Posts Tagged ‘Abducted’
Abducted: The First Twelve Hours
A full set of photos from this story and a short introduction for the post appears on the
McNeill Life Stories Facebook Page (Link Here) (Note: All the photos, except the two from the Oak Bay PD, were captured from Web sources.)
“Except for my dogs, I am alone in a world filled with people.”
For people of all ages, but particularly the young, few things can be more lonely than being on a street full of people and the only looks received vary between pity, disgust and outright anger. Most street people are viewed as being worth less than the clothes they wear. They could go missing, be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, even murdered, yet this often raises barely a ripple of concern from the public, let alone police circles.
If they are of native descent or part of a visible minority, it is far worse. In 2010 during the Olympics, I watched as two members of the “Red Shirt Brigade” (Volunteer Security) in Vancouver were openly antagonistic and physically aggressive towards a native woman sleeping in the doorway of a store that was closed for the night. This story traces the social conflicts which remain close to the surface in this bountiful country of Canada. (Photo Web source)
(Post: February 2016 2794)
(July 2018 4702)
Introduction
“In the Oak Bay office, it was nearing 3:00 am, as the night shift Sergeant, Constable and a Civilian Dispatcher were cleaning up the coffee room when the phone lines lite up. In the quiet hours, this usually meant an accident or similar emergency had shaken several residents from their pre-dawn slumber. In this case, two blasts from a shotgun were followed by the blood-curdling screens of a woman. So began a twelve-hour saga where a young woman’s life hung in the balance.”
Having lived inside the police system for thirty years, this story, and others to follow, explore various Oak Bay Police Major Crime files from beginning to end. Many of the stories including this one, contain additional discussion about social issues related to the crime. This particular file is used as a sample of how some criminal acts (or suspected criminal acts) can be quickly filtered to ‘inactive’ when the victim lives outside the mainstream. While this is sometimes done for good reason, discounting these crimes can have serious, unintended consequences in the mainstream as is demonstrated in eight interconnected chapters beginning in the early 1980s and extending to the present day. If you wish to skip the social interest sections you can read Chapters 3-7 for the present criminal case.
Chapters 1: A discussion of how the police and justice system filter is applied and how societal norms (reference the section on deviance) impact the events such as those described in this Oak Bay Police abduction case.
Chapter 2: A general description of the Greater Victoria area, the various police departments and of the area in which the crime occurred.
Chapter 3 and 4: Provides background on the victim. This is done as a method of demonstrating how some victims, because of age, sex, socio-economic status, mental illness or some other factor, are left vulnerable when society in general and the criminal justice system in particular, fails to render assistance.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7: Tracks the investigation from beginning to end. This is done to demonstrate why a high level of cooperation between police agencies is an essential component of effective law enforcement. This is particularly so when a crime crosses jurisdictional boundaries, be it local, provincial or national. The chapters also demonstrate how a small Department the size of Oak Bay is able to provide a full range, effective police service. It also demonstrates how closely police agencies in Greater Victoria usually (but not always) cooperate with one another.
Chapter 8: Outlines other cases, in particular, the recent murder of Tim Bosma in Ancaster, Ontario, as a means of demonstrating how an application of the police filter can have unintended consequences when a serial sex offender or murderer is at work. I am presently writing a story about how a serial rapist and murderer (Scott Ian McKay) was finally charged with numerous counts of rape and one murder, after several police agencies in Greater Victoria came together in common purpose.
Addendum 1: A paedophile in our midst. This part, which began in the mid-1980s, flowed back to the surface in July 2013. It involved a Boy Scout Leader who led the Royal Oak Group of which our oldest son was a member until leaving the troop after a serious injury at a Scout Camp retreat in Sooke. There is no suggestion our son was molested, but the danger was lurking just one small step away from our family.
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