National call for inquiry into deaths of hundreds of Native women | Indian Country Today | Content

National call for inquiry into deaths of hundreds of Native women

Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/National-call-for-inquiry-into-deaths-of-hundreds-of-Native-women-101643603.html

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The “Missing Women Investigation Review” released by the Vancouver Police Department Aug. 20 documented widespread deficiencies in investigations of missing and murdered women – no surprise to families who’d been filing reports for more than two decades.

“It’s taken them 19 years to understand what we’ve been saying all along,” said Angela MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services. “We knew what was going on in the ’90s – women were being plucked off the streets. We said there were serial killers, and that women were going missing, and the police did nothing.

“For them to now say ‘sorry, we messed up’ is not good enough. Thirteen more women died because of their bungling, infighting, racism, sexism and jurisdictional issues.”

MacDougall is referring to the failure of police to recognize compelling evidence collected against serial killer Robert Pickton nearly two years before he was eventually charged in the deaths of 20 women, including six Native women. While incarcerated, he bragged he had killed 49 women and “wanted to make it an even 50.”

The 408-page analysis written over several years by Vancouver Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard concedes police should have recognized there was a serial killer at work since the 1990s, and that a multi-jurisdictional task force including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police should have been created earlier to expand the investigation.

“The RCMP could have gotten involved much earlier and didn’t. … I had $100 million and 180 staff, so imagine (the Vancouver Police Department’s) frustration with eight people,” said RCMP Inspector Don Adam in the report.

For more information and how you can help, visit: Aboriginal Women’s Action Network Battered Women’s Support Services Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center Truth and Revolution Project Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Missing/Murdered Native Women in Canada Stolen Sisters, Amnesty International Missing Women Investigation Review

The Pickton case had little chance of being solved without RCMP involvement due to the volume of evidence in its jurisdiction and the likelihood that the killer disposed of bodies in rural locations, LePard said.

The need for a coordinated multi-agency response to missing persons cases, and resolving jurisdictional issues were key points in the report’s lengthy recommendations to provincial governments, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, the RCMP and city officials.

“In every law enforcement jurisdiction in Canada where there are missing women – Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto – we’re putting them on notice to get their act together. They face the same jurisdiction conflicts as they had in Vancouver,” MacDougall said.

“We need a full public inquiry and comprehensive analysis, and we need action. Many of these women dealt with violence in childhood and were traumatized as young women. They were failed by adults and police who were supposed to protect them. If Canada doesn’t instigate a public inquiry into their deaths, it will be another failure.”

Dozens of First Nations leaders, women’s advocacy groups, communities and families across Canada are publicly demanding a national inquiry into the 582 known cases of missing and murdered women, as well as hundreds of others that remain a mystery.

Cherry Smiley, a member of the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network said they support the call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered women and girls, including the mishandling of the Pickton case and abductions along the Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia.

But they also need resources to advance long-term solutions that will get women and girls out of harm’s way. Most organizations providing direct services are struggling on shoestring budgets using scores of volunteers.

“We’re trying to maintain the level of funding we have to do frontline work and it isn’t even close to meeting the needs,” Smiley said.

“We need no-strings-attached funding for women’s groups, more detox beds, a guaranteed livable income, affordable housing, and the implementation of the Nordic model of law in regard to prostitution.

“This type of legislation criminalizes pimps and procurers, the buyers of sex, while decriminalizing prostituted women and children, giving them access to the social services they need to get out.”

AWAN is asking supporters to educate themselves, to write to local and national politicians, to support independent women’s groups like Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, and to support First Nations leadership’s efforts to end the violence.

Men can examine their own sexist and racist behavior and challenge the behaviors of their male friends, Smiley said.

“We are also demanding that Canada sign onto the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that contains many provisions for protecting our women and children,” said Laura Holland of AWAN.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an Onondaga attorney and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said Canada must respond to requests from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to document what it has done to improve the situation.

“What we know is that in Canada there’s evidence that there are more than 582 aboriginal women missing and murdered. In the United States homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native women, and one in three will be raped in her lifetime,” she said.

“What we need to know is when it will stop. When will indigenous women of North America enjoy a life expectancy of more than 47 years of age?”

Beverley Jacobs, past president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said greater awareness is needed for the public to understand the larger issues behind why this is occurring.

Jacobs also noted that concerned people can help with the needs of families of the missing and murdered. Resources are required to assist with searches, to assist families during a court process, to assist in healing families, to provide education on the issue of violence and to assist with preventative measures.

“Aboriginal women have been targets since colonization and this has impacted so many generations. It is time that aboriginal women take their rightful place in society as leaders, decision makers, teachers, nurtures and life-givers.

“The silence about violence and the outright targeting of aboriginal women has to stop now. Everyone has to take responsibility, including governments, police, media, families and communities.”

Book is a call to action

Book is a call to action

BY BARB PACHOLIK, LEADER-POSTAUGUST 31, 2010

A new book titled Torn from Our Midst is ensuring the "passionate wisdom" coming out of a Regina conference that focused on the international tragedy of missing indigenous women is not forgotten.

The book's dedication page reads: "To the sisters torn from our midst; to the families who have had to endure not knowing what has happened to their loved ones; to those who have heard what they had hoped they would never have to hear; and to all the strong women, men and children who shout out, 'Not One More! Ni Una Mas!' "

In August two years ago, nearly 300 people gathered in Regina for a unique conference titled "Missing Women: Decolonization, Third Wave Feminism, and Indigenous People of Canada and Mexico."

Among the organizers was Brenda Anderson, a Luther College professor who teaches a course on missing women. Anderson, who co-edited the book along with colleagues Wendee Kubik and Mary Hampton, said there were always plans to publish the stories shared and papers presented at the conference.

"The point of the conference was to get us together so we could hear the different perspectives and needs. And that can't be lost."

In addition to the written word, the visual images and voices of the conferences can be heard on a DVD that comes with the book.

The collection includes the views of academics, policy-makers, social workers, church leaders, elders, as well as the deeply personal stories of families who have lost loved ones. They include the parents of Amber Redman and Daleen Bosse, missing Saskatchewan women who were ultimately found slain, and Eva Arce and Paula Perez, whose daughters disappeared in the notorious Juarez, Mexico.

"We tried very hard to not make it an academic book only. We need that analysis, but we need a lot of other voices on this issue. It's a matter of heart as well as minds," Anderson said.

The title was chosen to make the point that these women who disappear don't go willingly.

"There's violence in this, and that's the issue that we're getting -- the image of the fabric of our Canadian communities being just ripped apart, torn and shattered."

Like the conference, the book is meant to raise awareness, acknowledge the grieving and offer support -- but Anderson also hopes it is a call to action.

"You have to collect up what's happening. You have to reflect on it. And you have to figure out collectively what you can do in your own communities."

Since the conference, she's heard about grassroots community efforts in this province to bring more attention to missing women.

"And that's precisely what we hoped is that people in their own places would develop and use the resources, and feel inspired to do something more."

Torn from Our Midst is available from the University of Regina's Canadian Plains Research Centre and the U of R Bookstore.

© Copyright (c) The Regina Leader-Post

CTV British Columbia - Gregor Robertson calls for Pickton inquiry by fall - CTV News

CTV British Columbia - Gregor Robertson calls for Pickton inquiry by fall - CTV News

Craigslist: 'Wal-Mart of Sex Trafficking' http://ping.fm/gV6wD

First Nations rally to demand full Pickton Inquiry

BY LAURA BAZIUK, THE PROVINCE AUGUST 29, 2010 7:01 PM

First Nation community members gather for a memorial and repatriation ceremony in Vancouver on August 29, 2010.

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, PNG

First Nations leaders renewed their call for a public inquiry into the Pickton murders Sunday during a healing ceremony for the families of 32 women still missing from the Downtown Eastside.

“I really believe that the families deserve to know what happened,” said Joan Philip, council member with the Council of B.C. Indian Chiefs. “Nothing short of a full inquiry will answer the questions that they have.”

Aboriginal representatives spoke to a gathering of two dozen people at Crab Park at Portside, at the foot of Main Street in Vancouver, before the ceremony began.

Robert Pickton, a former Port Coquitlam pig farmer, was charged with murdering 26 women, and convicted on six of those counts in 2007.

The provincial government plans to decide next month whether to hold an inquiry or judicial review into the case.

That came after an internal report from Vancouver police that documented several mistakes made in the Pickton investigation.

Dawn Crey was among the 33 women whose DNA was found on Pickton’s farm.

Her brother, Ernie Crey of the Sto:lo First Nation, called for a female judge to head the inquiry, and for native bands and social workers to be involved in crafting how it should be carried out.

“I don’t think a cop-on- cop review is going to cut it,” he said. “Or they won’t hear the end of it from many of the families who have lost loves ones down here.”

About 65 people attended the healing ceremony, featuring pipes and drums. The hosts handed out star blankets, each with the name of one of the 32 missing women, to their families.

lbaziuk@theprovince.com

twitter.com/laurabaziuk

— with files from Postmedia News

© Copyright (c) The Province

Memorial in Crab Park for missing women of Downtown Eastside - News1130

Memorial in Crab Park for missing women of Downtown Eastside - News1130

Timeline: Problems prior to Pickton's arrest

BY LINDSAY KINES AND LES LEYNE, VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST  AUGUST 20, 2010

The following is a timeline of the significant problems that arose in the Pickton investigation, taken from an early draft of the Vancouver Police Department's internal review. The report ultimately suggests Pickton could have been arrested years earlier, and the deaths of more than a dozen women prevented.

Summer 1998:

With the concept that women were going missing from the Downtown Eastside gaining currency, the Vancouver Police Department got two tips that Robert Pickton was responsible for the killing of a sex-trade worker at his Coquitlam, B.C., farm. A detective contacted a Coquitlam RCMP officer familiar with the suspect from another violent case and they talked. Around the same time, police formed a working group to examine the missing-women issue, to see if a serial killer was involved.

September 1998:

The working group met twice. There were "strenuous" arguments about how to approach the issue. Personality conflicts led to it being disbanded. Pickton was put under RCMP surveillance for several days, but there was nothing suspicious.

February 1999:

VPD and RCMP investigators met regarding Pickton. The provincial unsolved-homicide unit declined at first to get involved because of lack of evidence. His picture was shown to 130 sex-trade workers, but none acknowledged him, likely because he was a "good date" who supplied money and drugs. Senior officers publicly downplayed the idea of a serial killer.

May 1999:

A "Missing Women Review Team" — not a task force — was formed with a handful of staff. "Vancouver Police Department management suspected it was faced with a significant problem, but for a variety of reasons, was not yet able to acknowledge the problem as a matter of serial crime."

June 1999:

The review team's resources were condemned by one member as inadequate. Need for more help was "absolutely essential," but none was provided. An officer began lobbying for a joint-forces operation with the RCMP, but was initially unsuccessful.

July 1999:

Another informant told police that he had heard a woman tell a grotesque story about watching Pickton murder a woman at the farm. Interest in him quickened. But investigators disagreed over the credibility of one of the sources. The driving force within the RCMP was then promoted. The theory that the story was bogus prevailed and "the investigation was effectively derailed."

September 1999:

Another look was taken at Pickton. An RCMP officer asked to talk to him "but was persuaded to wait for rainy weather when he had less work." No further effort was made until January 2000.

January 2000:

Pickton was interviewed by RCMP constables, who allowed a woman friend of his to be present. It was "poorly conducted and unproductive." "The only potentially useful result . . . was that Pickton consented to a search of his property, but this offer was not followed up on by the RCMP."

July 2000:

The lead VPD detective on the case requested a transfer, citing burnout.

August 2000:

The VPD requested that the RCMP review the entire Vancouver police investigation, which involved follow-ups on about 1,200 tips. Because of problems with data management, it took until October to transfer the files.

December 2000:

The detective's transfer request was approved and the "bitter and discouraged" detective left, after submitting a detailed report about the challenges in the case.

January 2001:

The joint-forces operation was finally set up and began reviewing DNA evidence in dozens of historic, unsolved cases involving prostitutes.

August 2001:

Several more missing women were reported. The JFO began to realize their assumption they were dealing with a historical review of a serial killer was incorrect. The killer was still active.

October 2001:

The JFO grew in size, but was hampered by the absence of the former lead VPD detective on the case.

January 2002:

A semi-covert team of a dozen officers began working the Downtown Eastside.

February 2002:

A rookie RCMP constable got a warrant to search for weapons on Pickton's farm, where officers discovered key evidence that led to his arrest. Pickton is eventually charged with the murders of 27 women and convicted on six of those charges. He is serving a life sentence in prison.

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Coleman, RCMP show inquiry needed

BY LINDSAY KINES, TIMES COLONIST  AUGUST 28, 2010 2:04 AM

Full credit to Rich Coleman; it only took a few minutes for the former solicitor general to demonstrate why we need a public inquiry in the Robert Pickton serial killer case.

With Attorney General Mike de Jong on holidays, Coleman was the designated point person for the B.C. government on the issue last week.

But if the spin doctors were hoping to push this story to the back pages, they picked the wrong person to respond to the Vancouver police department's review of the missing women investigation.

Coleman, who appeared not to have read the report, dismissed it as so much "finger-pointing." He also offered the usual assurances that much has changed since Deputy Chief Doug LePard began his research years ago.

The report shows that the deaths of more than a dozen women could have been prevented and Coleman, an ex-Mountie, seemed to be saying: "Move along, folks. Nothing to see here."

Except that there is plenty to see. One person's finger-pointing, after all, is another's scathing look at B.C.'s policing system.

Although Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu says the troubled missing-women investigation "would not happen today," it's obvious from LePard's report that a lot still needs fixing.

Maybe such a tragic case would not happen in Vancouver any time soon, but what about all the barriers that remain between the patchwork of departments on the Lower Mainland and in Greater Victoria?

What if women started going missing from New Westminster and the killer lived in Delta? How long would it take those agencies to spot the similarities, strike a task force, decide who pays and for what and agree to share information?

LePard's report makes it clear that B.C. lags in key areas. We have no provincewide mechanism to get task forces up and running quickly, and investigators use different computer systems at different agencies.

The report concludes that many of the problems that derailed the Pickton investigation would have been moot if the Lower Mainland had a regional police force. LePard urged the government to look at the issue.

It seems that if it were up to Coleman the public would never have seen LePard's report -- let alone considered its recommendations. (This would be in keeping with the government's record. It was offered confidential copies of the report in 2006 and 2009 and chose not to look at it.)

Indeed, Coleman was so intent on dismissing LePard's work that, for the first time, he promised a "transparent review" of the case rather than relying on a report by "one officer in Vancouver."

"The premier has said that last week," he told my colleague Judith Lavoie. "We've always been very open about that."

Neither statement was true. The premier never promised a review and, until publicly faced with LePard's report, the government had shown no inclination of doing anything.

Most telling, however, was Coleman's comment that "we did feel that this report, like others, should be coming into basically a collection for the transparency of it, because each report that gets written doesn't have all the information from another agency."

Twisted syntax aside, it looks as if the government had been hoping to suppress the LePard report, merge it with the RCMP's review, and push out a watered-down "collection" a few months down the road.

To be fair, the RCMP review remains secret, so it might be more useful than expected. But it's hard to get your hopes up after reading the latest issue of the RCMP Gazette.

One of the articles -- Snaring Pickton -- has been pulled from the online edition, likely because it plays fast and loose with the truth. The headline reads: "How the Vancouver Missing Women Task Force Caught Canada's Worst Serial Killer."

Who knew? I could have sworn from court testimony that Pickton was captured by fluke. A rookie constable, with no ties to the task force, went looking for a weapon on the farm in February 2002 and stumbled upon items belonging to two missing women.

"It was the first crack in the case," the article says, ignoring the earlier cracks in 1998, 1999 and in 2000, when Pickton consented to a search of his property and two RCMP officers never took him up on it.

The article, in fact, makes no mention of the Coquitlam RCMP-led investigation that stalled in August 1999 -- allowing Pickton to go on killing for anther 21/2 years.

If this is the kind of revisionist history we can expect from the Mounties, I'd prefer to wait for the results of a public inquiry or judicial review -- assuming the reviewer is truly independent of government.

After all, Coleman and his colleagues have made it "transparent" that they want this whole mess to just go away.

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

http://bit.ly/b3WBUh

Pickton's evil not whole explanation for his murders

BY H. PETERS, EDMONTON JOURNAL  AUGUST 28, 2010 3:02 AM

Re: "Police report on Pickton case angers families; Vancouver department apologizes for mistakes that could have stopped serial killer two years earlier," The Journal, Aug. 21.

I read with interest the comments by family members of some of killer Robert Pickton's victims and quite frankly was angry with the finger pointing at the police for not having stopped him sooner.

In addition, family members felt that if the police had stopped him sooner, their "loved" ones would still be alive.

It seems to me some of these women may have been failed on more than one level, perhaps even by families who couldn't get them off the streets.

H. Peters, Fort Saskatchewan

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

http://bit.ly/avxQbs

Families call for independent probe

Review must not be influenced by police, politicians: victims' relatives

BY LINDSAY KINES AND JUDITH LAVOIE, TIMES COLONIST  AUGUST 28, 2010 2:04 AM

Heather Joesbury, sister of Andrea Joesbury: "She would have been alive today, but they didn't care," says Joesbury, who lives in Victoria.

Photograph by: Debra Brash, Times Colonist, Times Colonist

Ernie Crey, Lillian Beaudoin, and Heather Joesbury all share the terrible knowledge that police could have caught serial killer Robert Pickton sooner and spared the lives of their sisters.

And all agree that any review of the case ordered by the B.C. government needs to be led by someone independent and beyond the influence of politicians, bureaucrats and police.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn disappeared more than a year after Pickton likely should have been caught, said yesterday that Attorney General Mike de Jong and his cabinet colleagues might have the power to order an inquiry, but should not have control over the questions that inquiry asks or how it is structured.

"Should it all fall to the government to decide what those terms of reference are?" he said. "Like Michael de Jong and a bunch of lawyers on his staff and some cops? No, it shouldn't.

"And if that were the case, that's what would heighten the level the suspicion. People would lose confidence [in] an inquiry of that nature."

Crey said aboriginal groups and social agencies on the Downtown Eastside should have some input into how the inquiry takes shape. He'd also like to see the government appoint a female judge "with a lot of compassion and patience" to head any inquiry.

Calls for an independent review have mounted since the release of Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard's review of the case, which concluded that investigators had compelling evidence pointing to Pickton by August 1999 -- 21/2 years before his arrest.

Over that period, 14 women went missing and their DNA would later be found at Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam. Of those, Pickton was convicted of killing three, and charged with killing eight. Police recommended charges in the other three cases, though none was approved.

Former solicitor general Rich Coleman has said the government will order a "transparent review" of the case. Cabinet will decide whether the review will be a public inquiry, judicial review or some other type of probe.

Lillian Beaudoin said she is increasingly convinced that a wide-ranging public inquiry is needed to figure out why her sister, Diane Rock, had to die.

"It makes me mad," she said.

"My sister was the second-to-last victim and I've learned they could have arrested him much earlier."

Rock was last seen in October 2001. "The more I read, the more aggravated I get," said Beaudoin, who lives in Welland, Ont., where Rock grew up.

"It is shocking that two police departments couldn't get their acts together. They are there to protect us and they didn't protect her."

Beaudoin wants a public inquiry to unearth the full story, followed by recommendations that will help protect women in the future. But she said the difficulty will be finding someone to conduct the inquiry who does not have the prejudices against drug addicts and prostitutes that she sees in police and politicians.

That could mean having a woman in charge, she said. "Men are more likely to be prejudiced. I think women are less likely to be biased."

Beaudoin hopes the death of her sister may bring about changes that will help others, including more street-level help for women.

Better police training is also at the top of her list, as at the root of the fumbled investigation was an attitude that prostitutes and drug addicts could be ignored, she said.

Heather Joesbury, 22, agrees. Her sister Andrea disappeared in 2001, and her remains were found on the farm. Pickton was convicted of her murder.

"She would have been alive today, but they didn't care," said Joesbury, who lives in Victoria. "If it had been their own family disappearing, they would have been on it like no tomorrow."

Like other family members, Joesbury cannot forgive police for failing to arrest Pickton when they had the evidence, and she wants a public inquiry to not only identify the problems, but to point fingers at those responsible.

"They are waking up with their daughters and their sons, but they caused 14 lives to be lost when they could have prevented it," she said.

lkines@tc.canwest.com

jlavoie@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

The Victoria Times Colonist

http://bit.ly/bcSlIW

Jody Paterson: Creating prey for the next Pickton

BY JODY PATERSON, SPECIAL TO TIMES COLONIST AUGUST 27, 2010 6:02 AM

Times Colonist columnist Jody Paterson.

Photograph by: Debra Brash, Times Colonist

Our sex-work laws kill people. We had a reminder of that last week, when Willie Pickton's murderous ways were news again. Only the streets can provide so many potential victims to a predator like him. Our ineffective and dangerous laws around sex work create those streets.

Last Friday, the Vancouver Police Department released the report that we all knew had to come, detailing the tragic inability of B.C.'s police forces to act on years of tips that women were being killed at Pickton's farm. I've watched our conflicted attitude around the sex industry for too long to be surprised by the public's muted response to that damning report.

We talk a good game about how much concern we have for the women Pickton and his ilk prey on. But our actions tell a different story every time. It's beyond ironic that even as the shameful story of B.C.'s missing women returns to the headlines, the federal government is introducing much tougher penalties that can only increase risks for sex workers.

We light candles for dead women without a moment's thought about the appalling working conditions that set them up as targets for murder. We lament the Pickton legacy without giving one hoot for the people we continue to banish to the fringes. The hypocrisy is unbearable sometimes.

I was working with sex workers at PEERS Victoria when Pickton was on trial. Media outlets from across Canada called me frequently to ask what I thought and whether anything was changing now that there had been so much publicity about the hard life of a street-entrenched sex worker.

How can anything change when our laws remain resolutely the same? Working alone outdoors in the middle of the night would be dangerous no matter what product is being sold. As long as we continue to deny adult sex workers a safer workplace and a place in our communities, nothing changes.

The federal government's recent decision to increase penalties for people convicted of keeping a common bawdy house will add significantly to the risks. People convicted of operating a brothel will face a mandatory jail sentence of at least five years (compared to a maximum of two years under the previous law).

The Justice Department says the change is needed to fight organized crime. Unfortunately, the tougher penalties will also ensnare many independent sex workers and small business people operating thousands of escort agencies, massage parlours and bathhouses across Canada.

Perhaps there are still some people who believe that closing down brothels will eliminate the sex trade. I'm not one of them.

The commercial sex industry thrives in every country in the world, courtesy of a solid customer base and a strong profit motive. A crackdown on indoor venues won't stop prostitution, it will merely push sex workers deeper into the shadows and closer to the streets.

How is it that we can mourn the Pickton murders so eloquently, yet do nothing to address the real issues for sex workers?

We have erected monuments to murdered women. Lit a few thousand candles in their memory. Spent a small fortune on bringing Pickton to justice. But we haven't done a thing to reduce the risks for Canada's sex workers, who apparently hold our interest only when they're dead.

Our laws are as conflicted as we are. The sale of sex is legal in Canada but anywhere that it happens is by definition illegal, because a bawdy house is wherever a sex worker regularly conducts business. You can sell sex through a newspaper ad, but risk arrest if caught soliciting customers in a public place.

The last time our country's police forces cracked down hard on indoor sex venues was in the 1970s. The result was a notable rise in street prostitution and an even more notable increase in assaults and murders involving sex workers.

Can we possibly be here again? That would be the biggest tragedy of all -- to have learned nothing from the deaths and suffering of so many women and their families.

Not everybody shares my opinion on the sex trade, of course. But I think even the naysayers want laws that work. Our laws are useless in preventing the sale of sex, but frighteningly effective at increasing the misery and danger for those in the industry.

Canada has poorly considered laws, random enforcement and a strong undercurrent of moral judgment when it comes to sex work. It's a lethal combination.

More jail time for people with the audacity to want to work indoors certainly won't change that. Neither will tears and candlelight vigils.

patersoncommunications@gmail.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

http://bit.ly/ci1G2P

The missing and murdered women of Vancouver deserve an Inquiry

Published on rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca)

August 27, 2010

When it comes to considering the missing and murder women from the Downtown Eastside, these are the concerns:

• Why did so many things go wrong?

• Lack of trust for police that still keeps women from reporting violence.

• What can we learn about solicitation laws and why they don't work?

• Jurisdictional issues need to be addressed.

• A necessary evaluation of any public program.

• What can we learn about marginalized women and men?

• What do policymakers need to understand and learn?

• It's not about pointing fingers.

• Why are sex workers treated differently under the law and their safety not taken seriously?

Maggie deVries became what might be considered an unintentional advocate for the missing and murdered women of Vancouver after her sister Sarah deVries disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in April, 1998.

In 2005 Maggie testified, along with 300 other witnesses, at the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Solicitation Laws, of which I was a member.

Many things about her testimony moved me. Her background as a writer was evident in her eloquent presentation and informed responses. Ms. deVries reiterated what the majority of witnesses told us: that current laws surrounding prostitution are actually hurting women, not helping them. Secondly, she reminded the sub-committee that the opinion and experience of sex workers is more important than the so-called experts when it comes to solutions to the problems facing sex workers. I think of these points in particular as I renew my call for a full public inquiry into the actions of law enforcement surrounding the murdered and missing women of Vancouver.

There have been many people along the way who have tried to help. Year after year, there were calls for a special taskforce to investigate the missing women, warnings from the community that there was a possibility there was a serial killer involved, but it took years for these voices to be taken seriously.

I first called for an inquiry in 2001, and brought the issue to a parliamentary sub-committee in 2003 with the passing of my private members motion for a review of Canada's solicitation laws. But long before that, based on real concerns from the community, I had supported and called for a special task force. I remember in 1999, as a federal MP, raising the issue at my first meeting with the then Attorney General of Canada Martin Cauchon. I asked him: "What would you do if you had 57 women who were missing and presumed murdered in your community? Well, that's what's happening in the Downtown Eastside."

He seemed taken aback, and I don't think he really knew anything about what should have been a national concern.

It's so shocking to me that if it was any other identifiable group, like nurses, or students from the University of British Columbia, there would have been a national outcry and a much different response.

Not only is a public inquiry necessary, we also need to have a community-led process that allows the families and the Downtown Eastside community deal with the loss and trauma and the impact on so many lives.

An inquiry can't be about finger pointing for the sake of finger pointing, although only the media and governments are suggesting it would be. But an inquiry also mustn't be dismissed out of hand because government doesn't want to waste money or resources on a report that may not have all the answers.

For over two decades, the City of Vancouver, the province of B.C., the Vancouver police force and the RCMP decided the steady disappearance of women, mostly Aboriginal and mostly working in the sex trade, was not worthy of committing the needed resources to put a stop to.

We cannot now simply say that an apology is enough, one conviction -- albeit vital -- is enough and that everyone should now move forward. After the Crown stayed the rest of the charges in this case, we know that here are at least 20 families who are still seeking answers.

The reality is that 70 or more women have gone missing from the Downtown Eastside in the last 30 years and little has changed. There are women disappearing on the Highway of Tears in Northern B.C., and in Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada.

We are learning in dribs and drabs about what happened in the case of the serial murderer of many of these women -- standard investigation techniques were set aside, jurisdictional issues arose, internal conflicts were a problem.

But we need to understand why. Why were these women in particular, mostly First Nation, mostly working in the sex trade -- why were they allowed to go missing? And we need to understand clearly what has and has not been changed. Are things better? Worse?

An apology is welcome, necessary and helping many to move forward. But what has changed? Don't think for a minute that with one man behind bars that this is over and we can now move on. Canada's solicitation laws still do more harm to women than good. The Conservative government -- without consultation and without public debate -- quietly announced recently significant regulatory changes to the criminal code which place sex workers in the same category as organized criminals, pushing vulnerable women further into the margins of society.

Without an inquiry -- documentation of what and why things went so wrong -- we will continue to make mistakes at a policy level and law enforcement level.

There is a prejudice against sex workers and women who are at high risk, and most vulnerable. It raises the most serious concerns about our society, the way our judicial system operates and our laws and law-makers.

I have been thinking a lot lately of the 1894 quote by Anatole France that Bruce Eriksen used as part of his mural at Bruce Eriksen Place at Hastings and Main. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." (1894)

We might not want to learn that as a society we have allowed laws and policy to be applied differently to different people. But if that is the case, we need to know.

Mistakes, discrimination, racism, harmful laws and policies must be identified and then rectified. We owe to the memory of the missing women.

Libby Davies is the MP for Vancouver East.

Libby Davies

• Downtown Eastside
• in her own words
• missing and murdered aboriginal women
• missing and murdered women
• Vancouver
• Anti-Racism
• Civil Liberties Watch
• Feminism
• Indigenous Rights
• Politics in Canada
• Missing People Net

---

Source URL (retrieved on Aug 27 2010 - 9:20am): http://rabble.ca/news/2010/08/missing-and-murdered-women-vancouver-deserve-inquiry

Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/user
[2] http://rabble.ca/user/register

BCLocalNews.com - We must offer more help to women at risk

BCLocalNews.com - We must offer more help to women at risk

Column: Olson, Pickton cases have shocking parallels

Column: Olson, Pickton cases have shocking parallels

CBC.ca Video: Remembering Sarah de Vries

CBC.ca Video

Pickton revelations

August 5, 2010News > Canada > BC

Wayne Leng remembers Robert Pickton victim Sarah DeVries and reacts to information that suggests the killer could have been taken into custody earlier

Pickton tipster to share in $100,000 reward

BY LINDSAY KINES, TIMESCOLONIST.COM AUGUST 26, 2010 12:01 AM

Bill Hiscox gave Vancouver police a tip on Robert Pickton in July 1998 three and a half years before his arrest .

Photograph by: Bruce Stotesbury, timescolonist.com

The man who first tipped off police about Robert Pickton more than three years before the serial killer's arrest will share a $100,000 reward with five other people.

Bill Hiscox, who lives in Victoria now, will get $17,500, his lawyer, Michael Mines, confirmed Wednesday after contacting the Vancouver police board.

The money was offered in May 1999 for information leading to a conviction in Vancouver's missing women case.

"For Bill, it hasn't been about the money," Mines said. "It's been about having the authorities listen to his story and acknowledge his story."

Mines said the recent report by Deputy Chief Doug LePard on the botched investigation confirms Hiscox's important role in the case.

"The crucial thing is that Bill provided the information in 1998 before there was any reward money," Mines said. "So, hopefully, this will act as some sort of closure for him."

LePard's report confirms that Hiscox called police in July of that year "with second-hand information that Pickton was responsible for the killing of Sarah de Vries at his Coquitlam pig farm, and might be responsible for the rest of the missing women."

Hiscox told the Times Colonist in a recent interview that he was working for Pickton's P and B Salvage in Surrey at the time and occasionally visited the farm. A woman who cleaned Pickton's trailer told Hiscox that she had noticed bags of bloody clothing and women's identification there.

"We sat down one night and [she] told me, 'You know what, Billy, I think that's where all the girls are going, right there.' I said, 'You know what? I've got the same friggin' feeling.' And she says, 'Well, what are we going to do about it?' And I said, 'Well, somebody's going to need to make a ... phone call here, and I guess I'm going to have to do that.' And I did."

Vancouver police and Coquitlam RCMP followed up on the tip over the next months, and interviewed Hiscox a number of times. Investigators also gathered other evidence pointing at Pickton before the investigation stalled in August 1999 due to jurisdictional disputes, poor management and shoddy analysis of the information, LePard found.

Pickton kept on killing for another 21⁄2 years. LePard said 13 more women went missing in that period, and DNA and other evidence connects 11 of them to Pickton's farm.

Hiscox could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

But he said in an interview two weeks ago that nothing about the case makes any sense to him, and that only a public inquiry will get to the bottom of what happened.

"I would like an inquiry, too, to find out why they didn't act on all this information, why they didn't do what they were supposed to do," he said

As for the reward, Hiscox said it was never about that. The reward was posted some 10 months after he first came forward with information.

"I had no intentions about having any of this money in the first place," he said. "But now that I'm in the situation I'm in, hey, that would be great. It would give me a new start in life again."

Hiscox declined to go into much detail about his life, other than to say that he's struggling to get back on his feet after battles with substance abuse.

"I've been living," he said. "That's all I can say."

The police board did not identify the other five people who will share the reward with Hiscox.

The reward consisted of $70,000 from the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and $30,000 from the Vancouver Police Department.

lkines@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Pickton tape given to police in 1998

http://www.missingpeople.net/pickton_tape_given-apr_25,_2002.htm

6 tipsters split $100K in Pickton rewards

August 25, 2010

By CBC News
CBC News

The Vancouver Police Board has handed out a total of $100,000 in rewards to six people who came forward with tips that helped lead to the conviction of serial killer Robert Pickton.

The Vancouver Police Board has handed out a total of $100,000 in rewards to six people who came forward with tips that helped lead to the conviction of serial killer Robert Pickton.

Several other people applied for a reward, but the board eventually decided to split the money among just six individuals, the police department said Wednesday morning.

"All applications are treated as confidential and no names will be released by the Vancouver Police Board," the department said in a release.

The reward money, first offered by the police board in May 1999, consisted of $70,000 from the provincial Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and $30,000 from the police department, the release said.

Pickton was arrested in 2002. He was convicted in 2007 of second-degree murder in the death of six women whose remains were found on his pig farm.

He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Copyright © CBC 2010

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/08/25/bc-pickton-rward-vancouver-police-board.html

Former VPD geographic profiler finds little solace in Pickton report

BY LINDSAY KINES, TIMES COLONIST AUGUST 24, 2010

This file photo shows Kim Rossmo when he headed the Vancouver Police Department's geographic profiling unit.

Photograph by: File, Vancouver Sun

By all rights, Kim Rossmo should be feeling better about things.

His early warnings that a serial killer was stalking women on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside — warnings that were largely ignored by his Vancouver police bosses at the time — have now been called "uncannily accurate" by that same police department.

A review of the missing women investigation by Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard concludes that the department should have given more weight to Rossmo's analysis, saying if it had, it might have dedicated more resources to the investigation.

Instead, Rossmo, a geographic profiler who had consulted on serial killer investigations around the world, was underused on the investigation, LePard found. Eventually, the department chose not to renew Rossmo's contract, and he sued unsuccessfully for wrongful dismissal.

"It is ironic that one of the positions taken by the VPD at Detective Inspector Rossmo's civil trial was that there was insufficient work, i.e. serial predatory offenders, to justify a full-time geographic profiler, and that the majority of his work was for other police agencies," LePard writes. "However, there was a serial offender of the worst type operating in Vancouver, and the failure to recognize this meant that an important resource that could have been applied much more intensely was relegated to a minor role."

But while Rossmo says he feels vindicated by the report, any pleasure is tempered by the knowledge that police failed to catch serial killer Robert Pickton sooner and that the deaths of more than a dozen women might have been prevented.

"It's hard to feel good for any length of time in this whole tragedy," he said in a telephone interview from Texas State University, where he is a professor.

The important thing now, he says, is to learn from the mistakes, and commit to fixing the problems identified in LePard's report. In order to do that, Rossmo said it's crucial that the B.C. government appoint an independent, knowledgeable person to lead any inquiry or review.

"I would like to see the province have a focused inquiry — one that doesn't serve as a huge waste of money and [go] all over the place — but one that looks at some key issues by a respectable and knowledgeable judge," he said.

One of the most pressing issues, he said, is the patchwork system of municipal departments and RCMP detachments on the Lower Mainland and Greater Victoria. LePard concludes that many of the jurisdictional barriers that helped derail the Pickton investigation would have been moot if there had been a regional police force on the Lower Mainland.

"No one would ever design a policing system that had multiple agencies responsible for one metropolitan area," Rossmo said. "You'd never do that, so the reason we have it is a product of history, chance and politics.... I don't think the provincial government has ever done a really proper, thorough analysis of this subject."

Rossmo also agrees with LePard that B.C. also has been slow to adopt the lessons of serial killer cases in other jurisdictions, such Archie Campbell's 1996 report on the Paul Bernardo case in Ontario. Campbell recommended common case-management computer software for police agencies, and Ontario has forged ahead on that front.

B.C., meanwhile, still has no provincial standard for electronic case-management software, and different agencies are still using different applications, LePard found.

Rossmo said if B.C. fails to act on LePard's recommendations, or to undertake a serious, independent review of policing issues, "that would be the final chapter in a long book filled with horrible chapters.

"These women were probably victimized at some level and forced onto the street. Then they were victimized by Pickton. They were ignored by the police. If the government ignores the only positive thing that could come out of this, that would be just horrible."

lkines@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Police response to Pickton report rings with arrogance

Police response to Pickton report rings with arrogance

Statement of Det/Cst Lori Shenher regarding DCC LePard’s Report on the Missing women

I want to take this opportunity to commend DCC LePard for his most thorough, accurate, sensitive and fair investigation into the Vancouver Police Department’s handling of the Missing Women case.

This report should stand as the definitive VPD account of this file. As an investigation, DCC LePard’s work stands above any judicial inquiry or review I have ever read in its scope, depth and intellect. As a teaching document, this report should be required reading for every police investigator, supervisor and manager in the Province of British Columbia. The recommendations he makes will go a long way to ensuring the errors in this file are never repeated.

This case remains nothing short of a monumental tragedy and marks a very dark chapter in the history of British Columbia. Whatever minute measure of personal vindication I may feel will always be grossly overshadowed by a deep, lingering sadness for the pain and suffering these women endured both in their challenging lives and in their lonely, gruesome deaths. I must stress that there are no heroes in this case and everyone associated with it carries with them a measure of sorrow for what these women and their families and friends have gone through.

It is my profound hope that the facts put forward in this report will provide the families and friends of these women some answers. I feel fortunate to see this day come and believe that the release of this report is very much in the public interest. What these women and their associates have endured is horrific and their pain is unending. It is my continued hope that they can find some peace and meaning in their struggle.

Sincerely,

Det/Cst Lori Shenher

A ‘sex worker,’ and a human being

BY KELLY ROESLER, CITIZEN SPECIAL

AUGUST 24, 2010 6:41 AM

Sarah De Vries

Photograph by: Court Sketch, Postmedia News

Reading the recent revelations in the case of serial killer Robert Pickton, my thoughts turned -- as they always do -- to the lost women.

And I was inspired to dust off one of my favourite books, which in turn, led to a revealing encounter.

The book is Missing Sarah, a biography of Sarah de Vries, most easily identified as a "sex worker" who vanished from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1998.

The book about de Vries, one of the 20 women for whose murder Pickton will never be tried, was released in 2003, shortly after her DNA was found on Pickton's Port Coquitlam farm. A sex worker she may have been, but of course, she was much more: a daughter, a sister and mother of two who was artistic, creative, friendly and a joy to those who knew her.

Written by her sister Maggie, an author and teacher, Missing Sarah is a compelling portrait of the human being Sarah was, piecing together her many journal entries, poems and illustrations with Maggie's own recollections and interviews with teachers, family and friends over the course of Sarah's 28 years of life.

I've long followed the Pickton case, Vancouver's missing women and the general state of the Downtown Eastside, often referred to as "Canada's poorest postal code," from my days as a journalism student, profiling the area and its issues.

And with the news that Pickton will indeed spend many years in prison for the murders of six of the missing women, but won't be tried for killing Sarah de Vries, I picked up the book and experienced her life again through this exquisitely told narrative.

As I sat reading in a public spot, I heard a voice over my shoulder. It was an older gentleman, inquiring as to the book I was reading. I showed him the cover and described the book, anticipating a lively discussion, given the recent news. Instead, he sputtered, "I'd just as soon not read about that," before walking away, leaving me speechless.

He may have been referring to the gruesome nature of the case against Pickton -- which was certainly not the focus of, and is in fact barely mentioned in the book -- but his response seemed to encapsulate the dismissive approach that many seem to have taken to the notion of a serial predator hunting drug-addicted sex workers. Accordingly, there are many calls for a public inquiry to examine why it took so long for Pickton to be charged, as it's now widely known that he first surfaced as a person of interest in 1998 -- the year Sarah de Vries went missing -- as well as why it took so long for police to acknowledge that a) foul play was possible or likely in the cases of the missing women; and b) that some or many of these cases could be linked to a serial killer.

Many families of the victims, along with area residents and activists, feel the sluggish, problem-plagued investigation and subsequent arrest was greatly influenced by the women's involvement in the sex trade -- as though their lifestyle choices and addictions made their disappearances less urgent, or somehow mattered less.

They're so marginalized, so alienated from the mainstream, that many find it difficult to empathize with the lives of these women, and it's dangerously easy to adopt a "she was asking for it" attitude. That is what makes these women's life stories essential reading material.

Sarah de Vries was a mother, like myself. She loved music, poetry and drawing. Her favourite dessert was lemon meringue pie. She was also a troubled youth, who lost her focus at a young age. These are all characteristics I share with her. How did she end up lost forever on the Downtown Eastside and I did not? I'm not entirely sure.

But as her sister Maggie wrote in her book, of all she learned about her sister's life and motivations after her death, most disturbing was realizing how close she herself could be, how close we all could be, to a needle in the arm, to the hell of somewhere like the the Downtown Eastside. It could happen to any of us, to those we love.

Amid all the debate over police procedures and legal wrangling and the "coulda-woulda-shouldas" that are bound to come, there remain the tragic and compelling stories of the lost women who lost their lives. Stories, and people, we can learn from.

As Maggie de Vries once said in an interview: "When I started writing, I knew that Sarah had something to say that was worth sharing. I knew that people could learn from her, that reading about her life and reading her own words could humanize her for people and, through her, humanize all the women who are missing and all women who engage in sex work for whatever reasons."

Sarah's is but one story, one book. There are many others that need to be told. And we need to read them, not turn away from them.

Kelly Roesler is an Ottawa freelance writer.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

The portrait of Sarah de Vries was sketched by Todd Matthews, NamUs, Project EDAN - Everyone Deserves A Name

http://www.missingpeople.net/sketches_express_softer_side_of.htm

Sketches by Forensic artists

http://www.missingpeople.net/sketches_express_softer_side.htm

Informat warned Mounties about Pickton in 1999

Jon Woodward, ctvbc.ca
Updated: Mon. Aug. 23 2010 9:12 PM ET

Two years after B.C. prosecutors dropped attempted murder charges against Robert Pickton, Leah Best warned Vancouver police that the Port Coquitlam man was a killer -- but her warning was not heeded.

Her secondhand account of Pickton murdering a woman in his barn in 1999, three years before the arrest that led to his conviction in 2007, was touched on in the official Vancouver police account released last week. But Best, known only as an informant code-named Wood in that report, had not spoken publicly until her interview Monday with CTV News.

She says police did not seem to take her seriously. "I did feel angry about it," Best said. "It didn't seem like they cared."

Eleven years later, she is convinced that 13 women's lives could have been saved if police had acted more aggressively on her information.

Ms. Best, now a grandmother in her 50s living in the Fraser Valley, says she was introduced to Pickton through a friend, Lynn Ellingsen, who was getting money from Willie for drugs.

"Lynn said he was a millionaire," she said. "I said, ‘Oh, some millionaire, with gumboots and a tattered jacket.'"

Pickton looked dirty, but didn't appear "creepy," she said. It wasn't until she ran into Ellingsen at a friend's house that a truly horrifying story came out.

"She was staying at Willie's the night before," Best said. "She was out wandering and came upon Willie in the barn. She said he was gutting a woman."

Best was surprised -- but thought the story had a ring of truth. Best said she thought Ellingsen would go to the police with the information. A month later, Best went to the Burnaby RCMP detachment herself.

She was one of three informants in 1999 that related the same story: that Ellingsen had seen a woman being butchered in the farm.

In all cases, the informants told police that they had heard of body parts being stored in the freezer.

The main among them was an informant code-named "Thomas." The report shows that he was asked to be an "agent" for the Vancouver police.

But when Ellingsen was approached by the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit of the RCMP, she denied the story, and the RCMP detectives believed her -- discounting Pickton as a suspect.

"The opinion of the provincial unsolved homicide unit investigators was that the informant information was not credible, and not backed up by evidence," the Vancouver police report says.

"It was opinion only and should never have been sufficient to derail an investigation when the allegations were so serious."

Another problem was that the lead investigator on the file at the Coquitlam RCMP detachment had just been promoted -- and he was not there to push Pickton as a suspect, the report says.

Neither the RCMP nor the Vancouver Police Department would comment on Best's story. On Friday, VPD Deputy Chief Doug LePard told reporters that the informants should have been listened to.

In the report, the Vancouver police say that an immunity deal might have helped Ellingsen co-operate. The VPD report quotes an RCMP officer who said there was "insufficient follow-up" after the summer of 1999 with respect to the various potential witnesses, including Best.

After Pickton's arrest in 2002, Ellingsen was persuaded to co-operate and she became the crown's star witness in a trial that resulted in six murder convictions.

Best said she hoped her story would win out in the end and she wished that women's lives could have been saved.

"I thought that they would have got a search warrant or something right away, and looked in the freezers at least," she said.

© 2010 All Rights Reserved.

CTV British Columbia - Informant warned Mounties about Pickton in 1999 - CTV News

CTV British Columbia - Informant warned Mounties about Pickton in 1999 - CTV News

RCMP arrogance cited in bungling of Pickton case

Reluctance to co-operate with other police forces played a role in allowing pig farmer to go on killing, critics say

Dirk Meissner

Victoria — The Canadian Press

Published on Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010 9:53PM EDT

The RCMP is facing criticism in the wake of a scathing Vancouver Police Department report detailing investigative missteps on the hunt for serial killer Robert Pickton.

A British Columbia criminologist said Mounties are trained to believe they are Canada’s top cops, while considering provincial and municipal officers below standard.

“There’s long been tensions between the RCMP and municipal police services,” said Rob Gordon of Simon Fraser University. “The RCMP know all, cannot be told anything, and they’re the ones who alone stand between chaos and civilized society.”

He pointed to deep-rooted RCMP arrogance on the Pickton investigation, where Mounties and Vancouver police officers withheld information from each other about women who’d been reported missing from the Downtown Eastside beginning in the mid-1990s.

Mr. Pickton’s crimes came to light only when a rookie Mountie showed up looking for weapons on the former pig farmer’s sprawling property in suburban Port Coquitlam in 2002.

“There’s ample evidence to indicate that the RCMP does not play well with others and most certainly was not playing well with others in relation to the Pickton matter,” Prof. Gordon said.

The Vancouver police report, authored by Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard, said both its own department and the RCMP are to blame for errors made during the investigation.

Thirteen women disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside after the city’s police force first forwarded information about Mr. Pickton to the RCMP, according to the police review.

The 400-page document said mistakes prevented police from arresting Mr. Pickton until 2002 – years after officers first started looking at him as they investigated reports of missing sex workers – and that he could have been caught earlier.

RCMP haven’t commented on the LePard report, saying they need to read it first, but have already stated they disagree with some of its conclusions.

Prof. Gordon noted other examples of RCMP problems were highlighted in the report of the Air India inquiry, which criticized the Mounties for fighting turf wars with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service during the investigation into twin Air India bombings in 1985 that killed a total of 331 people.

Prof. Gordon said the Mounties have also caused problems with the various Vancouver-area combined police teams fighting gang violence.

He said a Vancouver police biker gang expert was drummed out of his post in a combined RCMP-municipal team by the Mounties.

“He was a sergeant with the VPD, been a project leader, and ran into all kinds of difficulty,” he said. “The guy was an expert, but was treated very poorly by his RCMP colleagues.”

Former Vancouver police officer Doug MacKay-Dunn, who served in the Downtown Eastside and retired in 2001 after 31 years of service, said he encountered difficulties working with Mounties.

“At that point, the RCMP didn’t necessarily get along that well with other organizations,” he said. “They didn’t like being told what to do. They were Canada’s national force and they considered themselves the cream of the cream. They figured they were the best of the best.”

Mr. MacKay-Dunn, now a councillor in the District of North Vancouver, said he was one of the first officers to believe a serial killer could be responsible for the disappearances of dozens of women from the Downtown Eastside.

He said he consistently encountered resistance from RCMP brass throughout his career, but rank-and-file officers from all forces seemed to get along.

But Mr. MacKay-Dunn and Prof. Gordon both agree that the RCMP should not have its current 20-year service contract in British Columbia renewed.

The current RCMP contract in British Columbia expires in 2012.

“Absolutely, don’t do it,” Mr. MacKay-Dunn said.

Prof. Gordon called the RCMP a broken organization, and said trying to change the Mounties would be like “bending granite.”

He warned the current Liberal government against signing any new contract with the Mounties.

“If they are going for another 20 years and the province signs off on it, the current government deserves to fall,” Prof. Gordon said.

The RCMP launched a massive search on Mr, Pickton’s farm in 2002, uncovering the remains or DNA of 33 women. He was charged with 27 counts of murder and eventually convicted in the murders of six women.

© Copyright 2010 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/rcmp-arrogance-cited-in-bungling-of-pickton-case/article1681717/

Pickton police inquiry still needed

EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM AUGUST 21, 2010

The appalling story of Robert Pickton's serial murders -- a latter-day Jack the Ripper case with many more casualties -- may well go down in history as Canada's most horrendous crime. But then, as events are unfolding, the investigation surrounding it may also make dispiriting history as the nation's most notoriously bungled policework.

A draft copy of the Vancouver Police Department's internal report on the investigation had earlier been obtained by the Victoria Times Colonist, which details a shocking litany of incompetence, wretched management and infuriating jurisdictional disputes. Friday, the report was made public. In fact, the document, authored by Vancouver Police Deputy Chief Doug LePard, posits that police had compelling evidence pointing to Pickton by August 1999 -- two years before he was finally arrested. In the interim, writes LePard, "13 more sex-trade workers went missing, and DNA and other evidence connects 11 of these women to the Pickton property."

The foot-dragging of senior management to recognize the grisly handiwork of a serial killer still on the prowl denied front-line investigators and managers the resources necessary to properly manage an exceedingly tough case, according to the hard-hitting document. But then, while praising the work of the VPD's Missing Women Review Team, which operated under difficult circumstances, LePard opines that it probably wouldn't have mattered had the unit been properly equipped and supported, delivering first-rate intelligence.

Instead, he writes that "it likely would have made no difference because the investigation into the information about Pickton was the responsibility of the RCMP in Coquitlam." It failed, he concludes, "because it was mismanaged by the RCMP, who controlled it."

One doesn't wish to tar the entire national police force with this devastating assessment made by a senior police official. Nor can lines be necessarily drawn between very different cases. But Canadians might well demand some answers about the RCMP of the Lower Mainland, also at the centre of the troubling Air India and Robert Dziekanski investigations.

B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong -- who had more than a year to read the report -- said earlier this week he wouldn't release it publicly until he reviewed it. Friday afternoon, in the wake of the Times Colonist story, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu released the final report, with a promise to investigate the leak, surely the least of his problems.

Both he and LePard told a news conference that police agencies in the area have learned their lessons and a similar crime could never happen again. Recommendations LePard makes in his study about improved communications between police departments are already underway, he said. "Positive changes will mean the deaths of the women will not be in vain ... No police officer wanted the killer to escape."

That said, Chu said Friday his department still supports a full public inquiry to determine why the investigation took so long. So he should, and the families of the murdered victims -- along with all Canadians, for that matter -- deserve no less.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

CTV British Columbia - Insensitivity slowed Pickton investigation: former VPD officer - CTV News

CTV British Columbia - Insensitivity slowed Pickton investigation: former VPD officer - CTV News

Dave Dickson: "I remember sitting at the table at the meeting and hearing the term ‘unreliable crack ho.' That upset me," he said. "If any detective or police officer goes into the room with an attitude like that, the interview is already over."

Police mistreated families of missing women, Pickton report finds - The Globe and Mail

Police mistreated families of missing women, Pickton report finds - The Globe and Mail

Former VPD officer pleased with Pickton report - News1130

Former VPD officer pleased with Pickton report - News1130

Stevie Cameron on Robert Pickton and Upcoming Book

Walk honours memory of Daleen Bosse | The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society (AMMSA)

Walk honours memory of Daleen Bosse | The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society (AMMSA)

Pickton Report Criticizes Police Investigation - webcastr.com

Pickton Report Criticizes Police Investigation - webcastr.com

Police could have caught Robert Pickton earlier and prevented deaths: police report

BY LINDSAY KINES, VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST AUGUST 18, 2010

Frame grab of Robert Pickton while in his jail cell on February 23, 2002.

Photograph by: Handout, Postmedia News

VICTORIA — Police could have caught serial killer Robert Pickton years earlier and likely prevented the deaths of more than a dozen women, an internal Vancouver police investigation concludes.

The report has remained under wraps for more than a year because of court proceedings, publication bans, and now because the B.C. government wants time to study the findings.

But sources familiar with its contents say one of the report's main conclusions is that women's lives could have been saved.

The report, which runs to more than 400 pages, is likely to stir controversy because, while it finds considerable fault with the Vancouver police investigation, it also lays much of the blame on the RCMP for failing to nab Pickton sooner, sources say.

The report says RCMP officers from the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam took the lead on pursuing Pickton as a suspect as early as 1998, because he resided in their jurisdiction where the murders were suspected to have occurred. Yet while some RCMP investigators took the file seriously at first, the detachment eventually let it languish for months on end despite frequent prodding from Vancouver detectives, the report says.

The review concludes that there was enough evidence pointing at Pickton as the prime suspect by mid-1999 for the RCMP to start pulling out all the stops in their investigation — some 2 1/2 years before Pickton's eventual arrest in February 2002.

During that period, more than a dozen women, some of whose DNA was later found at the farm, vanished from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard authored the report, which Vancouver police officers have been allowed to read at police headquarters for training purposes. It is also circulating in the government.

LePard spent years reviewing the case, interviewed all the major players, and does not spare his own department, detailing extensive problems with the Vancouver police's handling of the file, sources say.

A number of those problems were first documented by the Vancouver Sun in a 2001 report, which found that the department relied upon overworked police officers without the time or resources to do a thorough job. The investigation was also hampered by infighting, computer problems and inadequate training, police sources told the newspaper at the time.

LePard confirms a number of those concerns, according to some of the same sources for the original Vancouver Sun report. But LePard's report notes that while the Vancouver police investigation was inadequate, it still identified Pickton as a suspect, only to have the RCMP drop the ball.

In one instance, Pickton agreed to a voluntary search of his property, but the RCMP never followed up on that offer, the report says.

The Vancouver police have been seething for years that they have borne the brunt of criticism for the case, while the RCMP took credit for finally arresting Pickton.

Former Vancouver police chief Jamie Graham, who assigned LePard to do the review, told the Vancouver Sun in 2002 that the attacks on the Vancouver police were "scandalous" and inaccurate. At the time, the department was incensed by an NBC Dateline report, which suggested Vancouver police had the name of the prime suspect all along, and did nothing with it until the RCMP rode in to save the day.

Graham, who is now chief of the Victoria police department, declined to comment on the contents of LePard's report Tuesday.

But sources say the report sets the record straight by showing that the RCMP were leading the pursuit of Pickton from the outset and let him get away.

The report says police never fully committed to the theory that a serial killer was at work, and that undermined requests for more resources, sources say.

Those findings, combined with the recent revelation that DNA evidence linking Pickton to two of the missing women remained in an RCMP storage locker for seven years before it was tested, are likely to fuel calls for a public inquiry into the police investigation.

Attorney General Mike de Jong has so far refused to commit to an inquiry, saying he needs time to read the internal Vancouver police and RCMP reviews.

He is expected to take the matter to a provincial cabinet meeting next month.

The Vancouver police service, which has supported calls for a public inquiry, will not be commenting on its internal review until after the cabinet meeting, Const. Jana McGuinness said Tuesday.

Former Vancouver police officer Kim Rossmo, who has written a book on criminal investigative failures, said LePard's report suggests the need for a "focused, productive inquiry."

Now teaching at Texas State University, Rossmo was given a copy of LePard's report after signing a confidentiality agreement.

"Fascinating is the word," he said, when asked for his reaction to the report. "It is a significant autopsy into a failed criminal investigation, and there's much to be learned from it.

"Despite my involvement with the case, and my continued connection through various people, I've learned a lot that I did not know before."

Rossmo said any politicians or journalists already dismissing calls for an inquiry should wait until they've seen the report.

"I think it's absolutely essential that this be made public for the good of policing and for community safety," he said.

It's well known that Pickton first surfaced as a suspect in the summer of 1998. At the time, Wayne Leng, a friend of one of the missing women, had set up a toll-free line for information on her whereabouts. He received a tip on the line about Pickton and passed it along to Vancouver police.

Investigators followed up and interviewed the tipster, who told them a woman had spotted bags of bloody clothing and women's identification while cleaning Pickton's trailer.

The detectives also knew that Pickton had been accused of trying to murder a sex-trade worker at his farm in March 1997. Both he and the woman suffered serious injuries in the incident and all the charges against him were later stayed. It was in the aftermath of this incident that police seized Pickton's boots and clothing, but the items were never tested until 2004 — two years after his arrest. The tests detected the DNA of two of the missing women.

The tip about the bloody clothing, along with the earlier attempted murder charge against Pickton, elevated him on the list of suspects. RCMP and Vancouver police investigators pursued Pickton throughout 1998 and into 1999, showing his picture to sex trade workers on the Downtown Eastside and even putting him under surveillance.

By mid-1999, Vancouver police had developed a second source who told them about a woman who claimed to have seen a butchered body on Pickton's property. Police tracked down the woman and interviewed her in August 1999.

The woman would later become a key witness at Pickton's trial, but at the time of the first police interviews, she denied seeing a body.

Up to this point, there had been talk of getting wiretap or running an undercover operation. But the provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit got involved, challenged the reliability of some of the source information, and the investigation apparently stalled at this point, sources say.

Coquitlam RCMP continued to take responsibility for pursuing Pickton as a suspect. But LePard's report suggests the RCMP went for months without doing anything on the file. The report also criticizes senior managers within the Vancouver police for failing to press the RCMP to do more.

It wasn't until February 2002 that a rookie RCMP constable gained access to the farm on a warrant looking for firearms, and found items belonging to the missing women.

Pickton was eventually charged with murdering 27 women whose body parts or DNA was found on his farm. He was convicted on six counts on Dec. 9, 2007, one other charge was stayed, and the Crown recently stayed the remaining 20 charges after the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Pickton's bid for a new trial. The DNA of six other missing women was also found at the farm, but Pickton was never charged in those cases.

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Apologies don’t make up for mistakes, relatives of victims say

BY JUDITH LAVOIE, TIMESCOLONIST.COMAUGUST 20, 2010 11:02 PM

Sarah deVries vanished in 1998. A friend wonders about police attitudes.

Photograph by: POSTMEDIA NEWS, .

The sister-in-law of one of Robert Pickton's victims says the Vancouver Police Department and RCMP have the blood of 13 women on their hands.

Lori-Ann Ellis, sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, said mistakes documented in the report by Deputy Chief Doug LePard are horrifying because of the missed opportunities to arrest Pickton.

"Not a lot makes me angry now, but with this report, I found myself getting very, very angry," she said.

Cara Ellis's DNA was found on clothes Pickton was wearing after being stabbed by a woman he tried to kill in 1997, but the clothes were put in a storage locker and forgotten until he was arrested in 2002.

Ellis's DNA was also discovered in the freezer at the Port Coquitlam farm and her bones were found behind the slaughterhouse.

Compelling evidence pointed to Pickton by August 1999, but 13 more women went missing, with DNA from 11 later found on the farm.

"They could have stopped him murdering 13 more girls and they did nothing. Shame on them, absolutely shame on them," Ellis said.

Ellis, who wants an inquiry to put the investigation under the microscope, said she does not believe much has changed in police attitudes toward those living in neighborhoods such as the Downtown Eastside.

When Ellis was reported as missing in 1997, no action was taken, she said.

"We need to make sure the horrible mistakes that took so many lives are never repeated," said Ellis, who is not mollified by police apologies. "Saying 'I'm sorry' is like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. It's a nice gesture, but it doesn't really help anything."

Brittney Frey, 18-year-old daughter of Pickton victim Marnie Frey — who went missing in 1997 — wonders whether her mom would still be alive if police had acted as soon as they had evidence pointing to Pickton. Marnie Frey was one of the six women Pickton was found guilty of murdering.

"It makes me really mad. There's a good chance my mom could still be alive if they'd just arrested him," Frey said. "I think the police were stupid."

Frey, who is going into Grade 12 at a Christian school in Campbell River and wants to study early childhood education, said she does not like the idea of having to hear more about the Pickton murders, but believes a public inquiry is needed.

"I want whatever makes those policemen that did a bad job be accountable," said Frey, who last saw her mother when she was about five.

Wayne Leng, a friend of Sarah deVries who set up a website dedicated to the missing women after deVries vanished in 1998, said friends and families will get little comfort from the VPD report.

"We knew there were colossal failures in VPD, but at least now it's in black and white — it's something tangible," said Leng, adding the failures were rooted in police attitudes to prostitutes and drug users.

"If it had happened on the west side and not to these women, they would have pulled out every stop possible. It was easy to dismiss them."

Many of the missing women were aboriginal. Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, which has been calling for a full public inquiry for several years, said the report is a sordid tale of fundamental errors that allowed Pickton to carry on with his horrific killing spree.

"It's a combination of racism and classism. There's an attitude within police agencies that the poorest of the poor are not worthy of the full measure of justice."

jlavoie@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

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