Thunder Bay – Viewpoint – I never had a rabbit growing up but those little fur balls make some children very happy as pets. They won’t fetch a newspaper or your slippers, but they sure are soft.
First let me go off on a little sarcastic rant. For many articles, I have covered off the issue of police being the number one target of the public. Pick a societal challenge and you can be sure police are to blame.
You must commend our local police organization for ensuring that every single officer is a racist. Don’t believe me? Well, just listen to the routine comments by a few in this city with a serious case of political agenda, coupled with a large dose of no reality. All cops are racist even though they get extra training where stories are told and masks are made instead of patrolling the street.
Homelessness, well that’s the cops too. Sure, they don’t make government policy, but this is certainly their fault and don’t get me started on mental health. I mean we give officers a few hours of training in how to deal with those having a mental health crisis. Sure, the “experts” get years, but those cops, just get it done. That’s what we pay them for.
How about those offenders out on probation and parole. Again, it is the cop’s fault. I mean you can’t blame parole boards who have months dealing with a file, or a judiciary that releases those with serious outstanding charges. Stop them from committing more crimes already. Do your job. We recently had a stabbing in the city, and I have been advised that the accused, was not in jail while facing charges in the deaths of two others. Must be the cops.
These absurd statements above, lead me to a major part of the justice system that gets very little if any coverage, judges and crown prosecutors. Now we can return to Bugs Bunny story and not the Elmer Fudd kind.
In Calgary, a man was just sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of torturing and killing multiple pet rabbits over several months. The acts were called “vile” and “inconceivable” by the presiding judge. Here is an quote from the article about the case:
The victims included four rabbits with names—Smokey, Loki, Chloe, and Henry—as well as multiple unnamed rabbits, some of whose remains were found in garbage bags near Weseen’s Calgary residence.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Smokey or any of the other rabbits should have been tortured or killed. The guy may be on his way to becoming a serial killer, but an article larger than when people are killed? Is it okay if I find that deeply disturbing.
I have no issue with how much time he is getting for these offences, but the time given far exceeds many others who have committed far worse acts of violence and abuse while receiving far less media attention and shorter prison sentences.
Now I realize bunnies are helpless creatures who deserve our protection but do not children need the same? Is the 85-year-old individual assaulted by one or more assailants basically as helpless as Smokey or Loki? Shouldn’t the sentencing in those cases be at least equally severe as the one involving a rabbit?
I attempt to point out in my writings the hypocrisy that exists when the justice system is spoken about because it is almost always exclusively about police, arguably the lowest rung on the ladder. Let me give a little detail here.
Police are the initial contact in a criminal process. Any charge flows through multiple steps including crown attorneys, defence lawyers and a judge. Making a false arrest is incredibly difficult.
Body cameras make it hard to hide the story and recently, one officer was convicted of a crime (I believe under appeal), almost exclusively by body cam footage because the “victim”, highly unusual did not show up in court. Another officer was convicted in part because his body cam was not activated.
So why in this system, is more scrutiny not laid at these higher levels? Why is the overrepresentation of one group of people in prison, the fault of police and not the fault of countless others along the way. The reasons police are blamed are many, including the inability of individual officers to push back on any public narrative and officers do make handy scapegoats for policies/laws that the police had nothing to do with. Have politicians take the blame for policies/laws they created; are you delusional?
So, when I see a sentence such as this handed out, my initial reaction is: if this man got eight years for what he did to Smokey and his friends, what should people get who view child abuse images or who abuse children? It would not take much work to find cases in this city of many individuals possessing child abuse photos getting house arrest. Rabbits are clearly more important than children. I find those sentences despicable. If you cannot protect innocent children than in my personal view, step down from the bench.
Where is the outrage over that kind of sentence?
We have had people responsible for the death of others, pleading guilty to manslaughter that have not received this kind of sentence. Is a human life somehow less than a rabbits? And forgive me, I have a very difficult time providing sympathy to someone else for their upbringing when the death of someone is involved. Being responsible for a death, is over the line for me.
I can wrap my head around lighter sentences for crimes of theft, mischief, addiction etc, but not serious injury or the death of another. At some point, causing the death of someone should be more of a priority than absolving someone of the responsibility because of their upbringing.
What is most disturbing to me is that these minimal sentences rarely if ever spark public anger. I don’t condone the torture of an animal. I am fine with this sentence, but I do not accept sentences where serious harm or abuse takes place and the sentence imposed is far below that for torturing and killing Smokey and his friends.
A recent article had a member of Canada’s supreme court worried that the public scrutiny/attacks of the judiciary can erode confidence in our judges/justices. Forgive me your honour, but for the most part, that decline can be laid at the doorstep of soft on crime decisions by Liberal/Progressive judges. When a judge intentionally reduces a sentence to not risk deportation of someone who immigrated to Canada, I have no respect for you or your position. Yet, this has happened.
Here is but one case, there are many:
- v. Chang (Ontario Court of Appeal, 2019): The Ontario Court of Appeal cut a sentence from eight months to six months less a day for Yen (Alec) Chang, a permanent resident from Taiwan. Chang had been convicted of trying to purchase sexual services from an underage girl. The appeal court stepped in because the original trial judge failed to consider that a sentence over six months would lead to “almost certain” deportation. [1]
The initial eight-month sentence was a joke. To have it reduced to six because he would not be able to appeal a deportation order should not be our concern. Judges are now advocates for those with immigration status issues. This man believed he was meeting up with a 15-year-old girl for sex. It was argued he no longer had any ties to Taiwan, and his support system was here in Canada. Is this really our priority when sentencing is considered? At what point does the victim become the priority and not the accused or the guilty. Perhaps if the case involved a rabbit, a tougher sentence would have taken place.
Would more scrutiny of judges lead to better outcomes in this area. I believe they would and I would ask, why is the lack of transparency in this situation any different than that demanded of police?
On June 9th, a man left/walked out/escaped from a hospital who had been there on a mental health order. The result, a young officer was killed in Hearst Ontario. If the police were responsible, you can be sure the provinces Special Investigative Unit would be called in. Where is the SIU or any oversight agency, looking at this situation to determine if criminal charges should be laid due to the escape or lack of treatment for this individual. No, that system is just for cops, not for the other layers, like judges, crowns, probation and parole boards, psychiatrists who determine minimal risk. Just the cops. Lucky them.
And while we rarely if ever see the name of the judges who hand out these slap on the wrist sentences, or even the judge who asked the guy facing 39 theft charges to raise his hand and promise not to do it anymore, (yes that was here locally), judges rarely face any scrutiny. And who looks at them when they do, judges and lawyers, not those expert civilians who sit in judgement of police officers. Gee, explain to me again why recruitment is down across North America.
Today, officers walk around with their name on full display so that every Tom, Dick and Harry knows the proper spelling of their full last name. I wrote about this years ago. I chose to be an officer, my father, who I shared the same name with did not. Is it possible that Normie bad guy, may believe that the James Mauro that was in the phone book may not be the officer that arrested him? But in this age of not pushing back on this nonsense, officers parade around as a billboard with identification, personal or family safety be damned. Where are the names of everyone else from the justice system?
Our legal system is most often devoid of true justice. This judge gave an appropriate sentence, but I wonder if it was a person instead of a cute rabbit, or a child if the sentence would have been the same. Yes, I am calling out judges in this country who far too often are soft on offenders and indifferent to victims.
Those rabbits deserved a better fate but forgive me if I feel that Mr. Smith, or little Stephanie deserve the same sort of protection. If Canada’s legal system can provide this sort of sentence for torturing a rabbit, then maybe our judges can see this case for what it is. An indictment of the sentences too often given to people that abuse others. Even Smokey would agree. Just a thought.
Jim Mauro
