NEWS 3
Prison violence raises concern
EDUCATION 11
Meet the new secretary-treasurer
FAMILY TIES 15
’Tis the season to have fun FOR THE BEST LOCAL
COVERAGE WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 23, 2016
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
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There’s more at Burnabynow.com
SHOTS FIRED
One man injured By Jeremy Deutsch
jdeutsch@burnabynow.com
GATHERING EVIDENCE: Investigators scour the area for evidence following a shooting Saturday morning in the 7100 block of 14th Avenue in Burnaby.
Burnaby Mounties are investigating a weekend shooting that sent one man to hospital. RCMP were called to the 7100 block of 14th Avenue late Saturday morning after a man was shot near a townhouse complex. He was taken to hospital, but his condition was unknown at press time. On Monday, police were offering few details about the shooting or the victim, adding the investigation is ongoing. A NOW photographer was at the scene Saturday, noting there were about eight police cars in the area, with investigators focusing on a particular townhouse unit. One resident wrote on Twitter that she lives right near the unit and heard six shots fired at 11:30 a.m. None of the information has been confirmed by the police. Saturday’s incident is just one of a number of shootings in Burnaby since the spring. Back in April, police were called out to an area around the 7300 block of Sandborne Avenue when a resident heard shots ringing out.
PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
Continued on page 3
IN THE COURTS
Former bookkeeper denies any wrongdoing By Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
A former school bookkeeper accused of fraud told a B.C. Provincial Court she did not fraudulently deposit cheques from her Burnaby
school or from another Vancouver employer into her personal bank account, and she has no idea how they got there. Jodi Fingarsen, a former bookkeeper at Alpha Secondary School and recep-
tionist at the Altus Group real estate consulting firm in Vancouver, said the first she heard of the cheques or the fraud allegations against her was in a 2012 NOW article about a Burnaby school board civil lawsuit against
her. She said her arrest on criminal charges on July 18, 2012, more than two years after she was fired by the school district, came as a total shock. She acknowledged, af-
had never been aware of them. “I understand what it looks like,” she said during cross examination, “but that is nothing that I did. I do feel stupid. I don’t do that Continued on page 4
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ter copies of the questionable cheques and her personal bank statements were presented in court, that the cheques had been deposited into her accounts at PC Financial, the Bank of Montreal and CIBC but said she