The Black Rod

Police in Manitoba have, like James Bond, a licence to kill, according to the latest report from the provincial police watchdog, the IIU (Independent Investigation Unit). That's the shocking conclusion of a mandatory, and seriously slanted, investigation into the police killing of 59-year-old Bradley Singer in his home on Magnus Avenue a year ago. Singer was an innocent man, alone, probably asleep, bothering nobody, when police arrived at his door just before dawn in February 2024. He was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, magnified by extreme paranoia. Police had come with an order to take him to see a doctor who was concerned that Singer's mental health was deteriorating. But, through a series of misjudgements and missteps, about two hours later Singer was dead, peppered with at least six police bullets fired at point blank range. https://blackrod.blogspot.com/2024/02/charge-em-magnus-avenue-shooting-by-cops.html We knew the IIU had something to hide when they...

When it comes to Fake News, nobody can match Dan Lett, the "political columnist" for the Winnipeg Free Press. But he surpassed himself last Friday when he concocted a story accusing Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister of hiring a private investigator to "dig up dirt on NDP leader Wab Kinew" prior to the 2019 provincial election. The story was based on those apocryphal anonymous "sources" who, of course, "have asked not to be named for fear of reprisal." Given that Lett has been a shill for the NDP for months (more on that soon), coordinating his anti-Pallister columns with NDP political attacks, its not hard to figure out who his "sources" are. The Page One news story, carried under Lett's name with no mention of being 'opinion', continued on the jump page where, if one read that far, in paragraph 20 of the 28 paragraph story Lett conceded that the PI was actually a researcher hired to pour through the legal records of Kinew...

It's been two-and-a-half weeks since an aboriginal mob overturned two landmark statues on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature and Winnipeg police haven't made a single arrest. This is suspicious since the vandalism happened right under the eyes of dozens of uniformed police, none of whom who lifted a finger to stop it. In fact, the next day, Police Chief Danny Smyth commended the police at the scene for doing nothing. Even after officers were spit on and had rocks thrown at them, the police failed to respond, effectively sending a message that they were ceding the streets to violent rabble. Smyth, reading emotionlessly from a written statement, reassured the public that the police "will be investigating this."  Yay. He said they would start by watching footage from security cameras at the Legislature.  He forgot to mention the cameras are a good 200 or 300 feet away from the site of the vandalism and assaults on individual officers. The blatant inaction by...

When did the magic die? A week ago the Winnipeg police department delivered the bad news---crime in the city is out of control. The picture painted by the numbers (for 2018) was appalling. Robberies up ten percent in  a single year.  (And that was the good news.) Property crimes were up almost 20 percent.  Total crime was 33 percent higher than the five year average. The measure of violent crime in Winnipeg had soared to a rating of 161.  Only four years earlier it stood at 116. That's a 38 percent deterioration in safety. How did it happen? How, when in 2015 the police and Winnipeg's police board announced they had discovered the magic solution to crime? "Smart Policing" they called it.    A team of crime analysts would pore through data to spot crime hot-spots and as soon as they identified a trend (car thefts, muggings, liquor store robberies) they could call in police resources to descend on the problem a...