The Proletariat Congress

In a Brampton Court today, Justice Fragomeni handed down the verdict in the case against Allison Cox, a woman guilty in a case of criminal negligence, in which she is charged with manslaughter, causing the death of her autistic adopted sister, Tiffany Pinckney, who died from malnutrition in the basement of her sister’s Mississauga home.

The evidence clearly indicates that Allison Cox did not provide Tiffany Pinckney with the necessities of life, including adequate food, water and medical attention to sustain her life.

This is the general consensus across the board.  The woman was deprived of the basic necessities of life and as a result of it, died in Cox’s basement on April 2, 2005.  She had died in conditioned labelled as appalling.

It’s amazing that the Crown prosecutor, John Raftery, got this ruling and not because Cox is innocent in any way but because of this little snippet:

“People treat their pets better than Tiffany Pinckney was treated,” Raftery said in his closing arguments in November. “The level of care, or more precisely the neglect she received was not suitable for a human being.”

…so, you’re telling us that there is an acceptable level of negligence and that Cox went one step too far?  And that if she had stayed within certain boundaries then there wouldn’t have been a problem, would there, Mr Prosecutor?

Given such a statement, it’s surprising that the judge didn’t catch on to that.  That the prosecutor wasn’t called out for implying that there are acceptable; suitable levels of neglect that are all right for human beings.  Perhaps it’s good that justice can be blind, otherwise  it can’t be served in light of such statements.

Guilty verdict in woman’s starvation death

It all began with a party outdoors in the bush. Some teens got together and got drunk. One of those teens was a 15 year old by the name of Willow Kinloch, who drank more than she could tolerate. Then as is the typical chain of events with these types of parties, it was broken up by police, and unable to tell the interlopers where she lived due to her inebriated state, she was taken to the precinct and put in a cell so she could sober up. Around 4am when she was fine, she was escorted home.

If only the tale stopped there then there would have been no news story to speak of and Kinloch would be living her life, free of any knowledge of the events that followed; the injustices that she witnessed and felt first hand as an innocent caught up in a corrupt system where it has become part of the mantra to shoot first and ask questions later.

Now at 18 years old, Kinloch has come out and has told her tale to the Canadian media in the hopes of drawing attention to her plight and that of others who were unjustly treated at the hands of the law; by those who are alleged to serve and protect the public and not abuse that sacred trust. She was influenced by the tragic events that took the life of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski who was tasered not once but twice at a Vancouver airport after being detained for 10 hours with no translator or any way to contact someone who could help him, despite there being a telephone link to a translator nearby. One person who recorded the incident alleged that he had been tasered as many as three or four times. He suffered a tragic end at the hands of four RCMP officers who came in and used a taser gun to subdue him when all he needed was someone who could tell him what was going on in his own language.

Kinloch said she decided to tell her story because, at 18, she now feels mature enough to speak publicly. She was also influenced by what happened to Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died after RCMP used a Taser gun to subdue him at the Vancouver airport. In that case, as in hers, Kinloch said, the videotape made all the difference.

Kinloch wasn’t tasered at any point in the duration of her stay, which is fortunate for her. However, she was still subject to abuse at the hands of her guards who didn’t take the time to understand her emotional distress. Being locked in a cell while she sobered up may not have been so bad if not compounded by the fact that she was returned to that cell later on after being released.

The officers who had escorted her home, wouldn’t let her out of the vehicle claiming that they were ensuring that she was watched as she was a child in need of protection. They refused to let her get out of the car when they had arrived at her home. They wouldn’t let her out. Yet if she had been permitted to exit the vehicle, she could have yelled up to the second floor of her home. Failing that, she could have used her cellphone to call her sister, who also had a cellphone. This option was also denied by the police. This resulted in her being returned to the station because they couldn’t get her inside because the intercom system to buzz the apartment wasn’t working that night.

“At this point, I’m not drunk anymore,” said Kinloch. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not a threat, and my parents are at home and are going to be worrying about me. I just wanted to go home.”

Go home. Nothing more, nothing less. All she had wanted to do was go home, yet this wish of hers was flat out denied by police who wouldn’t even let her make a phone call to ask to be let in, as she had forgotten her keys. A simple phone call would have spared Kinloch the events that followed the return to the Victoria police station.

She was returned to the station but had refused to get out of the vehicle and was subsequently removed by force and returned to the same cell where she had been held earlier, when she had been intoxicated and anything but calm. She had been accompanied by a prison guard, Special Const. Merle Edmonds, who instructed her to remove certain articles of clothing, including the shoes that were being worn at the time. In removing the shoe, Kinloch kicked it across the cell, never targeting the delusional officer who claimed that she had been assaulted by a flying shoe.

The female officer who had asked for the removal of certain articles of clothing then pinned the girl to the wall as two other officers came in and pinned her, pushing her face and body to the floor, and holding her arms and legs in place for several minutes while they placed her under arrest. While this happened, another officer came in and brought a rope or leash like object that was used to bound the girl. The end result is the girl is left tethered, her hands and feet bound, to the door for four hours before she was released.

There was no reason for her to even be put into the cell the second time, as she had been sobered up. If the officers had even an iota of human decency they could have asked her to wait in an area that was not a cell of any kind. They could have easily asked her to wait in the lobby, until they would be able to return her home, yet instead they robbed her of her dignity.

There are plenty of ways to “protect” someone that doesn’t involve using a prison cell. If the officers really had her welfare at heart, the last thing they would have done is locked her in the cell, adding to the emotional distress that she was feeling. Kinloch admitted to being in tears for the duration of this.

Human emotion; emotional distress, seems to be the grounds for police to exercise excessive force these days, rather than simply listening. If diplomacy was used more and people employed empathy, there would be fewer cases where an innocent person is caught up in a corrupt system that would rather pretend its working because it has people behind bars rather than actually working and seeing people back on the street and rehabilitated or if the crime warranted it, sentenced accordingly after a trial before a jury of their peers.

If this kind of mistreatment of a human being had happened at the hands of a civilian, that person would have been charged with unlawful confinement and assault among other things, as the confinement and bounding left Kinloch covered in bruises, which were reported to the Victoria police and handled by an officer who hadn’t been involved in the case.

“I wondered how they would feel if somebody took their child off the street and beat them up and detained them, and they didn’t know where their daughter was all night,” said Tammy-Marie Kinloch. “If I did that to my child — which I can’t imagine any parent would ever do — then throw the key away. Put me in jail.”

Her mother had been no doubt worried but in the end, at least her baby could come home to her. She was able to be with her daughter at the end of the tragedy. And with her daughter, able to confront the officers who had inflicted the bruises on her daughter.

Instead of assault charges being pressed against the four officers in question, Kinloch was initially charged with assaulting Edmonds, the female officer who had been in the cell when the shoe had been kicked to the other side of the cell. This charge was fortunately dropped quickly after the Crown Prosecution viewed the tape and exercised unprecedented common sense. Though it still intransigently maintains that the actions of the officers were justifiable given the circumstances, despite that the girl was petite and not even five feet tall.

Kinloch was fortunate enough to acquire a lawyer who believes that this is an open and shut case. Her lawyer, agrees with her about the tape, in that is secures her case against the officers named in the case. Even Kinloch admits that if it weren’t for the tape, she’d have no case. The tape is all that stands between justice and chaos.

B.C. teen alleges she was assaulted and unlawfully detained by police

Here lies the daughter,
here lies the father,
here lies the sister,
here lies the brother,
here lie husband and wife,
and yet there are only two bodies in the grave
16th Century French poem

Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims will be the first to tell you that God created man and woman; two people named Adam and Eve. They will tell you that these were the first humans that God created.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. — Genesis 1:26-27

This is a fine starting point for their beliefs. These groups are happy with this. Now, in the same tale, we learn that the firs two humans take God’s advice, hop behind a nearby bush and fuck like bunnies, thus producing Cain then Abel. So far this makes sense. You’ve got the plug and the outlet, thus producing electricity because the wiring is there. Now, here’s where the problem arises… Cain kills Abel, who didn’t have any children. Yet, Cain is able to find a woman and have a son by her and find a city.

Where does this mystery woman come from? There is no name mentioned. One theory says that God didn’t create just Adam and Eve. He created two others; two nameless ones in Genesis 1:1-31 and creates Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:1-25… Yet this is ignored and it is said that the first two people created were indeed Adam and Eve. If this is so, where the hell does Cain find a woman to have raunchy pre-historical caveman sex with?

At this point, you may be inclined to ask, what does this have to do with anything?

If you recall, last year there was a publicised case of two German siblings separated at birth, who met later in life and wound up having two children before the state interfered and took the, away. There is another case now, a British couple had their marriage declared illegal by a justice, who annulled the marriage.

Parted-at-birth twins ‘married’

The former Liberal Democrat MP [Lord Alton] raised the couple’s case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

“They were never told that they were twins,” he told the Lords.

“They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation.”

Two consenting adults had their marriage declared invalid because of their blood relationship.

Followers of religion would say that it is because God wouldn’t want it and that incest is a sin. Yet 2 Peter 2:7-8, Genesis 19:15 and Genesis 19:32-36 do not condemn it and even go as far as to show God’s seemingly silent approval. He didn’t condemn it, yet he damned the folks of the city.

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven — Genesis 19:24

This happened after Lot fled with his family. After he lay with his two virgin daughters; he knew them he did. Yet no condemnation is noted in this segment of the Bible.

The place where the loudest condemnation is heard from, is Leviticus, the “everything’s a sin” book of the Old Testament. See Leviticus 18:6, 20:11-12, 20:14.

When laying out what relationships are forbidden, no one seems to take into account that Genesis doesn’t have anything condemning incest; it even features it as part of the moral story. Once again, selective learning at work.

Morality interfering with the privacy that people deserve in their lives.

The view we take here is that there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. — Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau

This was the statement given when the late Prime Minister was still the Minister of Justice, who led the movement to remove laws regarding homosexuality from the Criminal Code of Canada. Now if only laws regarding incest were removed. There are laws that prevent people in a position of authority from misusing that authority. There are also rules protecting minors; the same laws that govern the age for consensual sexual relations.

The sky didn’t fall and civilization didn’t fall to its knees when homosexual marriages were legalised.

The sky didn’t fall and civilization didn’t fall to its knees when homosexuals were permitted to adopt.

Popular belief, supported by science says that people with close blood relation are more likely to produce offspring who are born with deformities or some kind of disease. Yet, society permits those who possess hereditary diseases to reproduce because it would be discrimination if we didn’t let them, yet it’s not if we tell others they can’t.

Or those mothers who don’t take care of themselves during their pregnancy and drink or smoke… They’re still allowed to have their children, even if the child is a burden on the system the rest of their natural lives.

If there is a worry about incest, then end anonymous sperm and egg donations; our world is one little cozy global village these days. What difference does it make? We have DNA testing. But then we’ll have people suing others for child support, and there will be fewer donors over all. But at least then you’ll know who your daddy is. Oh and those proponents of “privacy” rights of the mother and the child…

And the list goes on.

Think about it, no less than fifty years ago, it was common to think of interracial marriages as offensive. They were taboo. You didn’t want your little precious white bread daughter marrying some dirty, filthy mud man. This isn’t to say humanity is over this childish stage; there are still people who think like this, but would be laughed out of wherever they went.

When will the double standard end? Probably when people get over the ‘ick’ factor…

The justice system in Canada is beginning to look more like a legal system for the many innocents who are caught up in its unrelenting claw-like grasp. It has a strangle hold on many innocent people; people who were simply used as scapegoats to expedite the process to try and convict a person in relation to the crime. The evidence used has been proven in recent years to be flimsy, heresy, and at best, anecdotal.

If you’re a Canadian, you’re probably familiar with the name David Milgaard, a man who in 1969 was wrongfully convicted in the rape and murder of Gail Miller. Only in 1997 was he finally cleared of any wrongdoing in the case. Finally, in 1999, 30 years after the murder and rape of Gail Miller was Larry Fisher, the man truly responsible for the crime, tried and convicted.

There are many others, including and not limited to Robert Baltovich, (a man originally charged in the death of Elizabeth Bain before Paul Bernardo was charged in conjunction with her death), William Johnson-Mullins (a man charged in the death of his 4-year old niece on evidence provided by the now disgraced Dr Charles Smith, whose findings are responsible for many other false convictions) and Louise Reynolds (a woman initially convicted in the death of her 7-year old daughter based on evidence provided by Dr Charles Smith, who was later to have been found mauled by a pitbull).

The latest of wrongfully convicted Canadians to surface is Steven Truscott, who at the age of 14 in 1959 was convicted in the rape and murder of his classmate Lynne Harper. He had become the youngest Canadian to ever be on death row before it was formally abolished. He narrowly missed being hung as his sentence had been commuted to a life sentence before he was released on parole in 1969, eventually coming to live under an assumed name.

The investigation lasted only two days and the trial fifteen days, all while the police overseeing the case failed to look into the possibility of other suspects, including an airman stationed at the RCAF base in Clinton, Ontario where the murder occurred. The airman, Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk, a convicted paedophile who had been known to pick up children in rural areas was one of the potential other suspects identified by The Fifth Estate. Kalichuk died in 1975.

His case has been in the national spotlight for many decades, including during the 1960s when the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed his case, unfortunately in an 8-1 decision, ruling against him, with a single justice standing alone in declaring that the original trial had been unfair. Only after more pressure from the public, with a report from the Fifth Estate, the Appeals board reviewed his case, eventually acquitting him of all charges as of August 28^th 2007.

The court unanimously holds that the conviction of Mr. Truscott was a miscarriage of justice and must be quashed. The court further holds that the appropriate remedy in this case is to enter an acquittal.

The court thus orders that Mr. Truscott should stand acquitted of the murder of Lynne Harper.

The current Attorney General, Michael Bryant apologised on behalf of the government, one that had fought the current appeals all the way; the same government that is fighting an ongoing court battle against parents of autistic children.

On behalf of the government, I am truly sorry. It is a decision that will not be appealed by the Crown — it is over.

Too little too late for those who have been wronged by a government that is elected to create laws that punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Those who have aided the wrongful convictions live a life free of their guilt while the innocent they’ve hurt live a life of hell, tormented by the loss of their lives because they are unable to live freely because of the stigma that their wrongful conviction carries.

What kind of system is it when the innocent aren’t protected from the guilty?

What kind of system lets the innocent be convicted of crimes they didn’t commit?

Not a democratic one.

Sources & Further reading:

injusticebusters 2005 >> Dr. Charles Smith
W-5: Expert Witness
CBC Indepth: Steven Truscott
Truscott acquittal weighed
Other leads on possible suspects ignored
Court acquirs Truscott, calling conviction ‘miscarriage of justice’