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Health fair set for this weekend
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THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS.
There’s more at Burnabynow.com
SEE PAGE 15
Man accused of hurling racial abuse at bus riders Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
Police arrested a 45-yearold man allegedly involved in a number of serious incidents in Burnaby last week – including hurling racist and sexist remarks around on a transit bus. The racist tirade was caught on video and shared on social media. Burnaby RCMP say they received a report just before 4 p.m. on Sept. 5 that a man had racially abused a member of the public and then assaulted them in the area of Parker Street and Alpha Avenue. Officers responded to the area and located the suspect in the 4400 block of Hastings Street. After his arrest, police were approached by staff from a nearby liquor store, who said the man had stolen liquor from the business just before police arrived. Later in the evening, just before 6 p.m., Burnaby RCMP got another call from a woman saying she’d witnessed a man making racist and sexist comments to people on a transit bus earlier that day. Investigators determined it was the same man, according to an RCMP press release. “Police are also aware of a video currently circulating which shows a portion of this incident,” stated the release. “This video will be used as part of the police investigation.” The suspect, 45-year-old Raul Miguel Rubio-Alabau, has been charged with one count of assault, one count of mischief, one count of theft under $5,000 and one count of uttering threats.
CRUNCHED CRUISER: Two people – including a Burnaby RCMP officer – were sent to hospital after a serious accident on Saturday night. Three vehicles, including a police cruiser, were involved in a crash at the corner of Kingsway and Griffiths in South Burnaby. PHOTO SHANE MACKICHAN
SAFETY
Metal thieves target firefighting fixtures
Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
Metal thieves are putting Burnaby’s highrise residents at risk by making off with a vital piece of firefighting equipment. Standpipe connections –Y-shaped metal fixtures usually found outside the front doors of large buildings – are designed to link pipes inside the building to fire trucks and hydrants so water can be pumped to the
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upper floors in the event of a fire. But the fire department is getting an increasing number of calls about the connections going missing, according to chief fire prevention officer Perry Talkkari. “Somebody’s obviously doing something with them and they’re tearing them right out of the building,” he told the NOW. The problem in Burnaby isn’t as extreme as that
Eat your heart (and soul) out
reported in Vancouver last week, according to Talkkari. Police there said they are investigating 60 standpipe connection thefts in that city, mostly downtown and in the Downtown Eastside. In Burnaby, the thefts have been concentrated in the northeast part of the city, according to Talkkari. Investigators believe the equipment is being targeted because of its metal content. In the past, it was not un-
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common for the brass caps on the connections to go missing, according to Talkkari, but that didn’t present a significant problem for firefighters since they could still use the connections. “When they take these connections, there’s no means of connecting at all, so the fire crews have to improvise, and now they have to take their hose lines right inside the building into the exit stairs and tie them in there,” he said.
That takes precious time and puts people and property at risk, he said. Talkkari said the problem is growing, and property managers should be on the lookout. “Once a month, they should be walking around and checking all connections to make sure there’s no damage to them, no debris in them, that the caps aren’t missing,” he said. “They should be doing that on a continual basis.”
Glenn Chivers
604-420-9100 GlennChivers@remax.net ChiversBell.ca
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