief in can result in predicting what types of crime will increase, where they will occur both during a pandemic and following it, and that careful research examining how crime changes when lockdowns end, will help the criminal justice system more fully understand motivation and opportunity in crime. Human behaviour has a tendency to return to the familiar once an extraordinary, unsettling circumstance concludes. 

Clockwise from top left: Toronto Police officers contain an area behind a low-rise apartment complex where shots were fired on Sunday morning. Top left: RCMP officers prepare to take Gabriel Wortman into custody at a gas station in Enfield, N.S., on April 19. Bottom left: Four people were shot at a massive weekend house party in York Region in late July. Bottom right: An RCMP officer works with a police dog as they move through the contents of a truck that stormed Rideau Hall on July 2.

"Most crime is quite ordinary, and these extraordinary crimes [high-profile crimes that are highlighted by the media] get so much attention you forget how ordinary most crime is."                                                                                                          "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime largely rest on routine activity theory."                                   Marcus Felson, criminologist

When In Doubt

"The procedures carried out by Ian Paterson on vulnerable patients were unnecessary and caused physical suffering, scars and wounds to the patients."
"Also, as a result of his greed and arrogance, many of the patients have suffered psychologically, believing they needed to undergo the procedures because they were at risk from breast cancer."
"Of the 11 victims he was charged with in relation to this case, none had breast cancer, and yet he led them to believe they were at risk. This was cruel and unnecessarily led to many people suffering and living in fear."
Chief Superintendent Mark Payne

"I think he's a psychopath. Why would anyone in their right mind do operations to people knowing that they didn't need them?"
"[I hope he] rots in hell."
Frances Perks, mastectomy patient

"I, for one, trusted him with my life."
"To realize that I was betrayed makes me question my own judgment and I feel like I cannot trust any doctor."
Carole Johnson, surgical patient

Dr Rosemary Platt, a GP and victim of Paterson testified in court against the rogue surgeon telling the court she was left in agony following the pointless surgery  SWNS SouthWestNewsService

It is elemental, isn't it, that patients whose diagnosis leads to surgery are so often cautioned that they would do well to seek a second professional opinion before agreeing to proceed. It makes good sense, after all, before proceeding to surgery, to take all steps necessary to determine that the original diagnosis was correct and the doctor that will perform the surgery is correct, through the simple enough expedient of requesting a second opinion. None of Dr. Paterson's patients, it seems, went to the trouble. The amazing thing is that one of his patients was herself a general practitioner.

It would seem, therefore, that this health professional held the trust of his patients. His word as a professional examining them and diagnosing them with the dread word: cancer - was all they needed to fall into line and meekly accept his verdict that they required surgery. Of course the very diagnosis of cancer, that dread, deadly disease, is enough to strike fear into anyone's consciousness, and with that fear follows a decrease in executive autonomy, the transfer of decision-making agency to the individual with the professional certification whom you trust.

Eleven women trusted too unrestrainedly. And they have all suffered grievous harm for their naivete, an all-too-human failing to place belief and trust and hope into the capable hands of someone you believe will solve your problem. But 59-year-old Dr. Paterson, a breast surgeon with an obvious reputation as reliably dependable, may also have had an impulse to control and to do harm to others; if indeed such was his ambition he succeeded very well indeed. And now he will pay the price. Of course, 'paying the price' in another way entirely might also have been at stake here.

He is the owner of a luxury home in Birmingham. Properties in Cardiff, Wales, in Manchester and the United States as well, clearly a cosmopolitan jet-setter, a surgeon who is capable of infusing fear and hope in vulnerable women for whom a diagnosis of "breast cancer" fulfills the dread of their worst nightmares. Concerns relating to unnecessary or incomplete operations occasioned hundreds of his patients to be recalled in 2012. Nine women and a male testified during his succeeding trial relating to surgeries that took place between 1997 and 2011.

He was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and with three counts of unlawful wounding, by the Nottingham Crown Court jury. His skills in persuading patients to whom he outright lied to deliver false diagnoses, then persuade that they should undergo surgery, must have bee considerable. The sentence for his crime has not yet been handed down, but it is conceivable that he will face a life sentence after his recent conviction. Some of his victims had undergone four and six surgeries by their trusted surgeon.

Breast surgeon Ian Paterson has been convicted of performing needless operations on women in his care  SWNS SouthWestNewsService

Drunk and Driving in Toronto

"When you choose to drink and drive, you're choosing to kill someone else's babies, like mine were killed."
"Like all of mine were killed [Daniel 9, Harrison 5, Milly 2, grandfather Gary Neville, 65], on a beautiful Sunday afternoon just after 4 o'clock [September 27, 2015]."
Jennifer Neville-Lake, bereaved mother, daughter, greater Toronto

"Our enforcement strategy is showing that the numbers are not going down. I think the million-dollar question is: How do we [send a message to] males between 22 and 34 to get their act in order?"
"Everybody knows we're [traffic police] out there, and we publish information about our long-weekend results or when we've had a bad week. How do you message this group to change their behaviour?"
"Clearly, the fear of being caught is not having any impact. If this group [males 22-34] are our biggest offenders and they're drinking at residences before they go out to bars ... you have to own what they do after they leave your house. If you can't stop the offender can you stop the location? If it's not at a bar and it's at someone's house, maybe the message needs to go to [householders]."
Inspector Randy Slade, GTA police force traffic bureau

"This really is one of the larger societal ills. This is a situation where I would probably be trying to challenge the public and say: You know what? This is not an issue that any one entity, for instance government or the police, are solely responsible for preventing."
"One of the things that really has to happen is we need a wholesale change of behaviour in the motoring public. There was a time that the public accepted smoking on airplanes. We're in a situation now where smoking as a behaviour is almost socially verboten, especially in public circles."
"We see a lot more fatalities that are related to speed in areas that are generally more rural and as a result have higher speed limits."
"In some of the more outlying areas -- the north end of Peel, Durham, Halton or even up as far as York -- when you talk about impaired operation, generally one of the aspects that leads to your significant and life-altering injuries and/or fatalities is going to be an element of speed."
Halton police Sgt. Ryan Snow

Peel police say they are reviewing a judge’s decision to drop impaired driving charges after an accused man's rights were breached by not being provided with a Punjabi interpreter.  (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star)

The 29-year-old man, scion of a well-connected, wealthy Toronto family, was sentenced to ten years in prison when Marco Muzzo pleaded guilty to charges of driving while under the influence and in so doing destroyed four lives of one family whom he killed in a crash when he drove his SUV drunk, unheeding the danger he posed to others sharing the public highways with his blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, because he felt entitled to do as he wished, not as he should, and he has plenty of company in that dangerous attitude.

Last year, York Regional Police laid 1,029 charges for impaired driving, a substantial increase from the total 885 of the previous year, let alone the 717 charges for 2013. In York region of greater Toronto the rate of charges per 100,000 residents has shot up to 94, from roughly 67 of previous years, a trajectory that represents the "continuation of a disturbing trend", according to Inspector Slade. Of the offenders, 85 percent are male, mostly between the ages of 22 to 34.

And nor are Halton Region's numbers of impaired driving cases any improvement; they too are on the rise. Halton police last year laid close to 450 charges, some 100 more than four years earlier. The past decade has seen the rate of charges per 100,000 residents for impaired driving growing to 82 from 62 annually. License suspensions, criminal convictions, threat of injury, none of these penalties are viewed as deterrents in the minds of the offenders.

Even while Durham and Peel regions have seen a decline in impairment charges in the past few years, the two regions still share the distinction of having the highest overall rates; Durham coming in at 116 charges per 100,000 residents, and Peel at 104. "Every area is different. You have your rural areas and then you have  your business areas, so it all depends on what's going on in the area and the information that we receive where we can target things", explained Det. Const. Todd Gribbons of the Durham police services.

Only in Toronto's central location are charge levels diminished, where 48 charges were laid for every100,000 people in 2014 and 2015. Sgt. Snow points out that a lack of dependable public transit has a part to play in all of this; plentiful in downtown Toronto, but not in Halton or Durham where residents become more car-dependent because of the lack of public transportation availability as an option.

Ontario Provincial Police had a busy long weekend on the roads, laying numerous impaired-driving, dangerous-driving and stunt-driving charges. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)

"I'd have no problems with what Ontario is doing on criminal and license suspensions if the death rate was falling with it. And it's not", observed Andrew Murie, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, of Toronto's declining rate of charges. "It's a major concern, because there's been a dramatic decrease in Ontario's enforcement on impaired driving without the parallel decrease in deaths." 

York Police feel that drunk driving represents a problem which "shows no sign of slowing down". Leading Inspector Slade to despair over what can be attempted by authorities to turn the tide of drunk driving in the opposite direction: "Right now, I'm looking for the answer, and it's not me coming up with it. I thought we were beyond this", he said of a social problem not confined to Toronto, but plaguing society in general; yet of all countries, Canada in particular.

Canada topped a list of 19 wealthy countries struggling with the problem of road deaths linked to alcohol impairment. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed a study which indicated that Canada leads its counterpart countries in the percentage of road deaths attributable to alcohol imbibing and driving; in Canada, 33.6 percent of all motor vehicle fatalities involved alcohol, a truly unenviable record.

Armed Dementia

"There's a lady with [a] gun. She's coming out of her house right now. Two people shot outside! Two people shot outside!"
"She's going inside, she's going inside the house now. Hopefully she's not getting more bullets, because it looks like she's going in for more bullets. She's coming back again -- apparently she has bullets now."
"Oh, she shot her again. She shot her again."
Neighbour's call to 911, Houston, Texas

"Two of the calls are from Taylor and Madison and are difficult to listen to."
"Sheriff [Troy] Nehls is meeting with Mr. Sheats to ensure he is aware we had no choice."
"We will not be posting the calls on our social media".
Fort Bend County Sheriff Office website

"Happy Daughter's Day to my two amazing, sweet, kind, beautiful, intelligent girls. I love and treasure  you both more than you could ever possibly know."
"Today I am thankful for my two perfect gifts! They are very best friends -- they make me so very proud to be their mother."
Christy Sheats, 42, Houston

Christy Sheats, a 42-year-old Texas mother, fatally shot her two daughters before she was gunned down by a responding police officer on Friday outside of the family's home in Katy, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office says. Photo: Facebook

"Please! Forgive me! Please, don't shoot!"
"Please, I'm sorry. Please
" Don't point that gun at her!"
911 call

From left: Madison and Taylor Sheats  Facebook

Madison, 17 and her sister Taylor Sheats, 22, were indeed the best friends that made their mother Christy Sheats so proud. Both young women worked in child care. Taylor was a student at Lone Star College, a talented artist. While her younger sister Madison would have been a senior at Seven Lakes High School this coming fall. Both young women were exceedingly beautiful, the typical picture of blond, blue-eyed, slender privilege emerging into adulthood from an intact family, with a comfortable future awaiting them.

That future will never arrive. Both sisters, whose physical resemblance to their equally beautiful mother, have predeceased their mother and their father. And the mother who loved her two beautiful daughters to proud distraction was the direct cause of their death. Their mother Christy, was a devoted gun owner, and knew how to find a target. The target on that day last week was her daughters.

This is a woman whose use of social media outlined her Second Amendment support amidst fears government was set to restrict her gun-owning rights.

Every time there is yet another iteration of mass killing by a shooter, be it an angry man feeling excluded from his own society, a schoolboy enraged at his lot in life as a social reject, a deranged malcontent, or an Islamist declaring !Allahu Akbar! the debate in America is renewed with passion, non-gun-lovers against gun aficionados, each declaring emotional concern for the healing of a society wedded to vigilante preparation should government become too officiously intolerable. That conversation spills across the border as a topic elsewhere in the world as well.

There had been a family consultation in the suburban Houston home of the Sheats family. Mother Sheats had been extremely upset over some perceived concerns, so her husband Jason and their daughters Madison and Taylor were all present to hear her out. At some juncture Christy Sheats drew her weapon and began using it on her daughters. As the three other family members attempted to escape her immediate proximity they ran outside.

Their mother followed, shooting one daughter in the street, though both young women had already been wounded, while still in the house. One of the daughters found destination death as she lay in the street while the second, taken to hospital, died there. After desperate 911 calls and police arrival, the mother had refused orders to surrender her weapon, and was shot dead herself.

"He felt Christy wanted him to suffer," said Sheriff Troy Nehls. "Christy knew how much he loved Taylor and Madison and how much they loved him."
The shooting reportedly happened on Jason Sheats' birthday.
Jason Sheats told police that he and his wife had been struggling with marital problems and had discussed divorce. The day of the shooting, he said his wife also got into a dispute with her eldest daughter, Taylor, reports KHOU. He said his wife wanted to ground Taylor and prevent her from seeing her fiance, whom she planned to marry Monday.
Jason Sheats told police he disagreed with his wife. He said she called a family meeting and the four had gathered in the living room. Jason Sheats told police he thought his wife would tell their daughters that the couple had decided to divorce. Instead, he said, she pulled out a gun from the couch cushions and opened fire, KHOU reports.
CBS News 

One of the countries where the issue of firearms availability and gun control is discussed is Canada, just across the border to the United States. Where a recent letter-writer to the editor explaining her position on the issue wrote from her home in British Columbia:

"I was befuddled when I read John E. Eisan's letter stating the thesis we 'share a common culture and ideology with the United States is so wrong ... Canadians do not want to own automatic rifles or ... Any kind of weapons'."
"He is wrong. I want to own both and I am a 60-year-old highly educated grandmother. This country is so vast, that should any attack on my person occur, again, I know the RCMP will get around to collecting my dead body and related evidence. They can't ensure my safety."
"Further, if or when North America is attacked again, people who are armed can defend themselves. (I was laughed at before 9/11 when I insisted on the value of a strong defence." Eisan obviously does not appreciate the right to bear arms in America. However, should an invasion occur, or a government resort to tyranny, the American people can form militias and fight back. Canadians are sitting ducks."
Linda Keays, Nanaimo, B.C.

Desperately Seeking Justice

"[The crack epidemic [between 1988 and 2002] [enabled a serial killer to target women] willing to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their dependency on this powerful drug."
 "This was the perfect opportunity for someone who preyed on women. Someone who knew the streets and the dark alleys by heart, someone who lived there and was able to blend in, someone who knew where the drug-addicted women and perhaps prostitutes would congregate and who knew how to lure potential victims into the darkness and the isolation of a vehicle through the promise of crack."
"It was the perfect place and time for a serial killer to roam the streets of Los Angeles, really without detection."
Prosecutor Beth Silverman, Los Angeles trial of Lonnie Franklin Jr.

"The day of reckoning is here. You can't help but be excited that  you lived to see an end to this madness."
"It's been a long road and I'm glad I'll physically be able to be there."
 Porter Alexander, father of a victim

Franklin denies killing the women whose bodies were all found within a five mile radius of his house

"State computers produced a list of 200 genetic profiles of people in the database who might be related to the serial killer. One of those profiles shared a common genetic marker with the DNA found at each of the 15 crime scenes."
"The resulting pattern indicated a parent-child relationship. Knowing that the Grim Sleeper had to be a man, they tested the DNA of the 200 offenders whose profiles resembled the crime-scene DNA to determine whether any appeared to share the Y chromosome, which boys inherit from their fathers."
Los Angeles Times

"It's not over until it's over. There's more to it than people want to believe. It's up to the prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt."
Seymour Amster, Defence Lawyer

Behind bars since his 2010 arrest, Lonnie Franklin Jr., named the "Grim Sleeper" serial killer because such a long lapse occurred between his first killing and subsequent ones, pleaded not guilty to the crimes with which he has been charged. Now 63 years of age, he denies having killed nine women and a teen-aged girl. According to authorities, from 1985 to 2007 this is the man who killed nine women aged 18 to 35 as well as a 15-year-old girl.






Police investigators in Los Angeles started to look into the city's unsolved cold cases with DNA presenting as their enabling tool, and they felt that the case of the unsolved 'Grim Sleeper' would be as good a place as anywhere to begin their search for justice. DNA samples from state prisoners were being collected over the years and kept in a law enforcement DNA database. When police urged the state to agree to investigate DNA matches that might be related to the killer, the then-state attorney-general agreed to accepting familial searches.

And this is what eventually led police to Lonnie Franklin Jr., whose own DNA data was not to be found on that database. But his son, Christopher Franklin had been arrested on firearm and drug-related charges. And his was the perfect father-son DNA match that police hoped they might find. They still required confirmation, however, so an undercover officer followed the man to a pizza outlet where a birthday party was taking place. Posing as a busboy the officer collected dishes Franklin had used. An uneaten crust of pizza, a napkin and a drinking glass hosted the sought-for evidence.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Grim Sleeper was one of at least three serial killers plying their deadly trade in the Los Angeles area, targeting vulnerable women during the crack cocaine epidemic. Franklin's lawyers claim an analysis of their own had pointed guilt to someone other than their client, determined from evidence gathered from two crime scenes. But a judge ruled the expert used by the defence was not qualified to take the stand.

So the trial resumes, while Franklin's one surviving victim, Enietra Washington last year stated that she was ready to see the trial through to the end, to find a measure of closure through justice meted out to the man she accuses of having attempted to kill her. "I thought I forgave you, but I was wrong", she said in confronting him. "You stole so many people's lives."

The Plight of Canadian Aboriginal Women

"At some point she awoke and was immediately physically attacked with a punch to the face, which knocked her out again." [attack on Rinelle Harper, 16]
"During the entire time she is being sexually assaulted by Hudson and [the co-accused teen], she is pouring blood from her face, the inside of her mouth and from a wound to the back of her head." [attack on unnamed 23-year-old woman]
Debbie Buors, Crown attorney, Winnipeg courtroom

Rinelle Harper speaks to CTV's Canada AM on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015.

21-year-old Justin Harper's appearance, when he returned home after a busy night out with a 17-year-old friend/accomplice, startled his mother April Hudson with whom he had been living. He is the fourth of eight children, and did not always live at home but rather with with his aunt at one time as well as being in foster care. His dishevelled appearance, and the presence of blood on his clothing was explained by both her son, 20 at the time, and his 17-year-old friend, as the result of an altercation with another man.

When his mother continued questioning him about what he had been doing that night the finally responded: "Shut the f... up or I'll do to you what I did to that girl last night". In fact, that night his mother and his sister had gone to a local 7-Eleven to pick something up. While there, they saw a  woman in distress who appeared in dreadful shape, complaining that she had been violently attacked. The two women offered to  help the woman in such obvious need, but she fled the store and they returned home.

What had occurred that night was horrifically grisly. Young Rinelle Harper, 16 years of age and a high school student studying away from her First Nation reserve was out with friends celebrating the end of exams when two young men appeared who appeared friendly and she trusted them because they were also aboriginal. They led her to the banks of the Assiniboine River where they assaulted and raped her then threw her into the river. She gained consciousness and crawled out of the river and they re-assaulted her.


Somehow she managed to crawl away, to be discovered  hours later, severely wounded, by a passerby who raised an alarm and authorities intervened to take her to hospital where she was treated and where she remained in recovery for a week before being released to the care of her family. The horrific attack against this young girl effectively high-lighted the plight of aboriginal women facing violence that threatens their very existence.

She courageously agreed to allow her name to be made public in the hope that giving a name and a face to the victim of a vicious attack similar to those that other aboriginal women have been subjected to, and often with lethal effect, would bring the attention of the public to focus on the matter and move forward on the demands for a public enquiry on violence against First Nations women and children.

Rinelle Harper has no memory of the atrocities committed against her. She had been punched, and bashed with a baseball bat, her head and upper body stamped upon repeatedly, and she lost consciousness as a result. And then the two men took turns raping the unconscious girl. Once recovered, she resolved to do what she could in speaking as a voice of one who had suffered, to inform the world and to plead the case for aboriginal women's safety: "I was speaking for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, for those who don’t have a voice anymore."

That her attackers were themselves aboriginal speaks to the reality that the majority of such attacks appear to occur as a sinister dysfunctional undercurrent of the culture. Previous public enquiries and reports from the RCMP validate the fact that violence against aboriginal women and girls emanates mostly from aboriginal culture, that men simply lack respect and care for the vulnerability of women, preying on them, since most such attacks come at the hands of male family members as well as acquaintances and strangers.

When Justin Hudson and his companion had finished tormenting and brutalizing Rinelle Harper they turned their attention to the presence of another woman they saw on the street, a 23-year-old. They had originally started the night with the intention of breaking into vehicles. That morphed into a far more vicious undertaking when they came across Rinelle Harper. And now that they had left the teen for dead, the appetite to continue their dreadful predations appears to have been unsated.

They walked along with the 23-year-old in a manner similarly friendly to their initial link with Rinelle Harper. Soon enough they began assaulting and raping the older woman too. A male passerby shouted at the two men to leave the woman alone and his concern made him the next victim as the younger of the two assailants chased him and assaulted him with a baseball bat.

After Justin Hudson's outburst directed at his mother, a member of the family dialled 911. And that is when the two predators left the house. They were both arrested three days later. Both were charged with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon in relation to the horrendous attacks.

An Unspeakable Burden

"In addition to the sexual assaults, the offender controlled the family through angry outbursts, arbitrary rules, and childish but serious physical assaults, which he masked as corrective or disciplinary action for his arbitrary rules."
"The offender established himself as the person in charge of every aspect of the life of this family."
"The offender's inexcusable treatment of [the eldest daughter], in particular, after she turned 16, and of the other girls, deprived them all of tremendously important formative years. They are truly lost years."
Ontario Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray, Ottawa

Ottawa courthouse Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen

To protect the identity of a woman and her daughters, the name of their abuser has been withheld from public view. The violent degradation involved in mental and physical abuse went on for years, during which time the children of the woman who had remarried were subjected to a family life that resembled hell. Their mother could not possibly have been ignorant of the strain and stress her daughters were living under, even if she could claim ignorance of the sexual abuse.

When the man she married turned out to be a ruthless disciplinarian who used physical assault and violent ridicule to enforce his idea of discipline, displeased if they laughed or disobeyed his orders, abusively insulting them, physically attacking them, forcing the girls to eat soap, the actions he submitted her daughters to could not possibly have been hidden from her knowledge. For fourteen long years the girls lived in misbegotten misery.

If her own innocent daughters' punishment for their mother's ill judgement in marrying such a man were not enough evidence of a household's private Gehenna, then the stepfather's behaviour toward the mother in raping her when she failed to agree to his demands for sex alone, should have propelled the woman to police and charges against her husband.

When one of the little girls was in Grade 3 the man, now 49 years of age, screamed at her for a failing mark in math, pinning her to the wall with his upper arm. He would often push the girls against a wall, slapping or hitting them. He poured liquid dish detergent into their mouths. From the age of seven onward the girls were exposed to this horrible abuse.

It took the eldest daughter's decision to move out of the house, warning her sisters to be on guard against the man they considered a father-figure, and his designs on them once she left and never turned back. She had suffered unspeakable and wretched attacks beginning in her mid-teens when he forced intimacy on her, even as she slept in a lower bunk bed with her youngest sister above her.

The oldest girl testified at trial that her stepfather would step up his abuse of the rest of the family if she resisted his sexual advances, so she stopped resisting his demands and, according to the judge who passed sentence on the man allowed him to "do what he wanted to her so that he would not be mean to everyone else".

The stepfather denied committing the offences he was charged with, other than forcing the children to eat soap, when he underwent a sexual behaviours assessment at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. He denied ever having had sexual contact with the eldest daughter. According to him, the young girl had been attracted to him.

A jury convicted the man of sexual exploitation, sexual assault and assault after considering the graphic testimony of his having abused the children, having forced himself on his 16-year-old stepdaughter, raping her and repeatedly raped his wife. He was sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison for terrorizing his family.

It doesn't seem like a very hard punishment for ruining the lives of four people, particularly young vulnerable girls who were dependent on him. After serving his time in prison he can get on with his pathetic life. Their journey to any kind of fulfilment in life will be far more difficult after their bitter betrayal, demeaning experiences and life of fear.

Queenly Malice

"The investigation shows that the suspect used various methods to harass her victims, including by eavesdropping on private conversations and by communicating with victims through the speakers of their infected computers."
"She also frightened her victims by taking over control of their computers and by logging on to extreme pornography websites."
"Her victims included under-age children both in Canada and abroad."
"She's well known. She's been known for a while in those [hacker] forums."
Constable Philippe Gravel, lead investigator, RCMP, Integrated Technological Crime Unit

YouTube   A screenshot from QUEEN SH0CKA's YouTube account

Looking for notoriety, she found it. Aspiring to be admired for her creatively intrusive mischief, she lost it. She used a variety of pseudonyms, all reflecting the high esteem in which she held herself; Internet-mischief aristocracy. And for confounding and terrifying people whom she didn't know, but whose computers she managed to control, causing them no end of consternation and perhaps sleepless nights, she's getting off lightly.

QUEEN, QUEEN SH0CKA, and UNSEENz, to name a few of her favourite on-line identities is either an imbecile stuck in juvenile-troublemaker mode, mentally imbalanced or simply deeply malicious in character. None of those characteristics represent admirable traits. She must imagine herself the queen of shock. After the RCMP charged the 27-year-old who lives in Saint-Alphonse-de-Rodriguez northeast of Montreal with hacking into computers for the express purpose of intimidating people, those in the courthouse in Joliette, Quebec on Wednesday heard her sentencing.

Accused of committing mischief, and of fraudulently using a computer along with two other charges, Valerie Gignac was released once she agreed to eight conditions imposed on her to ensure she no longer pursues her vendetta against human decency. She must cancel her Internet service within 48 hours, nor can she frequent Internet cafes, among those conditions. Her skilled use of a malicious software, a remote administration tool (RAT) permitting cybercriminals to spy on their victims through gaining control of the webcam on an infected computer doubtless gave her countless thrills.

That her activities were discovered occurred by happenstance, when police came upon her activities in the course of investigating another case altogether. The Surete du Quebec became involved and assisted the RCMP in their investigation. While it's not yet known completely how she managed to infect peoples' computers and remotely control them, the computer equipment seized from Ms. Gignac's possession will ultimately reveal the process. "So far, we don't know that", said Constable Gravel. And nor is it yet known whether her purpose was for financial gain.

 

 

It is known, however, that this woman was so arrogant that she took to posting videos of her operations on YouTube "in which she can be seen taking over control of infected computers". How creepy is this...? According to businessinsider.com, one of her online videos shows her recording her voice to gain the attention of a hacked computer owner. In the video, a window in Ms. Gignac's computer shows streaming footage of a woman and in the background her family members.

 

The hacker then proceeds to speak directly to the woman at her computer, doubtless puzzled no end by a voice that speaks in phrases such as "look behind you", to arrest her attention. Upon which Ms. Gignac uploads an audio file of a piercing scream, eliciting fright on the faces of those on the receiving end of her nasty prank; intruding on strangers' privacy for the purpose of instilling fear.

She had, it seems, ample followers. And perhaps that was her ultimate reward; a young woman working in obscurity, mastering a method by which she is able to unleash a bot to control other peoples' computers and through that intrusion, revealing herself as a psychopath, one skilled at using malevolent software to harm people psychologically. She uploaded videos of her Internet exploits to YouTube, sharing them with an online hacker forum she ran with over 35,000 avid followers globally. 

Reparations, Reputation, Restitution

"In the aftermath of World War II, the human costs had been colossal, art wasn't really a priority."
"It's taken this time, now with various anniversaries -- and the last survivors that are of prewar years are leaving us, aren't they?"
Simon Curtis, director, Woman in Gold

Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold Left, a 1907 portrait by Klimt, is the center of this exhibition at the Neue Galerie and is also the focus of a movie that opened this week. Right, Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of the painting, around 1910. Credit 2015 Neue Galerie New York

"These artworks are the last great prisoners of war, aren't they?"
Ronald Lauder, billionaire cosmetics heir

During the dreadful years when Austrian-born Adolf Hitler turned Germany and the Axis countries that joined him into a mechanized, seemingly-unstoppable war juggernaut, his Third Reich busied itself with plans to destroy the lives of all the European Jews they painstakingly gathered together in death camps.

Even as the clouds of death and destruction began to gather over Europe, however, the property of Jews was confiscated with the state taking possession, even while Jews were being completely disenfranchised, terrorized, identified with Yellow stars, fired from all professions and gathered into ghettoes.

While some property has been returned to rightful owners, and the government of Germany has made efforts to recompense Jews who survived the Holocaust, time cannot be turned back to restore life to six million Jewish souls who perished after suffering dreadful privation and tortuous humiliation.

 Restitution of property, of notable works of art were the last thing on the minds of those who found the means by which they could escape death. Now, almost seventy years after the end of World War II, it is estimated that up to 100,000 art works remain unaccounted for.

One wealthy Austrian family headed by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, an industrialist, had commissioned Gustaf Klimt to paint a portrait of his wife Adele, known for hosting salons of avant-garde artists and intellectuals in their palatial home. Gustaf Klimt, over the years had painted a few portraits of Adele Altmann. Those paintings hung in the Bloch-Bauer home.

Adele willed her portraits to the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

She died in 1923 of meningitis, and her husband hung all of the Klimit artwork in her bedroom. Until, in 1938 the paintings and all of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's possessions and his business interests were confiscated by the Nazis.

Most of the Bloch-Bauer family escaped Europe, finding refuge in North America. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer travelled to Switzerland where he lived until his death in 1946.

The painting that had originally been titled Adele Bloch-Bauer I, was re-titled Lady in Gold by the Germans who were proud to display it in an exhibition during the war. With the name of its Jewish model Aryanized, the painting moved from the ranks of 'corrupt' art to artistic masterpiece.

All subsequent attempts by the surviving Bloch-Bauer family, descendants of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, to reclaim the family property were rebuffed.

The Austrian government pointed out that Adele Bloch-Bauer had willed the paintings to their regal Belvedere Museum and they represented the proudest art possessions of the country. The country considered the painting, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, "Austria's Mona Lisa", one of the museum's most prized possessions.

And then an investigative  journalist, Hubertus Czernin -- whose reputation had been made when he was involved in revelations that former United Nations chief Kurt Waldheim, who later became Austrian president, had a Nazi past -- discovered documents suggesting that Adele Bloch-Bauer's will hadn't been legally binding.

At that juncture, one of Adele Bloch-Bauer's descendants, Maria Altmann, now deceased, sought the aid of a young lawyer whose grandfather was the composer Arnold Schoenberg who had been an acquaintance of her aunt's. Randol Schoenberg engaged in filing a claim with an Austrian art-restitution panel on behalf of the family, which was spurned.

He then took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, winning the right to sue the Austrian government for the return of the five Bloch-Bauer family paintings by Gustaf Klimt they possessed. An Austrian arbitrator ruled in January 2006 that the paintings be returned to the family, and the five paintings then left Europe, much to Austria's dismay, for North America.

Four of the paintings were sold at auction and are now in private collections. One of the paintings can still be viewed by the public. The most celebrated of the five paintings was sold to Ronald Lauder for a whopping $135-million. That painting hangs now in the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This is a gallery gifted to New York by Mr. Lauder as a display venue of art and design of early 20th Century Austria and Germany.

There is a certain satisfaction that at least one of those luminous paintings has a public face. Perhaps all of the paintings deserve to be displayed in a publicly-accessed gallery. Austria's loss is America's gain, and this is where the satisfaction lies; that a country allied with Germany whose fuhrer was Austrian, both of which destroyed European Jewry, is denied the privilege of enjoying art immortalizing a Jewish woman.

Henry Goodman and Tatiana Maslany with a copy of Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” Credit Robert Viglasky/The Weinstein Company

And now, moviegoers can see the drama played out on screen in the film production of The Woman in Gold, the film that tells the drama of the family's efforts to have Austria remit to them property illegally and criminally confiscated by Nazi Germany, and which Austria 'inherited' after the war ended, proudly displaying the five Klimt paintings for sixty years.

Protecting Vulnerable Women

"It's like a little bodyguard in my pocket. It preserves the victim. It saves us."
"Once I realized that was all in response to my alarm [police response to alarm], I had mixed emotions. Relief and comfort knowing that's how seriously they take the matter, but also a bit of terror realizing that it's this serious."
Janet [last name withheld], Ottawa

"I'm going to go out in style. I'm going to go out big."
"I'm going to take people down with me. I haven't decided if you will be the person I take down with me."
Janet's ex-husband

"If the accused put her in the car and went on the 417 [highway], it will track her."
"They have a live eye on her so she can be intercepted by police."
Lisa Warriner, executive director, Victims Services of Hastings, Prince Edward, Lennox and Addington County

"The hope was that if we were to provide them with that quick access to services and mitigate those barriers they [abusers] were facing, they would be less likely to re-offend."

Traci Bowen, team leader, Ottawa police victim crisis unit

"It resonates not only for me but for our community."
"Far too many women have died or have been injured through domestic violence."
Chief Charles Bordeleau, Ottawa Police Services

Janet wears an alarm device especially designed to be used by women who are in danger of domestic or spousal violence She began wearing it three years ago. Wearing the device gave her the confidence to leave her home, to resume a normal life. She felt comfortable in going out with her children, knowing that with the touch of a button police would respond swiftly. She was, in fact, a pioneer in the use of the mobile tracking device; the first in Ontario to use one.

At the present time there are about 150 trackers being used across the province.There is now provincial funding for emergency cellphones in calling 911. In Janet's experience, her husband was twice arrested after their separation. First it was for criminal harassment, uttering death threats and stalking. On the second occasion he was charged with criminal harassment and breach of probation. Janet is thankful police are at her back, thanks to the alarm system.

And, as it happens, Janet's former husband was in fact a policeman.

Soon after their separation her ex-husband stalked her and their children at a public park. His intention was, he informed her, to say goodbye. And that's when he expressed the threat that threw her into a panic. The moment he drove off she dropped the children over to a friend's home, and visited the police. The mobile tracking program that helped Janet was initiated by the Victims Services of Hastings, Prince Edward, Lennox and Addington County.

Even the Ottawa Humane Society is called upon on occasion when women are considering separating from an abusive intimate relationship. There are times when companion pets' lives are in danger at the hands of a vindictive abuser. Women are as reluctant to leave an intimate partner when there are animals involved, as they are when there are children in the picture. A program was put together by the Ottawa Humane Society to hold animals in trust until such time as a woman can retrieve them.

The Ontario Veterinary Medical Association has a very similar program they call SafePet, established in 2003 where women are enabled to drop off their animals at a local veterinary clinic. The association claims that 48 percent of women, because of concerns over a pet's welfare, delayed leaving an abusive relationship.

There is also an active program to help the men who have been charged with domestic violence. Their needs are assessed, taking into account housing, financial matters and emotional counselling. Donna Watson-Elliott, who manages the Ottawa police victim crisis unit says her office tracked 86 domestic violence cases early in the year to discover that of the total, ten men had accepted assistance and had been referred to New Directions, a program set up for abusers.

A criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, Holly Johnson, analyzes data from domestic violence cases as well as data from an online survey of survivors taking into account race, religion, sexual orientation, living situation, eduction, occupation, income and the kind of violence experienced to determine how best police should respond. Nancy Worsfold, executive director of Crime Prevention Ottawa leads a subcommittee examining how domestic violence can be prevented.

Early education was pinpointed as an effective means of teaching youth about violence against women. Hoping to prevent dating violence, in 2006 Ottawa schools added a curriculum section on developing healthy relationships to grades 7 to 9 physical education courses. But in teaching mutual respect between the genders, there is nothing quite as effective as a child observing the interaction and affection between soundly-functioning parents.

Forgiving His Sins

"It seems evident that, today, with the protocols set in place by the dioceses and the new norms of Rome, it is no longer possible that a priest, with a history like Mr. Deslauriers, could be incardinated successively in three different dioceses and to continue to exercise ministry."
Msgr. Pierre Morisette, Bishop of Saint-Jerome, Quebec

"Now we have to call the police. That's one of the differences."
"Much has been learned by everyone from the Pope on down. ... We won't have a knee-jerk reaction of denial."
Archbishop Anthony Mancini, Halifax-Yarmouth, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, chair, committee on sexual abuse

"He brought a very significant turnaround in the whole atmosphere of the school. The whole faith aspect really blossomed. It kinda became cool to be involved in the church."
"Part of his manipulation was protecting himself, by not only working at appealing to us, but also pushing others away, creating mistrust of others, sometimes in very subtle ways, so that basically we wouldn't tend to confide in others about things that were happening with him. It was enticing."
"[It was] really presented as a therapy, and kind of an introspection. How do you feel? What comes through your mind?"
"He was very stoic, if I can use that term ... very professional. Never did I get the sense that he wanted me to do something to him. [It was almost] respectful. That's sly too. I never denied that I consented. He had so convinced me that I needed that therapy [sexual abuse] that that's why I went back for it."
"It was kind of weird. He was offering [the abuse] as therapy, so it was clear that in his mind there was nothing wrong. But I felt it was wrong. So I was telling the person who didn't think it was wrong that I thought it was wrong. That's how messed up it was. I look back and I laugh at myself."
"On the one hand I believe he really wanted to help, in a very warped way. I also believe that, for some reason, he needed to be needed. He needed to be valued. And he felt he could make a positive difference in our lives."
"He was my idol. I wanted to be a priest like him. He was my hero. I had become aware of the control he had on me. I needed to break that. I was terrified of him."
"Forgiveness is not a one-time thing. It's a journey, and I came to realize it's a freeing journey. Revenge can easily make me a prisoner. The church is human. I'm worthy in the sense that I'm a sinner like everyone else."
Father Claude Thibeault, parish of Ste.Therese-de-Lisieux, Cornwall, Ontario

Tyler Anderson/National Post    Father Claude Thibault, a victim of sexual abuse by a notorious priest whose crimes and coverup were exposed by a major inquiry, poses for a portrait in Cornwall, Ont.

They are all speaking of Father Gilles Deslauriers, now 77, thought to be living now in anonymity in a small house in a suburb of Montreal, but no longer performing ministry in the church. He had been ordained in 1970 as a Catholic priest by a mentor and friend, the late Bishop Adolphe Proulx. Bishop Proulx had offered to supervise Fr. Deslauriers after a trial in the mid 1980s when he was given a suspended sentence and two years probation, ordered to therapy and to be supervised by Bishop Proulx. He had been committed to trial on seven counts of indecent assault and four of gross indecency.

Before that time he was thought to be smart, amusing and unconventional. He informed his students that he had graduate degrees in philosophy and psychology, was knowledgeable about matter sexual; none of it true, but setting the stage to present himself as someone to be trusted when young people were puzzled about sexual relations; he would set them straight and give them comfort and release from their curiosity and fears. Bishop Proulx moved to the Diocese of Hull, and his successor noted a tension between Fr. Deslauriers and other priests in the diocese, who complained of his controlling, manipulative traits.

But he was held in high regard and the new bishop, Eugene LaRocque, encouraged by his predecessor's glowing review of Fr. Delauriers, appointed him to act as school chaplain at the Cornwall high school La Citadelle, for its mostly Catholic students. The young lad who was then Claude Thibault was one of those students when in 1977 Fr. Deslauriers was given that trusted position, and took pains to ingratiate himself into the trust of the students. He began a Saturday afternoon question period, one for girls, another for boys, where they were encouraged to ask questions, many of them relating to sex, sometimes at Fr. Deslauriers' urging.

Claude Thibault at age 15 ... photograph courtesy of Claude Thibault

Claude Thibault knew little about sex and was concerned about marriage intimacies. Fr. Deslauriers assured him he could lead him to confidence in a future healthy relationship through a series of 'therapies'. Which turned out to be instructionals not quite within the status of marriage as a Catholic sacrament, but in how he could conduct a hands-on exploration of sex. These instructional episodes took place regularly over a six-month period, until Claude Thibault moved on from high school to university. Later, when he decided to enrol in the Catholic seminary to pursue the priesthood, he found himself under the vocational direction of Fr. Deslauriers and a crisis developed.

"When I say rebellion I was also trying to search, to understand, because it didn't become clear overnight what had happened. So in that search and in that confusion, I closed in on myself. The dilemma was I couldn't just drop Gilles." Eventually he confided in Bishop LaRocque; the first time he was rebuffed, the second time when he revealed the sexual abuse,  he was believed but it was kept an internal church matter. A secret ad-hoc diocesan committee was set up by the bishop to examine the situation. The committee found, among other things, a bank account in Fr. Deslauriers' name with $150,000 which an auditor felt had been filched away from church activities.

When complainants who had stepped forward with their stories of abuse discovered nothing was being done, they approached the local press and the police became involved. Which is when the trial took place and the conviction. Bishop Proulx had died halfway through the court-assigned probation period. Before he died, however, he had moved the convicted priest quietly out of Cornwall into Quebec where he arrived in 1987 to the diocese of Saint-Jerome, placed in charge of Saint-Adele parish, his appointment renewed in 1990. Six years later he was removed "officially for reasons of health" according to Msgr. Morissette. There had been "difficulties" in the parish, accusations made of Fr. Deslauriers sexual touching, rumours of abuse of young boys.

Fr. Deslauriers is still a priest in the Catholic church. "A priest is always a priest. You can call him an abuser but he's still a priest", explained Archbishop Mancini. Ordination cannot be reversed. As for Claude Thibault, he was himself ordained a priest in early 1986. His parish is Ste.-Therese-de-Lisieux, in Cornwall. And he forgives Fr. Deslauriers.