And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 08:29:50 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Canada October 12, 1999
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Tuesday, October 12, 1999
Officer who killed two at Jacobs home to testify
Inquiry into shooting
Daryl Slade Calgary Herald
CALGARY - An inquiry into the shooting deaths of Connie and Ty
Jacobs will finally hear from the Mountie who fired the fatal shots.
RCMP Constable Dave Voller, who was originally scheduled to
testify last March -- a year after the incident -- will take the stand for
three days starting today. The first two days of his eagerly awaited
testimony will be the last evidence heard in the council chambers of the
Joseph Big Plume Building at Tsuu T'ina Nation, on the southwestern
outskirts of Calgary. The inquiry into the March 22, 1998, shooting at the
Jacobs' rural home began on Feb. 1 and is already expected to run three
times longer than the eight weeks that were originally scheduled. The venue
will switch on Thursday to Federal Court in Calgary for the remainder of
the hearing. Judge Thomas Goodson made the change following a request by
the Tsuu T'ina Band for funding to help pay for expenses caused by the
unexpectedly long hearing. The nation had initially offered to stage the
inquiry so its citizens could easily attend, but interest has waned since
the early stages. Const. Voller, who was later cleared of any criminal
wrongdoing in an investigation conducted by the British Columbia
Attorney-General's Office, will be the last of the witnesses to the
shootings on that cold, snowy evening. The inquiry will continue for the
final two weeks of October and two weeks each in November and December,
with experts and others who played roles in the incident. Initially, many
residents on the reserve were critical of Const. Voller for shooting Ms.
Jacobs, 37, and her nine-year-old son. But numerous witnesses have praised
Const. Voller as an officer generally and for his handling of the event on
the night in question. Const. Voller, then a 17-year RCMP member, had
arrived at the Jacobs home about 7:20 p.m., shortly after an intoxicated
Connie Jacobs had pointed a .303 rifle at child-welfare workers Lorraine
Duguay and Connie Bish and tribal police officer Constable Tammy
Dodginghorse. They had been summoned to the home to investigate and
possibly apprehend Ms. Jacobs' four children and two grandchildren, as a
result of her assaulting her husband, Hardy Jacobs, with a plate and
sending him to hospital with head wounds earlier in the day. Within minutes
of Const. Voller's arrival, Ms. Jacobs fired her weapon in his direction
and he twice warned her to drop the rifle. When she appeared to be
reloading and raising the rifle to fire again,
Const. Voller fired his 12-gauge shotgun. Both Connie Jacobs, who was
standing in the open doorway of the home, and Ty, who was standing behind
her, were struck with pellets and died instantly. An autopsy later
determined the woman had a blood-alcohol level nearly four times the legal
driving limit. According to the B.C. attorney- general's report, Const.
Voller said in his statement to police after the incident that he had a
small window of opportunity??? after Ms. Jacobs fired to talk to her before
she could reload and fire again. He said he had dealt with the Jacobs
family years before and thought if she knew it was him, she might listen.
"I did not know the state of her sobriety or her ability to handle a
weapon, so I was unsure how long it would take her to chamber
another round," Const. Voller said in his statement. "I took that
opportunity to yell at her and call her by name, Connie, to put the gun
down. She continued ... she brought the weapon down from the firing
position to a position that was conducive with somebody reloading it and
she didn't respond, she continued to what I thought was reload the weapon.
I again took the opportunity to yell at her, I said Connie it's Const. Dave
Voller, put the gun down, and she was completely oblivious to any ... she
then raised the weapon in my direction and, as she shouldered the weapon I
fired."
Tuesday, October 12, 1999 Jacobs inquiry to hear officer
By JASON van RASSEL, CALGARY SUN
The Mountie who shot Connie Jacobs is expected to return to the
Tsuu T'ina Nation today to testify at the inquiry into her death.
Connie's brother, Brian Lambert, said yesterday he and other
family members will be in the courtroom listening to Cpl. Dave
Voller's testimony, hoping for more answers about how and why
Connie and her son Ty, 9, died that snowy night in March 1998.
"It will be interesting to hear what he'll have to say," said Lambert.
"He's one of the key guys and we have to hear from him."
Connie, 37, and Ty were killed March 22, 1998, in an ex-change of
gunfire with Voller. Voller went to Jacobs' Tsuu T'ina home to assist
social workers apprehending her four children and two grandchildren
following a domestic dispute. Connie was on the porch of her home when she
opened fire on Voller, with Ty standing unseen behind her. Shortly after
the shooting, then-Const. Voller was transferred to Saltspring Island, off
B.C.'s west coast, and promoted -- decisions made before the shooting, said
RCMP officials.
Lambert said he doesn't expect coming face-to-face with Voller to
be difficult. "I don't think there'll be a problem," he said.
"It's one of those things you have to deal with." Lambert added he's more
concerned about why the inquiry is moving off the reserve Thursday and into
the Federal Court offices on 8 Ave. S.W., than about his personal feelings
toward Voller. Tsuu T'ina band administrators lobbied hard to have the
inquiry held on the reserve, so residents would be close to the process.
But the inquiry has stretched far beyond its expected eight weeks and there
was concern about it tying up space at the reserve's council chambers and
the cost of remaining on the reserve.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 12, 1999
Parents charged in death of son expect court case to collapse
Claim racism involved: Boy died in accident; police say couple didn't keep
watch
Ric Dolphin The Edmonton Journal
EDMONTON - They are an unlikely couple to be finding themselves in the
middle of what is shaping up to be a landmark legal case
that will address the maddening issue of parents' rights, but
here they are and, all things considered, they seem to be bearing up quite
well. "There are reasonable standards for when they should lay the
charges," says Robert Shaw, 42, whose articulations on policing and legal
matters seem slightly incongruous coming from a mouth rendered virtually
toothless by a lifetime of altercations. "I don't think what they're doing
to us is reasonable." His sometime common-law wife and co-accused, Starlene
Gibson, 34, has dried her pretty almond eyes and wiped her slightly scarred
face, and is tucking into the coffee and cigarettes that are the staple in
this highly unpretentious cafe on the edge of the tough Edmonton
neighbourhood of Boyle Street, where Mr. Shaw grew up. This is Mr.
Shaw's and Ms. Gibson's first interview with the press since Sept. 17, when
eight members of the Edmonton Police Service entered Mr. Gibson's
$425-a-month, walk-up apartment on the edge of the city's low-rent
Vietnamese area, known as Little Saigon.
They arrested the native couple -- he's a Metis, she is a status
Indian originally from Chemainus, B.C. -- charging each with
criminal negligence causing the death of their five-year-old son
Leslie, who was killed while riding his bicycle a month earlier. The
couple's two other children were taken by the province. "Instead of getting
a rose, I got a set of handcuffs," says Ms. Gibson, who had been on her way
to buy a flower to place near the tree where Leslie died when the police
marched in. Her eyes fill with tears again and Mr. Shaw suggests she go to
the washroom to clean herself up.
Leslie was killed by a Videon cable truck that knocked him off his
bicycle and ran over his skull in the street behind the apartment.
Mr. Shaw says he had been on the balcony watching the boy, but
had stepped inside for a moment, where the couple's two younger
children were sleeping, to get a glass of water. "I came back out and saw
a crowd gathered and I didn't know what for." While he was watching the
crowd, the building superintendent had taken Ms. Gibson down to the street.
"I went down there then," says Mr. Shaw, "because she wouldn't quit
screaming." Mr. Shaw is planning a civil suit against the police and
Videon after the criminal matter is dispensed with, although it probably
won't go to trial until the new year. He maintains that his son was riding
in an area barricaded off for construction, and that the Videon driver --
who has never been
identified -- should not have been backing up his truck there.
"They're also saying he rode out in front of the truck deliberately," says
Mr. Shaw, slowly shaking his head of long, black hair and smiling
exasperatedly, like someone long used to the shenanigans of the police.
"But he's not that dumb. He lost his balance ... His legs were too short
for the bike." Police claim that they laid the criminal negligence
charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail, after warning
the couple
several times not to allow Leslie in the street unsupervised.
Mr. Shaw says that there was only one warning, and that it came
seven weeks before Leslie's death after he and some other
neighbourhood children had crossed nearby 105 Street unsupervised by an
adult. Following that incident, says Mr. Shaw, he punished Leslie by
grounding him for seven days and confiscating his toys and video
games for a day. After that, says the father, Leslie only ventured outside
if the parents were watching from the balcony, and rode his bike only in
the barricaded area that the parents believed safe from traffic. Both Mr.
Shaw and Ms. Gibson say the police are picking on them. The police motive
could be racism, says Mr. Shaw, or it could be to negate Videon's liability
in the matter. He still gets angry when he remembers how the cable company
failed to send any flowers to Leslie's funeral.
The other possibility, says Mr. Shaw, is that the charges were laid to
deflect attention from the current investigation into charges that senior
officers had connections with organized crime. This last possibility
especially interests Mr. Shaw, who has a long
record of dealings with the police, including several convictions for the
possession of soft drugs for the purpose of trafficking, and has intriguing
stories to tell about several officers. He initially describes his
occupations as a shingler and renovator of houses, but later explains that
a fight a couple of years ago -- "I was sucker punched from behind" --
broke his leg in three places and made such manual work impossible. He now
subsists on welfare and hustling pool, at which he says he can make about
$3,000 a night. "I side-bet," puts in Ms. Gibson, her angular face lighting
up. "I know he's going to win."
Hers has been a life buffeted by the vicissitudes of the world she
inhabits. She came to Edmonton as an 18-year-old, following a man
called Peter who "beat the living shit out of me." She has since been with
others, including a husband whom she divorced, and Mr.
Shaw, father of her children, with whom she lived temporarily.
Apart now, they remain friends. She vehemently defends her
mothering skills, and says her children receive far better care than
many in her neighbourhood. "They get all their shots, and I'd never
leave them unattended -- not like Cody's mom. She sleeps until
noon everyday, and he's always by himself outside." Cody is three,
and his mother is white.
The charging of Mr. Shaw and Ms. Gibson came on the heels of a
case in Rimbey, near Red Deer, where in August, the RCMP charged Steven and
Ruth Shippy with criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide
the necessities of life for their son Calahan, who died suddenly of
juvenile diabetes. The rural family belongs to a Christian sect called the
Followers of Christ, which shuns all medical treatment in favour of prayer
and the annointing with oil. The family claims, however, that their son
displayed only flu-like symptoms, and died so suddenly that they had no
opportunity to even consider medical treatment. Their trial is expected to
take place early next year. The two cases have raised debate between those
who think the state is over-asserting itself in an area where it does not
belong and those who believe such heavy-handed tactics are necessary to
reduce the tragic consequences of parental irresponsibility.
In the former camp is prominent Edmonton lawyer Brian Beresh,
who feels there is already adequate legislation in place allowing
social workers to monitor the behaviour of negligent parents and
seize children at risk. "Quite frankly, I think it's an improper use of
the criminal justice system," he said of the charges laid against Mr. Shaw
and Ms. Gibson. "If this is criminal negligence, then I guess all parents
better look in their closets." On the other side is Dr. Louis Francescutti,
an emergency room physician and head of the Alberta Centre for Injury
Control and research, who hails the police's initiative. "It's another tool
that can be used to heighten the awareness that there are responsibilities
in raising a child," he says. "This is one little case. If this sticks,
then this will be a big step forward in heightening awareness of injury
prevention."
For the couple at the centre of the debate, the arguments are moot,
for they do not believe they were delinquent in any way. "The police are
making false statements to discredit us," says Mr.
Shaw. He looks forward, he says, to seeing their case disintegrate in court.
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
