fraservalleydaily | Friday November 4 2011
Daily
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THAW IN CHILLY TALKS TO KEEP RCMP IN B.C. JEFF NAGEL (Black Press)
A deal may be close in talks between B.C. and the federal government to keep the RCMP as the police force for most cities. Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender, the municipal observer in the negotiations, said the tone of federal officials has become more cooperative and conciliatory, adding “significant” progress was made this week. “Nobody is threatening anybody at the moment,” he said after returning from negotiations in Ottawa. “I am more optimistic than I’ve been that we’ll get there.” Federal officials told B.C. in September to sign a new 20-year RCMP contract by the end of this month or else they’d begin withdrawing the Mounties in 2014. That ultimatum prompted B.C. to start assessing what it would take to launch a replacement force. Fassbender said a final deal isn’t likely by the end-ofmonth deadline but added a framework may be ready and he doubts Ottawa would “pull the trigger” and act on its threat if that’s the case. “I can’t see the federal government using a calendar date as the breaking point if we’re moving
ahead and close to a deal.” The agreement, if concluded, will be a 20-year contract with an option every five years for any party to reopen discussions on any aspect of it, he said. Any city or province will be able to opt out of the RCMP on two years notice, he said. Ottawa hasn’t budged on B.C.’s demands for a more generous costsharing formula, which currently
sees large cities pay 90 per cent of local RCMP costs, while smaller ones shoulder 70 per cent. Solicitor General Shirley Bond said some simpler items have been settled in the talks but complex issues remain. “I’m hopeful that the momentum that’s taking place in bargaining would allow us to make sure there isn’t an arbitrary deadline,” she said.
BC LOCAL NEWS…
Province.
An RCMP officer in Surrey, the country’s largest detachment of Mounties. Talks are said to be close to renewing a 20-year deal with the force for B.C.
The officer in charge of the Langley RCMP detachment said 22-year-old Alvin Wright was hiding in a bedroom closet armed with a large knife and a hatchet the night he was shot and killed by police investigating a domestic disturbance complaint at Wright’s home. “He was only shot as a last resort after he came at them brandishing the knife,” Superintendent Derek Cooke said. Cooke made the statement in a written press release issued yesterday, the day after a Vancouver Police Department review of the August 6, 2010 fatality declared there were no grounds for criminal charges against any of the officers. “I do feel that at this point it is important for people
A couple in their seventies were seriously burned in a mobile home fire early Thursday morning. The two victims were able to escape the flames, but were airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital for treatment. The mobile home and a vehicle were heavily damaged by the fire, but fire crews were able to extinguish the blaze in the adjacent mobile, which suffered only smoke and water damage. The cause of the fire is unknown.
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5 CHARGED FOR SELLING FORGED TRANSIT PASSES JEFF NAGEL (Black Press)
Transit Police have busted a counterfeit ring accused of selling fake TransLink monthly transit passes that were made in China. Insp. Brian MacDonald said counterfeit two-zone FareCards that normally sell for $110 were marketed for about $90 to $100 through Chinese and English ads on social networking sites. “It was a fairly sophisticated operation,” he said, adding hundreds of passes were made and sold. Five people have been charged.
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One woman is dead in a motor vehicle incident on the Port Mann Bridge yesterday. The incident occurred eastbound on the west end of the span. Police say a 50-year-old Coquitlam resident exited her vehicle, eastbound on Highway 1 at the west end of the bridge deck, and was then struck by an east-bound tractor trailer. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The tractor trailer driver sustained no injuries.
CHILLIWACK PROGRESS (Black Press)
to have a general understanding of what transpired that night,” Cooke said. He said the police are still limited in what they can say because an investigation is being conducted by the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, a coroner’s inquest has been ordered and Wright’s widow is suing the police. He expects much of the details will be disclosed during the inquest, which is scheduled for the week of March 26, 2012. Cooke said it was because of the information he had available to him shortly after the shooting that he did not remove any of the involved officers from active duty. A few hours after the statement was released, the RCMP removed it from their website after the police complaints commissioner announced a probe into the incident.
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SURREY LEADER (Black Press)
SENIORS ‘SERIOUSLY BURNED’ IN MOBILE HOME FIRE
BLACK PRESS
DAN FERGUSON (Langley Times)
604.859.2005
WOMAN DEAD AFTER BEING HIT BY TRUCK ON PORT MANN
The young man who dragged a Maple Ridge gas station attendant to his death six years ago is back out of prison, little more than a year after he violated conditions of his first release. Darnell Darcy Pratt has been given a second chance at parole and was released from a federal penitentiary on Nov. 3. He will be paroled to a half-way house in Victoria. He was just 16 in March 2005 when he struck and dragged Grant De Patie in a stolen car while fleeing an Esso station in Maple Ridge without paying for gas.
POLICE SHOOTING VICTIM ATTACKED COPS WITH KNIFE: RCMP
(near CIBC Bank) nk)
Police investigating the killing of an 18-year-old woman in Armstrong, B.C. on Halloween night say they’ve got about 55 tips. But RCMP spokesman Gord Molyndyk says investigators still have no suspects in the death of Taylor van Diest, who was found unconscious along some railway tracks and died later in hospital. He says police have established a timeline for her movements, saying van Diest left her home about 5:50 Monday night and walked about 10 minutes to the site where she was attacked.
MAPLE RIDGE NEWS (Black Press)
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ARMSTRONG (Canadian Press)
DE PATIE KILLER RELEASED FROM PRISON
BC NEWS WATCH
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POLICE GET 55 TIPS IN ARMSTRONG KILLING
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