Rehtaeh Parsons, cyberspace and "justice:" a cautionary tale

On April 19, 1989, a 39-year-old woman named Trisha Meili went for a jog in New York’s Central Park. She was raped and violently assaulted. Partly because of the attack’s brutality, partly because of news reports the perpetrators were a gang of “wilding” black youths and partly because of who the victim was—white, a Yale […]

Millie and that Ben and Jerry's tub… again

The question that truly, biblically passeth all understanding is why. Why would a 77-year-old senior citizen with five last names, a 40-year criminal history as long as both your arms and one of your legs, with two dead husbands—one of whom she was convicted of killing and the other seriously suspected—a woman who is now […]

You showed them, Mr. Mayor

Dear Mayor Kelly, Congratulations. You showed those dangerous… democrats. Who knows what calamities might have befallen our fair city if those peaceful hooligans had been allowed to stage yet another one of their interminable, speak-and-repeat, consensus-decision-making general assemblies on our sacredly public Grand Parade (which, until recently, served as a sacredly private parking lot for […]

Who wants to be mayor?

Is Tom Martin running for something? I first met Martin in 2006 when I profiled him for The Coast. What intrigued me then was his passion for solving unsolved—seemingly un-solve-able—crimes. William Shrubsall, Kimberly McAndrew… That passion earned him 2001 Police Officer of the Year honours, but cost him his health. Even after two heart attacks […]

New agencies won't resolve old case; we need an inquiry now

The Harper government’s proposal to replace the current, gums-only Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP with a new, baby-toothed civilian watchdog agency is better than nothing. But not by much. The new agency will have power to force witnesses to appear and testify, but will need to get the justice minister’s OK to initiate […]

The teacher, the hit man and the questions that remain

At first blush, it seemed like one of those tawdry, too-strange-to-be-true tabloid tales. In April 2008, a 38-year-old Digby County school teacher named Nicole Ryan was charged—along with her 70-year-old father—with trying to hire a hit man to murder her husband. Because I follow most court cases from the comfortable periphery of my morning newspaper, […]

Is Corey Wright the wrong man?

When American sailor Damon Crooks was killed on Argyle Street, police had a strong suspect but a weak case. Luckily for a city embarrassed by the murder, the suspect cooperated. Stephen Kimber finds out how pleading guilty became Corey Wright’s best move, right or wrong. Corey Wright Photo essay by Aaron Fraser […]

Protecting privacy or covering up?

So whose privacy are they protecting? On Dec. 2, 2008, an RCMP constable shot and killed John Andrew Simon, a member of Cape Breton’s Wagmatcook First Nation. Simon, everyone agrees, was alone inside his house, drunk and suicidal, at the time he was killed. According to what police reportedly told Simon’s family, he was unarmed, […]

Rebuttal to the chief

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 […]

Police Commission… What Police Commission?

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 […]