3 Police Officers Arrested for Assault & Robbery

I wonder what on earth this trio was drinking? Yikes!

A Few Thoughts on Illegal Drug Policy

I responded at length to this posting by Los Angeles based columnist, Amy Alkon. I thought it worthy to repost here.

Illegal drug use is the #1 issue in Vancouver, BC where I live. A major swath of the city has been infested with lost souls who are high on one or more of: Heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth, and a variety of others.

The consumption of these drugs costs money. It is estimated that 80% of all property crime (cars, homes, businesses) is directly related to drug use. With a 10:1 ratio of selling stolen property, $10,000 worth of stuff is stolen for every $1,000 worth of drugs. Not only has this driven insurance rates sky high, but it has also resulted in disruptions of phone and electrical service, as the drug addicts have ripped out wires in search of copper to sell for scrap metal.

Metro Vancouver was recently named as the organized crime capital of the world, with literally tens of thousands of homes being converted over to drug growing dens or drug manufacturing labs. Just the other week, an apartment complex in the supposedly good neighbourhood where I live (Kitsilano) had to be evacuated for a few days because some nutbar decided to turn his apartment into a crystal meth manufacturing facility. He killed himself with the fumes and potentially risked the lives of everyone else in the building from exposure to the fumes or an explosion.

From time to time we have gangstas (generally Asian or South Asian) roaming around the streets, firing automatic weapons into the cars & homes of their enemies. However, their bullets don't suddenly fall to the ground before hitting innocent people.

"BC Bud" is the high potency marijuana that others have mentioned. It is primarily shipped down to the U.S. in exchange for guns, cocaine, and heroin coming up here. Those items coming to us are not blessings on our society in any way, shape, or form.

The police have pretty much given up on arresting drug addicts and often drug dealers because our over lenient judges have continuously released these people back onto the street before the arresting cop starts his next shift.

Over in Switzerland, where they've had a pretty open "live and let live" policy about drug use, even they are rethinking it because of what it is doing to their society.

I don't precisely know what the ultimate solution to this Modern Day Plague is but its presence in my community has turned me from a pure Libertarian into a Pragmatic Libertarian.

One proposed policy I'm in growing support of is to forcibly incarcerate drug addicts into treatment facilities far away from the source of their misery. Many recovered drug addicts agree with this approach, saying that until a person hits rock bottom, they'll never go willingly. But it often takes many years of misery to reach that point. By then, many are dead.

Of course, there are significant forces against such a policy. They speak of "human rights" but I strongly believe what's really at the heart of their objections is that many, many people are now gainfully employed by the Poverty Industry. These are the folks who are supposedly employed to help these lost souls. They're very adept at applying band-aids but actually curing the drug addictions doesn't seem to be of much interest to them.

Am I cynical? I prefer the term "realistic and saddened observer"!

The Drip Drip Drip of Political Correctness Continues

In what would make a brilliant Monty Python comedy sketch, there comes a real story out of Britain about a police force feeling the need to apologize to Muslim leaders over an ad featuring ... wait for it ... a German Shepherd puppy. You can read about it here and here. And be sure to read the comments therein!

Welcome to the future where your animals will have to be locked up or euthanized and all women will have to be covered up with nothing more than a slit for their eyes. Lovely, just lovely. Perhaps an intermediate step would be a law that all dogs out in public have to wear a burka?

Though I don't agree with it, I understand the perverse twisted logic of the politically correct social activists in Britain and here in British Columbia. In their view of the world, everyone is a victim. They assign victim points depending on a person's sex, sexual orientation, race, and religion. So a bi-sexual, transsexual, quadriplegic, burka wearing Muslim woman on welfare would have the maximum 100 points, while a straight, able bodied, hard working Christian white male would have the minimum of 0 points. In any situation, the person with the most points gets to be the victim (and often be paid compensation) if they feel they've been offended by someone with less points. You see, it's that simple. Don't you get it?!

But what the Muslim plaintiffs don't seem to realize is that they are stirring up a growing backlash against all Muslims. Once the tipping point of the backlash is reached, there's no turning back. The politically correct ninkampoops will be pushed aside and completely innocent Muslims will be hurt in the process. This is in no way is a threat on my part but simply a prediction of where things are headed. The backlash has already started here in Canada, with Canadians finally waking up to their country being destroyed by political correctness. It will happen in Europe one day too. Until then, I think a clothing entrepreneur should consider my Burka for Pooches idea!

The Steve McGarrett Building

If you don't know who Steve McGarrett is then you were probably born well after 1970. He was the lead character, played by Jack Lord, on the hit TV police show, Hawaii Five-O. The opening theme was arguably the best one ever done for a television show. If you're not familiar with it, you can view it here. There's a fantastic freeze-frame segment early on that shows McGarrett standing on the balcony of the oceanside penthouse suite of the Ilikai Hotel, located at 1777 Ala Moana Boulevard.

Here's the front of the hotel.
And here's the ocean side of it, with a red arrow showing the suite in question.
Here's a panorama of the surrounding area.
Finally, here's a closeup of the satellite view map.

I Don't Speak English, Please Don't Kill Me!

That subject title may be a necessary T-shirt slogan for all foreigners arriving at Vancouver's International Airport to wear.

I've long been a supporter of the police in our society. While I've never been naive enough to think that any officer is perfect, I've always believed that each of them tries their best each & every day. My faith in this has been badly shaken after watching this video of Polish immigrant, Robert Dziekanski, being killed (2nd Degree Murder?) via a taser, used by 4 RCMP officers at YVR:

The video speaks for itself. No negotiations were attempted. How difficult would it have been to hand the man a phone to a translation service? In fact, it's clearly heard on the video that the decision to use a taser was decided upon before the police even reached the man. They surrounded him the way a bunch of young thugs would do to a helpless animal in a pen. And then they killed him. After they realized he had stopped breathing, they did absolutely nothing to revive him. Aren't all police officers trained in basic CPR?

Equally appalling was what happened after the fact. The RCMP lied about what really went on there. Then they told the videographer that he wouldn't be getting his footage back for 1 or 2 years. He had to threaten to sue them in order to recover it. After that, the damage control spinsters of the RCMP reminded us that what we saw "was only from one man's perspective". Is their opinion of the public's intelligence really that low?

I lived in Mexico City for a year. From that experience I know first-hand what corrupt police are like and the effects that such corruption have had throughout the entire fabric of Mexican society.

It is thus absolutely imperative to Canadian society that these 4 officers be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Failure to do so will forever destroy the faith that the Canadian public has in our police forces. Police are not given a badge and various weapons with blanket permission to do whatever they want, in a very similar way that BC Ferries workers are not given control of a ship to do with it whatever they want.

This is a pivotal litmus test in the history of our country as to whether people in power will be held accountable for the responsibility they hold. Sadly, I strongly suspect that nothing of consequence will happen and our society will slip deeper into the abyss of incompetence and lack of accountability that we've been heading toward for decades.

Update: An abridged version of this was kindly read by Jon McComb on his show (56:35).

Vancouver Can Learn From Downtown L.A.

When coincidences occur, I pay special attention to them. One happened this morning that I could just not ignore. First, I heard this segment (8:10) on Bill Good's show on CKNW. It featured a discussion of a new film, Tears For April, produced by Odd Squad Productions centering around the tragic misery of the drug infested Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Then I learned about this article via a comment on David Berner's blog. It's about the similarly tragic situation that has been downtown Los Angeles for many decades. Finally some good things are happening to help the drug addicts lead better lives. And the source? No other than the frequently maligned L.A.P.D. Yet, fighting them every step of the way are the usual suspects:

• Homeless advocates
• The A.C.L.U.
• Liberal leaning judges & lawyers
• The Hollywood glitterati

The article is long. It'll take you about 30 minutes to get through it. But it's a worthy read. The similarities between L.A. and Vancouver are incredible. Though the actors are different, the screenplays seem nearly identical. Most importantly, the path forward for Vancouver seems abundantly clear. In order to happen, those in power need to agree to and stick to a logical vision and ignore all the misery advocates who will only detract any progress.

The Vancouver Sun or The Province should definitely print this L.A. article in full!