The Pickton inquiry report is out

jacee · December 19, 2012

One significant point:

Commenting on the tragic state of aboriginal culture wasn’t Oppal’s mandate. Neither is it the job of the child-welfare inquiries.

And let’s be frank: There is little appetite, either in institutional Canada or among Canadians, for the full conversation.

I think many Canadians just hope the Truth and Reconcliation Commission will just quietly 'fix things' and go away without causing us any discomfort.

I doubt Blatchford's interested in having that conversation either. She just wants Aboriginal culture (and rights) to disappear. She's like Harper that way, and some other Tories - the Tom Flanagan school of thought.

Another issue is ... though overrepresented, 'Aboriginal culture' only accounts for 1/3 of the victims ...

Surely some attention should be given to the 'culture' that created the majority of the victims.

Edited December 19, 2012 by jacee

The_Squid · December 19, 2012

As I think it's ludicrous that these families are only blaming the police for not investigating after the fact, but not themselves for the fact these women were on the streets to begin with.

How would you know that these families are not blaming themselves? What insight do you have that the rest of us don't have?

jacee · December 19, 2012

Yes they do. And that's been said over and over again. But that doesn't allow the families to shift blame to the police. They need to look at what they wrought. Maybe some of the very people crying in the media about their loss are the ones who abused the girls in the first place.

Nobody's blaming the police for the existence of vulnerable street sex workers.

We are blaming police for not investigating sooner and possibly preventing more murders. That's their job. That's what we pay them for.

These are separate issues.

One doesn't cancel the other.

WWWTT · December 19, 2012

Police investigate after the fact - somebody's already dead. Somebody's life was already ruined by their family. I would like to see the family members do a bit more self reflection instead of just blaming others.

This is false.

It is the job of the police to find the murderer so that MORE murders can be prevented!

100% of the blame for not catching this murderer earlier is on the RCMP,plain and simple!

WWWTT

WWWTT · December 19, 2012

Wait, first you say they have been looking at their role, then you say they aren't to blame? If little Suzy got raped by her father, he's not to blame? If little Wendy was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, her mom carries no blame? If little Vanessa grew up emotionally damaged by her neglectful, abusive, alcohol or drug addicted parents, they shoulder no blame?

I believe the inquiry was not about these issues.

WWWTT

WWWTT · December 19, 2012

Yes they do. And that's been said over and over again. But that doesn't allow the families to shift blame to the police. They need to look at what they wrought. Maybe some of the very people crying in the media about their loss are the ones who abused the girls in the first place.

Once again I ask,was this inquiry about how the victims or even if they were abused before they were murdered???

You may have a point about these poor women may have been abused when they were younger.But that does not mean that the police are not obliged to protect these same people.

WWWTT

jbg · December 21, 2012

Nobody wants to talk about this because that would mean the families would actually look at how they themselves failed these women. And how the cure for this failure is within the families, not castigating the police or giving money for "healing" (Ah, the white man's guilt comes out again.) The spot light should be redirected back at the families of these women, the very ones demonstrating about how the system failed the women. Yes it did, but only after the families themselves failed to a far greater extent.

So true.

guyser · December 21, 2012

So true.

IT would be if it were not almost entirely untrue.

Funny that.

Apparently you and he have intimate knowledge of what the families did to help out these women.

To be so simple minded as to blame the families boggles the mind.

jacee · December 21, 2012

IT would be if it were not almost entirely untrue.

Funny that.

Apparently you and he have intimate knowledge of what the families did to help out these women.

To be so simple minded as to blame the families boggles the mind.

Yes it does.

Apparently some people are desperate to deflect the blame from the police, who failed horribly in their investigation with tragic consequences.

The victims are not to blame for that.

Maybe a little more attention should be paid to the society that spawned Picton and caused police to look the other way.

Rocky Road · December 21, 2012

Ya they could have got him sooner if they would have been more scrutinizing.

That said, the PTSD levels of RCMP and police is quite high, one has to wonder what its like fighting crime every day and trying to manage a decent quality of life.

login · December 23, 2012

prostitution has been around in canada longer than canada has. politicians need to get off their but and legalize prostitution. bring in harsh penalties for illegal sex work and build in protections like monitoring for safety of sex workers such as gps and panic button service.

Edited December 23, 2012 by login

jbg · December 23, 2012

IT would be if it were not almost entirely untrue.

Funny that.

Apparently you and he have intimate knowledge of what the families did to help out these women.

To be so simple minded as to blame the families boggles the mind.

I am pretty sure that in many, though certainly not all, cases the families only became interested when their wayward members were killed.

jacee · December 23, 2012

I am pretty sure that in many, though certainly not all, cases the families only became interested when their wayward members were killed.

Well the police didn't even become interested then, and thhe inquiry report is about the sloppy police investigation.

jbg · December 23, 2012

Well the police didn't even become interested then, and thhe inquiry report is about the sloppy police investigation.

But unless someone takes the initiative to report a person missing (rare if family isn't concerned) or a body is found the police woudln't get involved.

jacee · December 23, 2012

But unless someone takes the initiative to report a person missing (rare if family isn't concerned) or a body is found the police woudln't get involved.

Women were reported missing, but the police didn't investigate. That's what the inquiry report is about. You should read about the thread topic.

Mr. Oppal was to determine why the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP did not apprehend Pickton until February 2002, after dozens of women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside had gone missing.

“I make two further overall findings of fact,” his report reads. “First, the missing women investigations were shaped, in large part, by the police failure to get to know the women —an essential step in any investigation of this type is to learn as much as possible about the victim or potential victim. This failure to get to know the victim group meant that inaccurate information about the women, and in particular the belief in the likelihood that they would ‘turn up,’ infiltrated all aspects of the missing and murdered women investigations.

“Second, I find that the additional step of ‘confirming’ the women as missing, rather than accepting a missing person report at face value as policy dictates, was fundamentally wrong and had perverse effects. The result was treating the investigations as ‘reviews’ rather than urgent, priority investigations. This approach therefore likely contributed to the police not realizing the women continued to go missing until 2001.”

Edited December 23, 2012 by jacee

jbg · December 23, 2012

Women were reported missing, but the police didn't investigate. That's what the inquiry report is about. You should read about the thread topic.

What's the "Reader's Digest" version?

jacee · December 23, 2012

What's the "Reader's Digest" version?

See above.

For several years, police ignored reports of missing street sex workers ... because they were made by other sex workers and police didn't consider them "reliable". One woman's report of seeing another butchered at Picton's farm was dismissed for the same reason.

The issue isn't the families, it's the police.

Edited December 23, 2012 by jacee

Rocky Road · December 23, 2012

Its just a horrible story.

And the cops were naive to let their guard down.

jbg · December 24, 2012

See above.

For several years, police ignored reports of missing street sex workers ... because they were made by other sex workers and police didn't consider them "reliable". One woman's report of seeing another butchered at Picton's farm was dismissed for the same reason.

The issue isn't the families, it's the police.

I read the canada.com article. The article emphasizes that the police had a secondary, not primary role. Thank you for not accurately describing the situation.

jacee · December 24, 2012

I read the canada.com article. The article emphasizes that the police had a secondary, not primary role. Thank you for not accurately describing the situation.

That's not a news article, it's Christie Blatchford's opinion. She's a reliable apologist for police - loves boys in uniform with their "rosy cheeks" and "dewey eyes" ... and wants the constitution changed to deny Aboriginal people's rights.

I'd ignore Blatchford's agenda and pay more attention to the police themselves:

We should have caught Pickton sooner: Vancouver police Chief apologizes

The backstory is that Picton was a police informant and police tipped him off and let him go because murders of sex workers weren't important to them.

The coverup in this case goes all the way to the former Attorney General's office ... and he's the author of the report btw.

What the inquiry report reveals is the tip of the iceberg.

Edited December 24, 2012 by jacee

Canuckistani · December 24, 2012

The thread topic was changed. My original title was "finally somebody said it." Sure the inquiry was about failures of the system. But as the article I linked to said, many of these women come from homes where they were abused, often sexually, or neglected. That's what put them in the vulnerable position they were in. To say that they deserve the same police protection is just a truism - of course they do. But they were taking huge risks for drugs, hard for the police to protect them from that. Pickton isn't the only guy that's killed a prostitute before. What put them in their precarious position are the families that are now crying the blues about how the system failed the women and how they want compensation. Not a word about what happened in their families to mess up those women in the first place. I mean the life of a crack whore is not a long or happy one, even without someone like Pickton coming along. Those families doomed those women to a short, brutal life long before him. But then Aboriginals always seem to find it easier to blame their troubles on the white man, never to look at their own contribution.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Canuckistani

The_Squid · December 24, 2012

But then Aboriginals always seem to find it easier to blame their troubles on the white man....

One third were native. So you ignore the other two thirds so you can make a racist remark about natives... I see your perspective now...

Canuckistani · December 24, 2012

One third were native. So you ignore the other two thirds so you can make a racist remark about natives... I see your perspective now...

Only one third? It's always presented as a Native issue in the media, part of the missing Aboriginal native women nationally, how the system failed aboriginals, etc.

Stuff like this:

Vulnerable native women must not be treated as ‘nobodies’ To anyone who watched the British Columbia inquiry into Robert Pickton’s years of unchecked murders, there is little surprise that the final report by Commissioner Wally Oppal was a scathing condemnation of “systemic bias” among police.

RCMP and Vancouver officers paid scant attention as dozens of women, mostly aboriginal and vulnerable to addiction, started to disappear in the mid-1990s from the city’s Downtown Eastside, where they were Pickton’s easy prey. The remains of 33 were eventually found at Pickton’s pig farm after his arrest in 2002.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1304179--vulnerable-native-women-must-not-be-treated-as-nobodies

jacee · December 24, 2012

Only one third? It's always presented as a Native issue in the media, part of the missing Aboriginal native women nationally, how the system failed aboriginals, etc.

Stuff like this:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1304179--vulnerable-native-women-must-not-be-treated-as-nobodies

Yes I suppose there's a whole other culture you (and Blatchford) can blame for the rest of the victims. That would be ... non native culture. What's wrong with their families and why are their women lost on the streets?

Who advocates and speaks out for them?

Do you?

Hell, you didn't even know the majority are from your own culture!

And the police didn't care about them either, threw them to the pigs too.

Edited December 24, 2012 by jacee

Canuckistani · December 24, 2012

Doesn't matter the culture they came from, just what their families did to them. So maybe all the Native protesters around this issue could stfu then.