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CENTRAL ALBERTA’S DAILY NEWSPAPER
BREAKING NEWS ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 24, 2012
Winter weather creates havoc
Photo by RANDY FIEDLER/Advocate staff
Firemedics clear the remains of pianos from around a pickup truck after it crashed through the front of 53rd Street Music Tuesday morning. Please see related video at www.reddeeradvocate.com. BY RANDY FIEDLER ADVOCATE STAFF Central Albertans woke to the first icy blast of winter on Tuesday. Slick roads in Red Deer contributed to a truck crashing into the 53rd St. Music store, replacing the sound of crashing cymbals, at 11 a.m. The full-sized pickup burst through the retailer’s east plate glass window and wall, shattering pianos and other
instruments. The male driver was uninjured, as were the store’s employees and patrons. The female driver of an SUV hit by the pickup truck just before it entered the store suffered very minor injuries. Both vehicles were northbound on 49th Avenue when the SUV in the centre lane allegedly tried to turn left onto 53rd Street. They collided, sending the truck between a traffic light and street light to hit the store. RCMP have charged the woman driving
the SUV with making an unsafe left turn. “It was very, very loud and really scary,” said store employee Rebecca Osborne. “There are times when I’ve seen vehicles hit the curb outside and wondered if they’d come through. To see it happen is crazy.” Overnight snowfall, a -7C low and a northwest wind left roads polished to an icy glare, sending many drivers into highway ditches, including several drivers of semi tractor
Court room crowding putting prosecutors in a bind MUST DECIDE WHETHER A TRIAL IS WORTH THE WAIT BY BRENDA KOSSOWAN ADVOCATE STAFF Some people charged with criminal offences are being released rather than held in custody because the provincial court in Red Deer cannot get them to trial in a reasonable length of time, says a Red Deer judge. Provincial court Judge Bert Skinner, whose responsibilities including managing Red Deer’s courtrooms, said earlier this week that the courthouse is running out of room for provincial hearings, making it more and more difficult to get accused people to trial in a reasonable amount of time. Half-day trials are now being scheduled four months down the road and it’s twice that long for full-day trials. A person pleading not guilty now for an offence that would take a full day to hear would not get to trial until early in July at the soonest, said Skinner. That has created a dilemma for prosecutors who have good reasons to detain an accused person in custody, but are then faced with the possibility of that person languishing in re-
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mand for as long or longer than the sentence that will eventually be passed. “Fairly recently . . . (Queen’s Bench) Justice Earl Wilson made the comment, ‘Your trial dates are too far down the line. You can’t really have sentencing first and trial later,’” said Skinner. “It’s like Alice in Wonderland, right? They have been released due to the fact that we don’t have the capacity to give them a trial within a reasonable length of time.” Built in 1982, the Red Deer courthouse was designed so that additional floors could be added as needed, he said. However, due to provincial cutbacks at the time of construction, the footings necessary to support the additional weight were not installed, so the building cannot be expanded as originally planned. Population growth and closure of smaller courthouses in Lacombe, Innisfail and Sylvan Lake have all added to the pressure in Red Deer, which has absorbed the case loads that were formerly handled in the smaller courthouses.
Please see COURT on Page A2
WEATHER
INDEX
Flurries. High -3. Low -8.
Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A6,A7 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D5 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C5 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4-B7
FORECAST ON A2
» SEE MORE ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM trailers. Secondary Hwy 587 just west of Bowden was closed after a motorist slid through a nearby town intersection, taking out a light standard. Although the driver was uninjured, the post snapped, leaving the live line hanging over the highway, said Cpl. Jeff Hildebrandt of Innisfail RCMP. The highway reopened
after Fortis Alberta workers cleared the line. Innisfail, Ponoka and Olds RCMP were kept busy with reports of vehicles sliding off area roads. “There were multiple, multiple incidents to deal with,” Hildebrandt said. Ponoka RCMP Integrated Traffic Unit warned drivers of delays as ditched cars were towed out.
Please see WINTER on Page A2
Two people charged after stolen mail recovered BY MURRAY CRAWFORD ADVOCATE STAFF Two people have been arrested and charged after Didsbury RCMP recovered stolen mail. Banking information, magazines and government and personal cheques were stolen in the spree of thefts from rural mail boxes in the Red Deer, Innisfail, Carstairs, Didsbury and Strathmore areas. On Monday at about 4:45 a.m., Didsbury RCMP were called to a report of a suspicious vehicle at a rural residence near the intersection of Hwys 766 and 580, west of Carstairs. When police arrived, they located two occupants sleeping in a Ford F-350, which had been reported stolen from Calgary several days earlier. Sgt. Jeff Jacobson, Didsbury RCMP, said the two people who were arrested were known to police and the thefts
were not isolated to one day. “Possibly over several days, I believe the truck stolen out of Calgary was stolen several days prior to when we came across them,” said Jacobson. “We believe they’ve been out and about for a few days.” With Olds RCMP providing backup, the two vehicle occupants were arrested. It was discovered they were in possession of mail from numerous rural mail boxes throughout Central Alberta. Police also located locks cut off of mail boxes and a set of bolt cutters inside the vehicle. As well, keys and financial information stolen from a vehicle in Carstairs on Oct. 21 were recovered. A set of rural mail boxes stolen from an area east of Didsbury has yet to be located. The owners of the recovered mail have been contacted.
Please see MAIL on Page A2
ALBERTA
BUSINESS
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