Exactly how much overlap is there? Way too much if there's any at all. Whatever happened to dispassionate justice when penalties can be increased because of circumstances not directly related to the severity of the crime? Three local heinous crimes come to mind. One an immigrant who fled the country after stabbing and killing his ex-girlfriend something like 47 times. His motivations appear to be jealousy as well as a third world attitude towards women as being chattels of men. The other crime was the recent engineering graduate from U. of Waterloo who clearly also had a bad attitude regarding gender discussions and or interpretations of gender. He slashed I believe a female Prof and two students, one male and one female. Possibly his foreign background may or may not have been a contributing factor in his violent response to discussions of either sexuality or gender that he deemed offensive. Third and last we learn in today's newspaper that four teenagers thought it would be funny to drop a heavy, steel railroad spike from a bridge over the Grand River onto a 51 year old man fishing in a kayak below. The man's shinbone was broken although the spike just missed his head and likely would have been fatal if it had hit his head either by brain damage or drowning after he fell out of his kayak.
Finally a fourth local crime right here in Elmira. Late night partying, lots of outdoor noise as well as racing of cars not only up and down a residential street but also up and down Church St. west. Oh and drinking also involved by these young people. What offends me the most is the repetitive nature of these late night parties when the adults are off for the weekend camping and the kid is home and invites his idiot friends over. Their misbehaviour also includes doing doughnuts and more in the gravel parking lot beside the Living Waters retail store. That particular idiocy has been caught on camera and yet where are our local cops? Oh right they aren't here in Elmira anymore, thank you very much Regional Council. They were called by a neighbour earlier in the summer and apparently showed up the next day to talk to the homeowners. Other neighbours including myself have collected the kids garbage strewn around neighbours' houses and dumped it on the kids porch which he sure as hell cleaned up before the adults got home. The late night, loud parties continue. Are our police peace keepers or are they waiting for a neighbour to over react to these nasty, sleep reducing provocations at which point the cops will charge the neighbour for breaking some stupid kids nose before he or his buddies kill someone with their drinking and driving?
Apparently terrorism enhanced charges occur with identifiable minorities as victims. Does that mean women only? Muslims only? Senior citizens of both genders? Our authorities to date are going after the U. of Waterloo slasher but not even laying charges yet on the kids here in Elmira at least until after they've injured or killed somebody. Wouldn't a tad of prevention be more suitable to citizens paying for police protection?
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