Police entrapment: Nuttall and Korody freed

[Moonlight Graham]

Well the couple is seen in this video by spouting jihadist threats with an ISIS flag behind them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lVwwUR7o_s

So if the police did overreach, we still have released a couple who aren't the most intelligent and are manipulable, declared wanting to commit terrorist acts, and planted what they thought were pressure cooker bombs to kill Canadians. Is there still no very serious culpability by them here? These are just innocent victims of police overreach? Did they have a gun to their head when they said and did these things?

Edited July 30, 2016 by Moonlight Graham

[eyeball]

Culpability perhaps but not serious enough to warrant much more than some periodic psychological assessment.

I'd much rather see something serious done with the boneheads who thought this couple was worth the time, effort and money they spent setting them up.

[cybercoma]

They weren't coerced.

You keep saying this while a judge says they were, backing up that statement with evidence and a reasoned explanation. You're not doing anything to convince people that you know more than the judge here.

[cybercoma]

I said they were coerced... Wilber was responding to my post. I was mistaken. There is no evidence they were coerced.

Only in the most pedantic sense of arguing semantics. Inducements are a coercion.

[jacee]

Well the couple is seen in this video by spouting jihadist threats with an ISIS flag behind them:

So if the police did overreach, we still have released a couple who aren't the most intelligent and are manipulable, declared wanting to commit terrorist acts, and planted what they thought were pressure cooker bombs to kill Canadians. Is there still no very serious culpability by them here? These are just innocent victims of police overreach? Did they have a gun to their head when they said and did these things?

Look at all that bomb making stuff the RCMP bought for them!

Our tax dollars paid for that!

And for RCMP salaries all the time they were teaching these two how to look and act like terrorists!

manufactured terrorism, brought to you by ... your tax money! Woohoo!

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[jacee]

Maybe someone should also keep an eye on the boneheads who thought trying to set these two up was a good idea. Was this just a one off experiment to see if they could pull it off or have they got a bunch of similar files open at the moment?

That said I'm betting its safe to say no has been or will be fired or even demoted following this fiasco. Good work if you can get it I guess.

Yes, there definitely has to be some accountability and justice for the boneheads.

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-terrorism-convictions-overturned-as-judge-rules-pair-were-entrapped

She said the role the police played in the mission is even more offensive because they violated the Criminal Code in order to accomplish their objectives and almost all of their actions were unsanctioned.

We need to know where the orders came from, who approved budget for this operation.

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[dialamah]

Well the couple is seen in this video by spouting jihadist threats with an ISIS flag behind them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lVwwUR7o_s

So if the police did overreach, we still have released a couple who aren't the most intelligent and are manipulable, declared wanting to commit terrorist acts, and planted what they thought were pressure cooker bombs to kill Canadians. Is there still no very serious culpability by them here? These are just innocent victims of police overreach?

Yes, they are definitely saying things, though Amanda appears to be nodding out through most of the video. What do you suppose happened during the break just after John turns to Amanda and says "Maybe we should have written it down?" And then when the camera comes back on, John is suddenly a lot more articulate, specifically mentioning that he's doing this of his own free will and hasn't been recruited -- I bet that was important for the court case! But then by the end, again, John is completely confused, not sure of what he's saying, combining biblical teachings and jihadist rhetoric. If I saw and heard these two on the street, I'd assume they were out of their mind stoned and barely capable of walking, let alone planning any kind of an attack.

Did they have a gun to their head when they said and did these things?

Perhaps a syringe dangled is just as effective.

The point is that without the help of the police, they were incapable of doing what they claimed they wanted to do. They weren't smart enough, organized enough, or have enough money. If they were spouting this crap without police involvement, then perhaps they ought to have been charged with hate speech, or inciting to violence (is there a law against that?), or maybe encouraging terrorism if such a law exists. But to set them up the way the police did to carry out an actual terrorist attack was just wrong.

Edited July 30, 2016 by dialamah

[Wilber]

Only in the most pedantic sense of arguing semantics. Inducements are a coercion.

Coercion /koʊˈɜːrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of intimidation or threats or some other form of pressure or force.^[1

[Wilber]

You keep saying this while a judge says they were, backing up that statement with evidence and a reasoned explanation. You're not doing anything to convince people that you know more than the judge here.

The judge absolutely did not use the word coercion. Unlike you, she knows the definition of the world.

[Argus]

Look at all that bomb making stuff the RCMP bought for them!

Our tax dollars paid for that!

Well if they'd just given him a hand gun like he begged for it would have been harder to stop him from actually murdering someone.

[Argus]

The point is that without the help of the police, they were incapable of doing what they claimed they wanted to do. They weren't smart enough, organized enough, or have enough money.

How smart and organized do you have to be to grab a knife and cut a priest's throat or drive a car through a crowd of people?

Edited July 30, 2016 by Argus

[dialamah]

How smart and organized do you have to be to grab a knife and cut a priest's throat or drive a car through a crowd of people?

For these two, they'd have to fit it in between looking for drugs, getting high, coming down, getting sick, looking for drugs, getting high .... etc.

Anyway, I didn't say that their actions were commendable or that they shouldn't face some consequence. I don't think the peace-bond is unreasonable. Although some on this board would disagree with me, I don't think 'free speech' includes targeting people for violence, or inciting people to engage in terrorism. If the cops really thought they were incipient terrorists, they could have simply watched them - when they started collecting materials and making workable, realistic plans - that would have been the time to step in.

What isn't reasonable is the cops doing everything for them and then claiming they were terrorists. If my four-year-old declared his intention to write a book, and I then put a pencil in his hand, then explained to him the plot, and used my hand over his to write all the words, does that prove he's an author? Not likely. In the same way, the police doing all the planning and providing all the resources for these two doesn't make them terrorists.

Edited July 30, 2016 by dialamah

[Moonlight Graham]

Perhaps a syringe dangled is just as effective.

They were former drug users, says one of the news articles.

The point is that without the help of the police, they were incapable of doing what they claimed they wanted to do.

That's probably true, but they should still be charged with something. They're still enemies of the state it seems clear. And these people aren't exactly the mental vegetables people are trying to make out, it's not like they have down syndrome or something. They have free will, and they made choices here too.

[Moonlight Graham]

How smart and organized do you have to be to grab a knife and cut a priest's throat or drive a car through a crowd of people?

Exactly.

I'm sorry but expressing threats of killing people and wanting to commit terrorist acts against Canada is a crime. They should at least be charged with that. The police proved they were willing to do what they said they wanted to do, if they had the means, which the police provided.

Anyone who wants to attack Canada and murder Canadians and has threatened this and even gone along with a plan to do so shouldn't be on the streets. Therapists and doctors can deal with whatever problems they have when they're locked up in some kind of facility.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Moonlight Graham

[jacee]

Well if they'd just given him a hand gun like he begged for it would have been harder to stop him from actually murdering someone.

You think that's how police work should be done?

Encourage mentally challenged people to hallucinate about violent crimes, and then give them deadly weapons to do it?

.

[Argus]

If the cops really thought they were incipient terrorists, they could have simply watched them - when they started collecting materials and making workable, realistic plans - that would have been the time to step in.

Police don't have the resources. From what I read on the attack in France it takes something like 25 cops to perform full-time, 24hr a day surveillance on one individual. That's why they can't just sit back and watch people, but instead try to give them the means to perform a terrorist act if that is their desire. That way they can arrest them, then move on to someone else.

[Argus]

You think that's how police work should be done?

Encourage mentally challenged people to hallucinate about violent crimes, and then give them deadly weapons to do it?

Video shown in court on Monday also showed Nuttall pleading with the same undercover officer to find him a handgun as a "gesture of trust," right after he described feeling murderous rage toward an American soldier he'd met who insulted Islam.

"I wanted to put a gun to his head and right before I pulled the trigger I wanted to say, 'Taste what you used to deny,' and send him straight to the hell-fire," Nuttall said, stroking his wiry, grey-tinged goatee. "I had my marble gun. I could have just pulled it out and put it to his head but (two other people) were in the back seat and I didn't have enough bullets to take them all out."

[jacee]

Video shown in court on Monday also showed Nuttall pleading with the same undercover officer to find him a handgun as a "gesture of trust," right after he described feeling murderous rage toward an American soldier he'd met who insulted Islam.

Already posted. Tsk Tsk.

I've worked with special populations, Argus. I've heard all kinds of ranting and raving, hallucinating, threatening ... you name it.

Maybe police need to spend some time getting to know those populations, so they stop criminalizing and killing them.

At some point in this debacle, police knew these two didn't have the wherewithal to be 'terrorists'.

At that point, they should have stopped.

Instead they preyed on vulnerable people trying to turn them into 'terrorists'.

Why?

Why were police so desperate to find some terrorists?

.

Edited July 30, 2016 by jacee

[Guest]

Coming late to this thread, so please excuse me if it's already been covered, but how were they special? Except in that not that many people actually want to kill other people.

Edited July 31, 2016 by bcsapper

[jacee]

Coming late to this thread, so please excuse me if it's already been covered, but how were they special? Except in that non that many people actually want to kill other people.

Google and catch up.

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[Guest]

Google and catch up.

.

It's not that big a deal.

[dialamah]

Police don't have the resources. From what I read on the attack in France it takes something like 25 cops to perform full-time, 24hr a day surveillance on one individual. That's why they can't just sit back and watch people, but instead try to give them the means to perform a terrorist act if that is their desire. That way they can arrest them, then move on to someone else.

Yet they had the resources to spend months setting these two up?

Look at this timeline of events

Their arrest was the culmination of a months-long RCMP sting operation involving hundreds of officers and countless hours of surveillance.

Included in this timeline is an indication of the ability, knowledge and organizational ability of these 'terrorists'.

In May, the police (spend time and resources) drive Nuttal to Whistler ....

so Nuttall can drop off a hard drive to one of the officer's supposed terrorist associates containing an outline of his alleged plot to hijack a Via Rail passenger train on Vancouver Island. During the drive it quickly becomes apparent that Nuttall has not yet started to work on the document. The three spend several hours in a Whistler parking lot as Nuttall types up an outline. The undercover officer later scolds him for coming up with a poorly researched plan after it's revealed that the targeted rail line stopped operating years earlier.

In June, the cops (spend time and money) take the pair to Kelowna and put them up in a hotel room so thay can 'work on their plan' in peace.

When the primary undercover officer eventually learns Nuttall has made no progress on the plan, he chastises him for not being invested enough in his terrorist plot, calling his actions a "sign of disrespect."

I have no doubt that if they'd simply watched the pair for indication of actual terrorist activity, they could have watched for months, years or decades and still not had any indication of a terrorist plot.

[GostHacked]

Meh, incompetent police work.

Kind of brings into question other high profile terror convictions we've seen in the past.

[GostHacked]

Police don't have the resources. From what I read on the attack in France it takes something like 25 cops to perform full-time, 24hr a day surveillance on one individual. That's why they can't just sit back and watch people, but instead try to give them the means to perform a terrorist act if that is their desire. That way they can arrest them, then move on to someone else.

Technology is extensively used to track and monitor people. You don't need 25 people, maybe 5.

There are things you may think, but would never do. Would it be right to blame you if I coerced you into doing something you would not normally ever do?

[GostHacked]

How smart and organized do you have to be to grab a knife and cut a priest's throat or drive a car through a crowd of people?

Then there is the notion of building bombs which are more complex and would not be as easy to carry out. Not without some help.

This scenario was botched from the start and I was hoping the conviction would be overturned. They are not that smart enough to carry out something like this. They would have been caught even if it was all their idea, which we know now that is not the case.

Edited July 30, 2016 by GostHacked