Halifax’s board of police commissioners voted Monday to appoint El Jones to propose a committee to define defunding the police, and Jones hopes to turn that into an opportunity for more public input at the board. It’s the culmination of months of debate at the board over how to approach the issue of defunding the […]
Halifax refuses to reveal source of mysterious motion defining defunding police
Halifax is refusing to reveal the source of a controversial motion around defunding the police that was added to a Board of Police Commissioners agenda at the 11th hour this summer. At the board’s July 9 meeting, municipal staff brought forward a motion aimed at defining the concept of defunding the police: That the Halifax […]
Hardening the shoreline
Morning File, Thursday, September 10, 2020
News 1. Mark Furey’s potential conflict of interest in the mass murder inquiry Tim Bousquet reports on PC leader Tim Houston’s affidavit, filed with the Conflicts Commissioner of Nova Scotia, arguing that justice minister Mark Furey is in a conflict of interest over the public inquiry into the mass murders of April 18-19. The conflict […]
Prisoners, acting mostly on their own, are changing the legal landscape of Nova Scotia’s jails
Today, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Kevin Coady published a decision, saying that the way two prisoners at the Burnside Jail are being held in solitary confinement is unfair, and he wants the jail administrators to address the situation, and if they don’t within 14 days, he wants to see the prisoners in court, potentially […]
Why people ignore warning signs
Morning File, Tuesday, July 28, 2020
News 1. Witness told police that mass murderer “builds fires and burns bodies, is a sexual predator, and supplies drugs in Portapique and Economy” Tim Bousquet is on vacation, but still reported on documents related to the RCMP’s investigation in the mass murders of April 18/19, which a Nova Scotia judge ordered redacted. And there’s […]
“Insufficient grounds”
Susie Butlin repeatedly pleaded with the RCMP to intervene to stop her neighbour Junior Duggan from harassing her. The police took no action. A friend says an RCMP officer told Butlin her allegations against Duggan made her, not him, a "menace to society." Three days later, Duggan killed Butlin.
Since September 2017, when her best friend, 58-year-old Susan (Susie) Butlin, was shot and killed in her home at Bayhead, near Tatamagouche, Suzanne Davis has been in pain. Davis still thinks about her friend — whom she’d known since kindergarten — all the time. She says if they didn’t speak on the phone three times […]
Who thinks Cornwallis would still be standing?
Morning File, Wednesday, June 10, 2020
News 1. When it comes to regulating police use of force, are council’s hands really tied? We’re leading this morning not with a straight news story, but an important commentary from Harry Critchley of the East Coast Prison Justice Society, and the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia. Critchley recaps some key background on police […]
Tanks but no tanks: Halifax councillors vote to cancel armoured vehicle, reallocate funding
Halifax regional councillors voted on Tuesday to cancel the purchase of an armoured vehicle for the city’s police and reallocate the funding to diversity and inclusion, public safety, and fighting anti-Black racism. Councillors voted to redirect $53,500 to city’s office of diversity and inclusion to make up for a planned cut this year; a total […]
Defund the Halifax police
With calls around the world to redirect police resources, Halifax city councillors are tripping over themselves to see who can be most "pro police"
Since the widely publicized death of George Floyd at the hands of MPD officer Derek Chauvin (what some commentators have called a “televised lynching”), calls for police accountability and even abolition have been growing, with protestors taking to the street in cities across North America, including Halifax. These calls are beginning to be heard and […]
Enough with the cop-speak, and other policing stories
Morning File, Friday, June 5, 2020
News 1. Has the RCMP’s move away from community policing created an information gap? Colchester County councillor Mike Gregory used to be an RCMP officer, working out of the force’s now closed building on Main Street in Tatamagouche. He understands that policing has changed over the years, but he wonders if the force’s move away […]
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