Teen hopes to sail through throu Grade 12 page 3
Olympic swimmer mer earns a bronze page 16
Tuesday August 14, 2012 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
Pattullo to close for a weekend
Vancouver police had tip about plan to kill Tasha Rossette just days before she was murdered
Cops face probe for not telling slain mom about murder threat
Repaving taking place Aug. 17-20 Black Press THE PATTULLO BRIDGE is closing.
Not for good, just for one weekend. TransLink has announced it will be repaving a portion of the 75-year-old structure “where damage to the asphalt pavement at the south end has become a safety concern,” said TransLink in a news release. To facilitate the work, the bridge will be closed to traffic from Friday, Aug. 17 at 9 p.m., until 3 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 20. TransLink said the work will depend on the weather and if there is precipitation heavier than showers the work will be postponed until the following weekend. While the bridge is closed to traffic, TransLink will do a thorough examination of the bridge deck and possiblly perform other work, such as repairing some of the corroded pedestrian guard rails. Alternate routes include the Queensborough, Alex Fraser and Port Mann bridges. Most of the repair work TransLink has done in the past has not required closures, although it repaved on nights and weekends during the spring of 2009. It was also closed in January 2009 for eight days after a fire destroyed some of the wooden structure on the south approach to the bridge.
by Sheila Reynolds NEARLY SEVEN YEARS after a young mother was murdered
in Surrey, a pair of Vancouver police officers face an investigation into allegations they failed to warn Tasha Rossette her life may have been in danger. According to the B.C. Supreme Court ruling last week, on Nov. 17, 2005, Const. Craig Bentley was told by a confidential source that Rossette’s boyfriend planned to murder her. Bentley passed the information to his Integrated Gang Task Force supervisor, Staff Sgt. John Grywinski, but the pair decided not to share the information with Rossette immediately, and instead investigate the matter further. Five days later, Bentley went to Rossette’s home and found it surrounded by police tape. She had been murdered. The murder tip given to Bentley and allegations against him and Grywinski only came to light last week after a judge dismissed their attempt to quash a review of their conduct by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner (OPCC). In her Aug. 7 ruling, Justice Laura Gerow said the investigation should Tasha Rossette proceed and reprimanded the police officers for taking so long to file their petition. It was November 2007 when the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) began investigating a concern raised by Crown counsel regarding evidence given by Bentley during a preliminary inquiry. Less than a year later, Rossette’s mother Simone also complained that the two officers failed in their duty by not telling Tasha she was at risk of being killed. In 2009, Simone complaint was dismissed by the VPD. The OPCC requested more information about the matter’s dismissal and ordered the police to revisit the allegations. A year-and-a-half later, the OPCC couldn’t determine whether the allegations had ever even been investigated and in May 2009, again ordered the VPD to investigate. After requesting several extensions, a November 2010 deadline to review the internal investigation was not met and the OPCC ordered an external investigation.
Boxing off the pain
BOAZ JOSEPH / THE LEADER
Ashoor Luka used a mirror box to cure the chronic pain in his broken wrist with the help of physiotherapist Roland Fletcher (centre). In the third of a special Leader series on the ‘hidden’ side of Surrey Memorial Hospital care, see how physiotherapists are curing pain using the power of the mind – on page 15.
See MURDER / Page 4
Editorial 6 Letters 7 Sports 16 Classifieds 19
Plan an alternate route this weekend as the Pattullo Bridge is closing for a few days.
Save time, save money.