Tom Martin had it wrong, Halifax Police Chief Frank Beazley told CBC Radio’s Information Morning on December 1. In my story for The Coast (November 19, 2009) on the city’s striking number of unsolved homicides, I’d quoted Martin, a respected retired homicide detective as saying: “To my knowledge, the cold case unit has not laid […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 12/09/2009
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Quick now. Can you name the chair of HRM’s Board of Police Commissioners?…. No? OK… Can you at least tell me what the board does?… Did you even know we had police commissioners? Perhaps that’s the problem. According to city bylaw P-100, the board—six members appointed by regional council, one by the province—is supposed to […]
- 12/04/2009
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
On Monday, the Chronicle Herald carried an In Memoriam advertisement for Kimber Leane Lucas, a young woman who died on November 23, 1994 at the age of 25. The notice featured a photograph of a strikingly attractive, smiling young woman above a message that read, in part: “You will never be forgotten. Forever loved and […]
- 11/27/2009
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
They were lying. We knew they were lying, even while they were still telling them. We voted for them anyway. Some of us may have secretly hoped—for our children’s children’s sake—that, not only were they lying but also that they understood they were lying so they wouldn’t then feel obliged to translate their little lies […]
- 11/20/2009
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
From the November 19, 2009 edition of The Coast Why is our police department one of the worst in Canada at finding killers? Stephen Kimber investigates. OK, boys… Pack it up… Back to what you were doing… We’re done here… Tom Martin had known it was coming. Call it his experience, or—perhaps, more to the […]
- 11/19/2009
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
When the woman from the Canada Council finally reached me on my cell phone one afternoon in late July, I was in St. John’s. I’d just completed some interviews for a project I was working on and had begun strolling down Water Street, soaking in a sunny, breezy Newfoundland day and looking forward to the […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Damn. Missed it. Again. I’m not the only one. Which is unfortunate. For everyone. Last Sunday marked the anniversary of an event that symbolizes—or should—the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in Canada. On November 8, 1946, a 32-year-old black beautician named Viola Desmond was driving from Halifax to Sydney when her car broke […]
- 11/13/2009
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
A few years ago—for reasons that don’t matter here—I ended up sitting through a full day of routine arraignment proceedings at the Spring Garden Road court house. Guilty pleas, not guilty pleas, bail hearings, trial schedulings, 30-days-to-pay-your-fine, you’re-released-on-your-own-recognizance, you’re-back-to-jail… Somewhere in the middle of it all, a small human drama unfolded. I’m no longer sure […]
- 11/06/2009
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Last week, David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20-year-old twin brothers from New Glasgow—who were described in court as “fairly introverted” and “most un-streetwise”—were each sentenced to three months in jail for possessing child pornography. What makes their case interesting—and troubling—is that the images the young men were accused of downloading onto their home […]
- 10/30/2009
- StephenKimber
- 5 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Pity Stephen McNeil. The NDP wants to stop his Liberals from continuing to tap a tainted $2.37-million party trust fund to pay its bills. “The motive… is political,” McNeil complained to reporters after the government introduced the bill this week, adding plaintively: “You’d have to ask them why they would specifically go after us.” Uh… […]
- 10/23/2009
- StephenKimber
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STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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