The Black Rod

  When a law-breaking government is in power, the usual rules of propriety go out the window. That means in Manitoba, the onus has shifted to the NDP government to prove that every decision that looks or smells fishy is actually legitimate.  We can no longer assume they are honourable members of the Legislature. Case in point is the special treatment given to a teenaged potential killer who pleaded guilty to  reckless discharge of a firearm and unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon and received the proverbial slap on the wrist Tuesday . The official record barely hints at the crime he committed. On a Saturday night in February the then-16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old companion showed up at a party on Frances Street in Winnipeg's Centennial neighbourhood. The details of the night as published online by the Winnipeg Free Press are confusing. It appears the pair were part of "a group of people". There was an argument over their...

Even as month-old information is passed off as "news" by the Winnipeg Free Press, the biggest crime story in Winnipeg languishes untouched by the city's "professional" journalists. Crime reporters have been trying to put the latest outbreak of shootings and home invasions into context. CTV on Friday blamed it on a clash between two street gangs---MOB and Indian Posse. Trying to advance the story in Saturday's paper, FP reporter Mike McIntyre breathlessly wrote that "police and justice sources tell the Free Press the M.O.B. is no longer a united front and has broken into two factions..." http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/mob-breakup-is-bad-news---edited-166628926.html Uh, yeah. That's what the Winnipeg Sun reported ONE MONTH AGO after the details were revealed in open court. http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/07/17/street-gang-splinters-into-two "A mysterious rift among members of a notorious Winnipe...

Chances are you've been talking a lot about crime lately. What with a triple shooting in Transcona and a teenager stabbed in a public park this week, shots fired as two ethnic groups faced off in Osborne Village last week moments before one man was stabbed to death on the street, and a summer of arsons spreading fear throughout Fort Rouge and St. James. No wonder we're the violent crime capital of the country according to Stats Canada. What you don't know, is that it's much, much worse than you think. Statistics Canada divides its annual crime stats into two parts. There's the crime severity index and the violent crime severity index, which get confusing if you don't speak Bureaucrat. The crime severity index is the number of crimes reported to police in a city and the violent crime severity index is a measure of how serious those crimes are. So a city may have a lot of shoplifting and vandalism, and place high in the crime ...

Was murder victim Kyle Earl thinking of punching out Justin Bieber when the teen pop star came to Winnipeg last September? A friend of his says yes. Meaningless empty talk? Punk bravado? Or a sign of how deluded gang members have become in Winnipeg, that they see attacking a pop star as their ticket to fame? The day after 16-year-old Kyle Earl was shot to death while sitting with friends on the steps of West End house, this post appeared on AQ, a forum for World of Warcraft gamers: Perrym69 this is a very sad day for me, i just wanted to talk a little bit about it to make people aware. my bestfriend (Kyle Earl) was killed last night, by another gang member. this is very sad because he was my best bud since i was 5. i remember 2 days ago i told him to leave the gang he was in . and he told me he was going to. and he was supposed to sleep over this weekend. it makes me very sad i lost my bestfriend/ my brother. this made me realize that their really is bad ...

Is this the best they can do? A burned-out NDP retread is the champion of the Left in Winnipeg's mayoral contest? They've had four years to beat the bushes to find a candidate who could stand up to Sam Katz and still they had to reach way, way, way down to the bottom of the barrel to find anyone to pick up the gauntlet. Step up Judy Wasylycia-Leis. After 13 years in Parliament, during which she never climbed higher than the bottom rung of the No. 4 party in the House, Judy Alphabet thinks mediocrity is her key to the Big Job in Winnipeg. That plus being a lifelong party hack who's never had a real job in her life. http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-press-junk-journalism-touts-poll.html Some credentials, there, Judy. Goodness knows, Katz is vulnerable to a real candidate for mayor. In the last election he was still a relative unknown, the non-politician who had to pick up the pieces of the rubble after the ego-driven Glen Murray dumped his ...

Danny Wolfe is dead. Hooray. We can't think of a better way to start the new year that with this good news. At 33, Daniel Richard Wolfe was a career criminal, a self-proclaimed 'gangsta', a remorseless killer, and a threat to innocent people everywhere as long as he was alive. Danny got killed in a brawl involving 10 gang members at Prince Albert Penitentiary where he was serving a double life sentence. It was pure poetic justice. The gang mob did the job of the judicial system. It got rid of Daniel Wolfe for good, and it reduced the number of aboriginals in prison by one. Good on you, boys. Wolfe is being called the co-founder of the Indian Posse street gang. That's giving him more credit than he deserves. The 'honour' really belongs to his brother Richard Daniel Wolfe (yes, they have the same name but reversed) whose article for the Winnipeg Free Press glorifying native gangs as a measure of Indian pride presaged the creation of the Indian Posse. "When ...

We don't know who's more insulting, politician Andrew Swan or reporters Mike McIntyre and Gabrielle Giroday. But its clear that this trio is guilty of grossly misleading the public. The team of McIntrye and Giroday should have been collecting accolades for their revelation that the teenager charged with killing a motorist by smashing into him with a stolen Hummer was a car thief previously convicted of involvement in another car crash where a taxi driver was killed. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/accused-thief-has-a-dark-past-79392032.html Instead, by simply regurgitating the political lies of Justice Minister Andrew Swan, they negated their good work and deserve to share the disgrace. Their Wednesday story concluded with the obligatory search for a solution: "Attorney General Andrew Swan said provincial governments have been pushing Ottawa for changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act that would allow judges to take deterrence into account when sentencing young o...