Charge dropped for man who urinated on National War Memorial

2007 02 20

Greater Moncton remains safe city

Times  Transcript

The crime statistics released by the Codiac RCMP for 2006 indicate two truths: no community is 100 per cent immune from crime, but Greater Moncton continues to be an extraordinarily safe community in which to live and raise a family.

Some crimes, including assaults, rose slightly in 2006 over 2005 but others, including car thefts and robberies, declined. The number of murders is so low (there were none in 2006) that to talk about "trends" is impossible.

When one looks at the hard, absolute numbers, which is what the RCMP provided, only part of the story is told. Greater Moncton is rapidly growing yet we are seeing very little, if any, evidence crime is rising proportionately. It would be interesting to see the crime rate on a per capita basis. It may actually be going down. And in the categaries showing increases, how much is statistically significant as opposed to random variations which can, and do, occur from year to year? For example, with assaults, in a six month period of 2006 there were 63 more than in the same period of 2005. Deeper analysis might well actually show that is a positive number, not cause for concern. That is definitely the case with the more serious offence of aggravated assaults, which doubled from two to four. In a city the size of Metro Moncton, a mere four aggravated assaults in six months is cause for congratulations.

None of the categories changed enough to cause real worry. Other factors must be considered as well, including increased police efforts such as Neighbourhood Watch and shoplifting going up because there are more stores all the time in the booming retail sector and/or the stores are getting better at catching the shoplifters.

The Codiac RCMP officers, as we have consistently said, are clearly doing a good job in Metro and crime is well contained, making this a truly safe city in which to live, even if we do not entirely endorse the policing set-up in Metro with its issues of cost sharing and lack of budgetary control.

And as our CityThink survey has shown, the public is well aware of the reality, with 73 per cent saying they believe it is a safe city, an increase of 11 percentage points in one year. The public is correct and the police statistics give them the data to justify their confidence and secure feeling. That said, it still remains prudent to be practise good preventative measures to avoid victimization.

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Female car thief sent to prison

Amanda Star Raynes, 24, of Main Street was sentenced to two years in a federal penitentiary Monday for her part in stealing a car last December. The male owner of the car originally told police he had picked up two female hitchhikers who were armed with a knife. He later admitted he picked up one of the women, who jumped into his car on Dorchester Street, offering sex for money. They went to an apartment of Duke Street, but before anything happened the other woman showed up and the pair forced him to his car, barefoot. They drove to Grand Bay-Westfield, where he stopped the car and jumped out. The car was later recovered in a nearby church parking lot. Raynes also pleaded guilty to assaulting an inmate at the jail. She threw a plate of lasagna in her face and punched her. She was given three months concurrent for the assault.
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Nova Scotia

Halifax family awakened by Molotov cocktails thrown through window

The Canadian Press

Halifax Regional Police are investigating a case of attempted arson after a family was awakened by the sound of breaking glass.

Police say residents of the single-family unit told them two bottles containing a flammable substance were thrown through their living room window last night.

They didn't see who did it.

Police say one of the bottles may have been lit when it was tossed.

The fire department was called to the scene.

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Pizza shop sprayed with gunshots
Spryfield neighbourhood has history of violence
By KRISTEN LIPSCOMBE and DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporters
Chronicle Herald
 

Five bullet holes speckled the window of a Spryfield pizza shop Monday after shots rang out in a neighbourhood with a history of violence.

Several police vehicles, including a forensic identification van and the K-9 unit, responded to P.G.’s Pizzeria at 386 Herring Cove Rd. just after 3:15 p.m.

"We responded to a report of a number of gunshots heard in the area," Const. Jeff Carr, Halifax Regional Police spokesman, said Monday. "The responding officers found evidence that a number of shots had been fired into the building."

Const. Carr said the caller also saw a man running from the area immediately after hearing the shots. The police force brought in a trained dog to track the suspect, which lead investigators to a former junior high school on nearby Theakston Avenue, he said.

"At this point, it’s believed the suspect ran to B.C. Silver School and got into a vehicle and fled from there," Const. Carr said. "It doesn’t appear that anyone was hurt or injured."

By 4:30 p.m., police officers and plainclothes detectives were still on scene outside the white-sided building that houses both the pizza joint and some apartment units.

Yellow caution tape surrounded the building and blocked off both the parking lot and the entrance to Levis Street, a small side street between P.G.’s Pizzeria and nearby King of Donair.

Investigators bundled up in thick blue jackets and fur-trimmed hats used metal detectors to scan the snowy ground outside the business, uncovering shell casings that they carefully marked with numbered yellow tags.

Underneath a large billboard advertising Sport Nova Scotia, the neon lights on the Open sign hanging in the window were off. The same window was decorated with five distinct bullet holes, including one that ripped through a white curtain hanging at the bottom.

Inside the restaurant, an older man and a younger man chatted at a table but refused to venture outside into the snow flurries to speak with a reporter.

Neighbours weren’t talking either, with some residents not answering their doors and workers in local businesses declining the opportunity to comment on Monday’s shooting and ongoing violence in the community.

Indeed, last June a pawnshop just next door at 390 Herring Cove Rd. was hit with Molotov cocktails and badly damaged as a result.

The destroyed pawnshop, Sprytown Fast Cash, and P.G. Pizzeria were both raided in a 2004 drug operation.

And just last November, another building at 374 Herring Cove Rd. was the target of gunshots and arson.

Similarly, in that case police believed a couple of suspects ran from the two-storey brick building, home to Jessy’s Pizza, toward B.C. Silver School after firing some shots and setting the place on fire. The school closed in 2001.

There has been widespread speculation that the Spryfield incidents are part of an ongoing feud between two local families, the Melvins and the Marriotts.

Wayne Nicholas Marriott, 21, was shot dead outside his Beechville home last June 20. Police questioned Jimmy Melvin Jr., 24, about the death but have not charged anyone yet.

The provincial Registry of Joint Stocks lists Theodore Bremner as a partner of P.G.’s Pizzeria.

According to the provincial government’s Property Online database, the P.G.’s Pizzeria building is owned by John Kamoulakos, founder of Mr. Donair Ltd., who has several other Halifax County properties.

Another of his properties was the target of an arson attack a year and a half ago, when two men threw an incendiary device at the Peggys Cove Road home in Glen Haven.

The residence was then co-owned by Michelle Mitchelmore, mother of murder suspect Michael Mitchelmore.

Mr. Mitchelmore, 27, had reportedly lived there before his arrest. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the August 2005 deaths of Adam Eisenhauer and Tyler Sampson of Glen Haven.

Mr. Mitchelmore’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for later this year.

Mr. Kamoulakos could not be reached for comment Monday.

Const. Carr said it was too early to say whether this most recent incident is connected to other violent crimes in the area.

"The investigation is still in the early stages," he said. "Certainly we’ll explore that possibility."

A police forensic identification officer holding a metal detector walks past bullet holes in the window of P.G.’s Pizzeria in Spryfield on Monday. (Jeff Harper / Staff

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P.E.I.

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2007 02 24

Saint John

Prostitute attack case left in judge's hands

Bruce Bartlett
Telegraph-Journal

A judge has to decide who is the most believable witness in a case where a drug-addicted prostitute alleges she was beaten by a 53-year-old man with no criminal record.

David Kelly, lawyer for Bernard William Ritchie of Renshaw Road in Rothesay, said his client is a man with compassion for the less fortunate who agreed to give a lift to the woman who jumped into his car around 3 a.m. on a street known to be a pickup spot for streetwalkers.

Ritchie is the technical services manager for Housing Alternatives, a non-profit group providing homes for those on limited income.

Kelly pointed out that the 30-year-old complainant was a user of both Dilaudid and crack cocaine, which could affect her memory.

The woman testified earlier this week that Ritchie punched her 20 to 30 times in the head during a wild ride through Saint John streets.

The attack occurred, she said, because she wouldn't agree to the money he was offering for the sexual services he wanted.

Her version of events was backed up by an independent witness who looked out her window on Brunswick Drive to see a man in a truck punching a woman in the head. The witness then called police.

Prosecutor Catherine McNally said the only reason Ritchie is on trial is because the alleged victim had the presence of mind to memorize the licence plate on his truck and report it to police when they arrived.

That alone showed the young woman was not so drug addled that her memory should be called into question, said the prosecutor.

The meeting between the two took place last July. Although the woman was seen by police that night, she did not lay a formal complaint until September when she was in jail waiting to go to a federal women's prison in Nova Scotia. She hoped to get addiction treatment at the federal prison.

According to the victim, she hesitated because she did not feel she would be believed. She then decided to go ahead with the charge in case other streetwalkers, younger than herself, ran into the man.

The prosecutor questioned Ritchie's claim he was checking out real estate at that time of the morning on Cliff Street.

She also wondered why a strong healthy male could not get a small, drug sick woman out of his truck if he wanted to.

In his first statement to police last September, Ritchie said he declined her offer of sex for money when she got into his truck, told her to get out, but then agreed to drive her to a club near Haymarket Square. He also said she changed her mind and wanted to go to a store on Bayside Drive before they ended up in a vacant lot near the former shipyard.

In the first statement, he thought they might have driven across Thorne Avenue. But this week, he agreed with her version that they went across the causeway.

The woman said she tried almost immediately to get out of the truck because there was no agreement on price, but he kept driving. She never wanted to go east and became hysterical when he started across the causeway. That was when, she says, he started to assault her by grabbing her by the back of the head and hitting her head against the dash and the passenger window.

Provincial Court Judge Anne Jeffries will deliver her verdict on March 2 at 1:30 p.m.

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Man at centre of Grand Manan riot on trial for theft

Tammy Scott-Wallace
Telegraph-Journal

A man who was a key figure in the Grand Manan riot last year will stand trial in Sussex on May 18 for two grocery store theft-related charges and breach of probation.

Leonard Terrance Irvine, 29, who goes by Terry, is the same SUV-driving shoplifter currently in custody awaiting sentencing for a series of offences in Saint John.

On Jan. 30 the Saint John man pleaded guilty to two thefts and three attempted thefts from the Superstores on Rothesay Avenue and Somerset Street. The value of the items stolen or collected in carts abandoned when Irvine couldn't get them out of the stores totalled more than $6,000 over three days in December.

On Thursday in Sussex, Irvine appeared before provincial Judge Leslie Jackson to have a trial date set for three charges he is facing for an attack on yet another Superstore. The alleged incident occurred in Sussex on Dec. 4, 2006.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges of theft under $5,000 and possession of stolen goods along with his girlfriend Fonda Lynn Childs, 24, also of Saint John. Childs will also return to court on May 18 and is seeking counsel.

Irvine faces a breach of probation charge, which he also pleaded not guilty to on Jan. 18, at his next appearance. The court has been advised Irvine has sought legal representation from Moncton lawyer Hazen Brien.

According to court records, Bruce Higgins, 18, admitted to his role in the Sussex shoplifting episode in Saint John recently. At that same time he also admitted to a break and enter into a French Village home and theft of items valued at more than $5,000, and participating in a flurry of other shoplifting-related incidents with Irvine in December.

On the evening in question in Sussex, the threesome allegedly loaded a shopping cart of groceries at Sobeys, and when other shoppers became suspicious, they abandoned their cart and left the store. They were caught on video surveillance.

They then travelled in their vehicle to the Atlantic Superstore on the other end of town. There they allegedly got away with $2,178 in merchandise including electronics, toys and food before heading back to Saint John.

Their vehicle was intercepted in Rothesay by a member of the Sussex RCMP. The police say the stolen items were found in the vehicle.

Irvine is the same man crack users pinpointed during November's Grand Manan riot trials. The drug users testified that they purchased their drugs from Irvine when he visited the home of Ronald Ross on the island. It was Ross's small home that was set on fire in July when community members took the law into their own hands in an attempt to run him off the island.

Irvine used a white GMC Yukon in the Saint John shoplifting spree - the same make and model as a vehicle that garnered a lot of attention during the Grand Manan riot. During testimony, witnesses said on the night the fight broke out they watched Irvine drive a GMC Yukon into town and kept a close eye on it to ensure its passengers didn't wreak havoc on the small island.

It was a different vehicle Irvine had before replacing it with the Yukon that community members are accused of setting aflame in Ross's yard in the weeks preceding the riots as they became more and more concerned about the sale of drugs to the youth of the island. Some say this act against Irvine's vehicle fueled the fire, so to speak, leading up to the riots and gunfight.

In Saint John last month when Irvine entered guilty pleas to the Superstore shoplifting frenzy there, Judge William McCarroll commented on the $40,000-plus vehicle and noted Irvine was shoplifting and driving an expensive vehicle most people can't afford.

In the Grand Manan trial, Irvine testified that he was on social assistance. He said he has a bank loan on the SUV.

Although possibly unrelated, several grocery stories in the Saint John area have recently started to place security officers or sales clerks at the front door of their businesses to watch items coming and going, and occasionally check receipts.

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P.E.I.

Sex assault earns man 3-year term

Transcontinental media

A Charlottetown innkeeper convicted last November of sexually assaulting two young men was sentenced yesterday in Supreme Court to serve more than three years in a federal penitentiary.

The sentence was imposed in the case of 47-year-old Jonathan Leslie James Younge, a man described by Cyndria Wedge, the provincial director of prosecutions, as a "fundamentally flawed human being."

Younge was convicted of sexually assaulting both men in his private quarters at the Edenhurst Inn on West Street where he worked as a manager.

Both men were assaulted while essentially unconscious. In at least one of those cases, the court found there was sufficient evidence that Younge had drugged his victim before assaulting him.

Younge, a native of Newfoundland, was sentenced to serve 3 1/2 years on each of two counts of sexual assault, less time served, which was pegged at the equivalent of 4 1/2 months.

The remaining 37.5 months from that sentence was to be added to a nine-month sentence imposed earlier in the day in provincial court on a series of charges transferred to P.E.I. from Newfoundland and Labrador and from Nova Scotia.

Those charges were for unrelated offences ranging from driving while disqualified and breach of probation to fraudulently obtaining food and lodgings.

==

Nova Scotia

Is the worst still to come?
Spryfield residents on edge for further violence after spate of brutal incidents

By BRIAN HAYES Court Reporter

Chronicle Herald -Halifax

Drive along Herring Cove Road through Spryfield and you can almost feel the tension in the air.

For the past week, a spat of firebombings, stabbings and shootings has led to a heavy police presence, teenagers no longer gathering on street corners and many residents afraid to leave their homes and apartments at night.

And the few people living in the area willing to talk about the situation attribute the latest wave of violence to an ongoing drug war in the community on the western outskirts of Halifax.

"It’s insane," said one man, who wished to remain anonymous.

He described those responsible for the violence as "psychopaths who have no qualms about killing or maiming anyone who stands in their way."

To make matters worse, those residents believe the worst is still to come as there are rumours several other area buildings have been targeted to be firebombed in the days ahead.

Most of the violence has been focused around the areas of Foxwood Terrance and the 500 block on Herring Cove Road.

Over the past several days, police have been pulling vehicles over and doing roadside checks.

On Wednesday, police were seen setting up a roadblock on Herring Cove Road and checking vehicles going in both directions. And on Thursday as many as four marked and unmarked police cars were observed travelling on Herring Cove Road within a two block area.

" There also has been a number of incidents in the last year which we believe are related to an ongoing conflict in the area related to the drug trade."

"You call the cops. It’ll be a half-hour or more until they get there. Then they say they can’t do anything."

"We have not been as highly visible as we have been over the past couple of days, but we have and continue to be there targeting those we believe are associated to these incidents.

Const. Carr said police charged one male with possession of several grams of marijuana after a traffic stop Thursday night and four other people have been picked up on outstanding arrest warrants for offences ranging from breaching court undertakings to parole violations.

It’s believed the violence stems from a 30-year feud between the Marriott and Melvin families that has since been past on from fathers to sons and involves an ongoing series of retaliations in the form of murders, shootings and firebombings.

The latest violence appears to have been set off by the murder of Wayne Nicholas Marriott, 21, shot dead outside his Beechville home last June 20. Jimmy Melvin Jr. was questioned in connection with the shooting, but no one has been charged with the killing.

Things heated up Feb. 14 when police arrested three Halifax-area men in connection with an alleged kidnapping earlier that day.

Police responded to a Foxwood Terrace address after a 45-year-old man reported he had been held at a gunpoint during a robbery by several people known to him.

It’s alleged the kidnapped victim was forced into a vehicle in front of his Foxwood Terrace home on the afternoon of Feb. 13 and taken to an Old Sambro residence, where he was held overnight. Later the next morning, police said the suspects took the man back to his home in a taxi and attempted to rob him. But the victim was able to get free and call police.

Within hours of the arrest of the suspects, rumours began surfacing that more trouble was in store for Spryfield.

That proved true Monday afternoon when P.G.’s Pizzeria on Herring Cove Road was riddled with bullets. There were no injuries.

On Tuesday night, a 48-year-old man visiting an apartment at 479 Herring Cove Rd. was stabbed in the shoulder after two men — one armed with a knife, the other with a handgun — forced their way in. The victim sustained non-life threatening injuries.

And on Wednesday, someone hurled two Molotov cocktails through the living room window of a 4 Arvida Ave. home. The bottles full of flammable liquid did not ignite. No one was injured.

On Feb. 5, a woman and her 16-year-old son jumped to safety in the middle of the night after someone firebombed their Hartlen Avenue duplex. Although possibly linked to the Marriott/Melvin feud, some Spryfield residents believe the latest round of violence stems from underlings "cleaning house" of new drug dealers trying to make inroads in their turf.

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Scared residents resigned to violence

By SUSAN BRADLEY Staff Reporter
Chronicle Herald -Halifax
 

Gunfire, stabbings, firebombings.

It’s the price some Spryfield neighbourhoods are paying as the drug trade continues to flourish in the area.

A lot of the trade is done on the streets, where dealers use young people, preteens and up, to hold drugs and money, she said.

And those who know the identities of the people responsible for drug-related violence are afraid to come forward as witnesses, one small businessman said this week.

One man who lives near P.G.’s Pizzeria, a business that was riddled with bullets earlier this week, compared the criminal element in Spryfield with its counterparts in central and north-end Halifax.

"I used to live not too far from the Square and I can tell you, it’s a lot rougher out here," he said, referring to Uniacke Square in north-end Halifax. "You’re dealing with psychos, nuts."

"It’s not too hard for the criminals to outsmart the cops they send out here."

She suggested that Halifax police officers need more training to deal with organized crime in the area, which involves groups with second- and third-generation family members.

Meanwhile, Peggy Allen, executive director of the Captain William Spry Community Centre, said incidents of violence and vandalism that plagued the facility in January have subsided to just a few isolated acts common to any community building.

Last month’s problems didn’t involve drugs, she said, and were mostly kids getting in fist fights that spilled into the centre.

A police crackdown and adding more youth activities and a youth staffer have helped.

The goal is to prevent young people from just sitting around, getting bored and hanging out, she said.

"Just talking to the kids, giving them attention and finding out how their day is going has had a positive impact. Some good relationship building is what we are trying to do.

While the turbulence has subsided at the community centre, located on Kidston Road just off the Herring Cove Road in the 300 block, the same can’t be said of the 400 and 500 blocks of Herring Cove Road, where a man was stabbed Wednesday.

It is also where residents fear another violent outbreak will occur. "There’ll be another stabbing at 479 (Herring Cove Rd.) before the weekend’s out," one neighbour predicted.

The biggest fear among people who live in the area, which is a mixture of single- and multiple-unit dwellings, is that an innocent person will be killed when local thugs pull a gun or knife, or heave a Molotov cocktail, he said.

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Man faces 13 charges in violent PQ schoolyard attack

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