[ShonTron]

It's ex BCRail stock used for the Skeena (Totem Class).

 

[unimaginative2]

Ah interesting. I didn't know. With all this spare classic Canadian stock kicking around since the eastern routes got replaced with the Renaissance cars and the Skeena is apparently using ex-BC rail equipment, why haven't we been seeing increased frequencies on the Canadian? And where have all the extra HEP1 cars gone, other than to the night train to Toronto from Kitchener? (I love that legroom!) Oh, and what would a car from the Skeena be doing in Toronto? Is the Skeena attached to the Canadian?

To continue a theme:

 

[ShonTron]

Wow. It's like all the hapless cops crashing their cars in the Blues Brothers.

They broke my watch!

---

I think the car was deadheaded to Vancouver from Montreal or Moncton.

Yeah, you'd think they could run the Canadian daily (or at least 6 days a week) with the stock freed up from the Ren equipment and the ex-BC Rail stock.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Perhaps this young Black shooting crime thing will pass as they age out of it. Thirty years ago, it was Vietnamnese gangs shooting up Chinatown restaurants. The new supermarket on Dundas just west of Beverly - there used to be restaurants/nightclubs upstairs - there was a machine gunning here of a 'hoodlum' and his girlfriend. I wish I could remember his name - he was notorious and revelled in his reputation.

Problem is, these are, by and large, Canadian born kids of those that immigrated to Canada from the Caribbean thirty or more years ago that are causing the ruckus. If you're a 17 year old punk causing trouble, you were born in 1992, meaning you're likely a Second Generation Canuck. At what point should we expect this group to grow out of it and to assimilate into the Canadian mosaic? For whatever reason this demographic has found itself stuck in a rut, while our other immigrant groups, from the Chinese and Africans to the South Asians and pretty much everyone else has within one generation, found relative success in Canada.

 

[lordmandeep]

We've got poor Sikhs, poor Africans, poor Asians, etc, etc. but they're not shooting up the town. So, what's going on here? If it's not family breakdown, what is it?

its simple, other immigrant groups do smart crimes to get rich...

Like pirating DVDs and selling illegal counterfeits. lol

 

[unimaginative2]

Every day this guy remains on the lam (I really enjoyed the opportunity to use that phrase) is encouragement to other potential shooters. This guy clearly committed this brazen crime because he doesn't think he'll get caught. Just like the guy who stabbed the kid on the OC Transpo bus: he was overheard saying "They'll never catch me. I could be anybody." Fortunately the stabber was caught, apparently by random fluke. Unfortunately, we don't even have a name on this shooter despite a clear video, hundreds of witnesses, and the fact that he is almost certainly already known to police. Not a very positive deterrent effect. That's what people who advocate all these tough sentences don't understand. We could make the minimum sentence drawing and quartering for all these crimes, but it's not going to be a deterrent if people don't think they're going to get caught.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

We could make the minimum sentence drawing and quartering for all these crimes, but it's not going to be a deterrent if people don't think they're going to get caught.

But it would, at the very least, stop them from reoffending...

(this would be a good place for the old *evil* emoticon)

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

What unimaginative said about the Ottawa stabber - "I could be anybody" is just how utterly powerless these individuals are - and literally the opposite of how they've described themselves. Perhaps violence is their misguided perception of what empowerment stands for?

AoD

 

[Tewder]

Wouldn't we all resort to violence/crime to get what we want if we thought we could? It would be the 'wild west' again. The thing that stops us, however, is our understanding that crime and violence are simply 'wrong', which is a shared understanding/belief system that is imposed on us culturally by our leaders, community institutions and family etc. My fear in this particular issue is that this is not being done in the community in question: A) because the community is in denial or unwilling to acknowledge the problem to start with. B) because a break-down of the essential family unit. C) because of the aggrandizement of drug use and gangsta culture to fuel a sense of marginalisation and d) rationalizations for bad behavior based on poverty, inequity and racism etc which can tend to muddy the waters.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Wouldn't we all resort to violence/crime to get what we want if we thought we could? It would be the 'wild west' again. The thing that stops us, however, is our understanding that crime and violence are simply 'wrong', which is a shared understanding/belief system that is imposed on us culturally by our leaders, community institutions and family etc. My fear in this particular issue is that this is not being done in the community in question: A) because the community is in denial or unwilling to acknowledge the problem to start with. B) because a break-down of the essential family unit. C) because of the aggrandizement of drug use and gangsta culture to fuel a sense of marginalisation and d) rationalizations for bad behavior based on poverty, inequity and racism etc which can tend to muddy the waters

I think we also won't resort to violence because a) we know the consequences, b) we have access to alternative means and c) violence isn't "easy". Why would we use violence when we hold a job, have a life to lose and is likely to get whatever we wanted (consumer level wants) at the end of the day? I think the sense that things can be "better" is missing for these individiuals at a very early age.

AoD

 

[Admiral Beez]

Well, perhaps they should. The odds of being murdered or attacked on a Greyhound bus are not as remote as one might think.

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/West/10/01/bus.ax.ap/
A transient was booked on suspicion of murder Tuesday for allegedly slashing the throat of a Greyhound bus driver with a pair of scissors, causing a crash that killed two passengers.

http://www.injuryhelpline.com/index....nd+bus&id=3856
A Dallas-bound Greyhound bus traveling through eastern Arkansas on Interstate 40 careened into marshy woods off of the interstate when an allegedly delusional passenger seized control of the steering wheel from the driver.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/NEWS/n1554.cfm
Six people were killed and dozens of others injured after a passenger on a Greyhound bus stabbed the bus driver, causing the bus to wreck and flip on Interstate 24

http://www.justachat.com/forum/archi...php/t-356.html
An Atlanta man has been charged with stabbing three people in a fight over the use of a toilet on a Greyhound bus and was being held without bail Monday, police said.

Another attack today on a Greyhound bus. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090127.wbusattack0127/BNStory/National/home

 

[Tewder]

I think we also won't resort to violence because a) we know the consequences, b) we have access to alternative means and c) violence isn't "easy". Why would we use violence when we hold a job, have a life to lose and is likely to get whatever we wanted (consumer level wants) at the end of the day? I think the sense that things can be "better" is missing for these individiuals at a very early age.

AoD

Except as mentioned before the risk and consequences are perceived as remote ("They'll never catch me..."), and whereas violence isn't easy, good grades/education/a 9to5 job at minimum wage and generally struggling to better yourself the hard way isn't easy either, nor cool.

 

[MisterF]

^True. The thing is, consequences are still perceived as remote even if sentences are made tougher precisely because of the "they'll never catch me" attitude.

 

[Tewder]

I don't think AoD's thoughts are wrong. I think they're all part of the puzzle. It's a complicated issue, which makes it all the more difficult to tackle.

 

[Long Island Mike]

TTC Shooting at Osgoode-Interesting!

Everyone: I found this info on this shooting interesting-after hearing that in NYC transit crime continues to fall with one notable exception: people snatching GADGETS like IPods,BlackBerries and cell phones of all types.

A shooting-especially on the TTC at a so-called "Safe Downtown Station" is definitely something to notice...LI MIKE