Foo - This is so disgusting.

What the hell is this city coming to?


By Beth Johnston
The Daily News

CRIME - The teenage boy stepped in front of Wayne Corcoran and asked how he was doing, then reached out and stabbed him twice in the right shoulder.

"It all happened in a split second - he hit me, I turned, he hit me again, I felt a warm gush, I said, 'You f--king stabbed me' - then he ran away," the 40-year-old Supreme Court clerk said yesterday.

All Corcoran wanted to do was make it to his weekly pickup hockey game at the Halifax Forum at 5:30 p.m. Monday. And he thought his biggest challenges were the first winter storm and traffic gridlock his bus got stuck in.

He decided to hop off and, carrying his hockey equipment, walk up Gottingen Street, when four young men started pelting his back with snowballs.

"I said, 'Look, you little punks, do you want to eat my hockey stick?'" Corcoran said from his hospital bed yesterday.

Three of the youths lunged at him, so he dropped his bag and swung his stick.

He walked on for about 15 minutes, until another youth confronted him near the corner of North and Maynard.

After he was stabbed, he approached drivers in two different cars stuck in traffic, neither of whom would help him.

So he trudged - legs weakening, through ice and snow, with blood pooling inside the waist of his tucked-in shirt - to the rink, where an ambulance was called.

"When (police) cut my shirt off, it was thick with clotted blood ... oh man, I lost a lot," he said.

"I felt a little helpless, walking down the street, but I was angry, I think my anger got the better of me. Adrenaline is a bizarre thing."

Corcoran, a justice of the peace, spent the first 34 years of his life in Ottawa, where it never crossed his mind that he would get hurt walking home.

"But here, you hear it all the time ... about some youth stabbing somebody or some group robbing somebody. They're cowards. If it's not three- or six-on-one, they're attacking people from behind."

He suggests the solution to violent crime is to revamp the Youth Criminal Justice Act.


"They've got to take a serious look at this. At 15, you should be an adult, you know what you're doing when you stab somebody."

Corcoran is expecting to get home from hospital today, and looks forward to playing hockey again.

He feels lucky his hockey bag was over his left shoulder.

"This little wound could have killed me."

It may not mean much to people who aren't from here, since you wouldn't know the city, but Halifax is usually such a calm city. Youth violence, muggings, random stabbings and what not are becoming so common here it makes me sick to my stomach. A year ago this past spring there was a month or so where something like 14 people were jumped by one group of 12-16 year old kids over the span of a month.

I think it's obvious that our "youth criminal justice act" and these pathetic slaps on the wrist just aren't cutting it any more.

A 15 year old is fully goddamn aware that stabbing someone is against the law, and they understand the consequence of their actions, thus they should be tried as adults, and brought up on attempted murder charges.

Even in the community I live in 20-30minutes outside of the downtown part of the city (of which maybe 100-200,000 live) I fear for my safety. In the past six months I've heard of many cases of people being jumped by kids who are not even out of grade school, many of them were my friends. Just behind our local gym/skate-rink/library type thing on halloween this guy was walking, minding his own business when a group of 30+ high school kids surrounded him and collectively beat him to the point he had to be hospitalized.

This sort of thing infuriates me like nothing else.

I know this isn't P&R but I'd bet CCW would fix that city up really quick.

Ccw?

Carrying concealed weapon?

I just think it's sad what the worlds coming to, so much hate and so many ridiculous reasons for hurting people. It's just sad.

Parents need to teach their kids how to love their fellow man, and treat life with respect. Geeze.

I think there are a tonne of things we can relate this to, poor parenting, poor eduction, teachers giving up on them, no real role models, no community programs to keep them occupied.

I think these are things that should be focused on for the future, but we can't excuse what is happening now, these kids still know it's wrong and still need to be punished.

So I guess extreme gun laws really don't make a place safer.

Not really. If people want to cause harm, they'll find a way. Even if all they have is their fists.

i hate random stuff like that too.

one of the worst things i ever heard on this forum (and it sticks with me all the time) was the story about this guy (i believe he's a BF member too) who was riding down a bike path and saw a group of guys. he kept going and one of them took a swing with a baseball bat at his head!!

completely random, completely heartless. the guy could easily have died only for the amusment of others. sick sick sick sick.

So I guess extreme gun laws really don't make a place safer.
Only from gun-related offenses. What this means is that we need more extreme knife laws!

That is absolutely tragic. My one experience with Halifax was about ten years ago when I rode up from South Carolina on my motorcycle and spent three days there. We happened to be there during the 'Busker'(sp) festival and it was great. In three days we saw thousands of people enjoying themselves but we never saw anyone drunk. We also saw about a half dozen cops during the whole stay. It was like the US during the fifties. Nicest, most polite people I have ever encountered.

As for the event itself, and at the risk of sounding simplistic, I do think there is a breakdown in values, and in particular, family values.

Not really. If people want to cause harm, they'll find a way. Even if all they have is their fists.

exactly. you can use anything or nothing at all. hell, i could carry a lamp down the street and beat the crap out of someone with it. it's the intent that's the problem, not the weapon.

exactly. you can use anything or nothing at all. hell, i could carry a lamp down the street and beat the crap out of someone with it. it's the intent that's the problem, not the weapon.

That kind of behaviour is a lot less likely when there's one in thirty odds that the intended victim is packing heat.

Regardless, it's no secret that all of society as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket. I, for one, am ashamed to be of the same species as these twirps.

And for the record, I do wish that there was more mandatory training as well as annual skill and psychological assessments as a prerequisite for concealed carry permits. I'm not one of those "everyone should carry" people.

Is there a meth problem in Halifax? Seems bizarre that this problem just sprung up overnight w/o a root cause.

Simple solution

Bring back flogging

Pffft... all we have to do now is ban baseball bats, sticks, and gathering in groups. Problem solved!

It's the "B...b..b..but look at what happened at Columbine!" people that make me sick. Two guys run around a school and kill what...8 to 10 other kids with guns? Imagine that all guns and knives were banned. They would have used metal poles or baseball bats instead. Let me tell you something...you may or may not survive a gunshot wound...but you definately won't live if someone caves in your skull with a bat.



so, you believe the other school children, as well as the teachers, principal, janitors, teaching assistants, etc. should have been packing heat? that way columbine would never have happened?

If there is it stays pretty well underground (the meth problem)

Honestly, most of the muggings that happen are kids my age or younger (under 19) most are still in High school and sometimes in Junior high.

I don't really want to get into race politics on this, because it's not about that at all (though many of the highly ignorant people in the city would argue otherwise), but Halifax (I find) is very very segregated economically. There are very few mixed neighbourhoods inside the city, it is either really really wealthy neighbourhoods which have middle-upper class families, and volvos and BMWs, as well as students. Or there are the types of places you don't want to walk at night, poor, abandoned buildings all over the places, lots of crime, violence etc.

The youth in those areas just don't have anything to do, the schools in that area are deplorable, I know someone who substitute teaches and had to go to the junior high right in the heart of one of the worst neighbourhoods here and she said she had never, ever seen anything like it. Nothing anyone could say, or do would make the kids listen, they were threatening the teachers, beating other kids up, bringing weapons to school and so on. If you tried to call the parents, they wouldn't care or do anything about it, the problems we are seeing are very deep rooted, but no doubt have a lot to do with the way these kids are treated (or not treated) in school.

Like I said I walk down the street, anyone I see over 20 I don't really have much fear of, but a group of 15/16 year old kids who look like they have nothing to do- I get scared because typically, that has what it has been.

Get this,

I my mother got an email this morning from a co-worker who works in the same mall as her (both realtors, work in those little mall booths):


Please take a minute to read,send to all the people you care about and be careful out there!
Today December 6,2006 one of the ladies that my wife works with at Scotia bank told her that her husband was at Dartmouth Superstore at 1:00 p.m. today picking up a few groceries during his lunch hour. He is a sales manager for one of the local car dealerships.
He approached his vehicle by the Access Nova Scotia entrance pressed his remote keyless button on his keys,opened the back door and was struck from behind by two assailants. He fell to the ground and was repeately kicked in the chest. Somebody heard the commotion and the two assailants fled. The police were called,he was checked over by a doctor,sadated and driven home by a friend in his own vehicle.He is a father to two small girls who will require time to heal from his injuries and his trust in his fellow man.

We take our everyday lives for granted and drop our guard,this guy could have been knifed and left for dead,this occured in early afternoon,and could have happened to any one of us or to someone we love,lets be careful and please pass this on!
-K.

This wasn't even in the city, this is our local grocery store maybe 5 or 10 minutes from my house, I can practically see it, and it's sitting in the middle of the burbs. 2 PM in the afternoon, broad daylight, tonnes of people around and it happens, nothing stolen, no suspects- B.S.

LOL! That's really funny...know why?

England banned all firearms...so criminals started using knives to rob/kill people with. Recently, they banned ALL knives that have any other purpose than cutting your food.

Now, do a google search on the recent crime wave in England where criminals are using baseball bats and sticks (no...i'm NOT kidding)

You see...THIS is the main fault of liberal countries that think that they can solve all violent crime by simply making guns illegal....the criminals will simply change tactics. Since they don't have guns, they now roam around in PACKS in order to subdue their victims with overwhelming force...and the victim has no viable means to protect him/herself because guns are banned.

When will the stupid people that want to ban all firearms realize that it just does NOT work.

It's the "B...b..b..but look at what happened at Columbine!" people that make me sick. Two guys run around a school and kill what...8 to 10 other kids with guns? Imagine that all guns and knives were banned. They would have used metal poles or baseball bats instead. Let me tell you something...you may or may not survive a gunshot wound...but you definately won't live if someone caves in your skull with a bat.

There are no mass-shooting rampages that go on, like the Democrats and other liberal groups would like you to beleive. If everyone DID have a gun, anyone who started trying to shoot up a crowd of people would die before he got off the third shot because somone would pull their own weapon and give him a few more orifices to bleed out from.
What a stupid argument.

so, you believe the other school children, as well as the teachers, principal, janitors, teaching assistants, etc. should have been packing heat? that way columbine would never have happened?

I don't know that anyone should have been packing heat, but there was no good excuse for 13 students and teachers dying. The one jackass had an obviously double barreled shotgun, and neither of them were quick reloading. About 10 or 12 years ago there was a different school shooting. A 14 year old Boyscout took 2 to the gut, then disarmed the shooter and beat the ever loving **** out of him. He survived and was given several awards as I recall. If schools would teach that rather than turning the lights out and locking the easily kicked down doors, school shootings would be far less of an issue.

Regardless, it's no secret that all of society as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket.

That mantra has been repeated since prehistoric times. It's no more true now than ever. Humans have always had a mix of violent and non-violent traits.

LOL! That's really funny...know why?

England banned all firearms...so criminals started using knives to rob/kill people with. Recently, they banned ALL knives that have any other purpose than cutting your food.

Now, do a google search on the recent crime wave in England where criminals are using baseball bats and sticks (no...i'm NOT kidding)

You see...THIS is the main fault of liberal countries that think that they can solve all violent crime by simply making guns illegal....the criminals will simply change tactics. Since they don't have guns, they now roam around in PACKS in order to subdue their victims with overwhelming force...and the victim has no viable means to protect him/herself because guns are banned.

When will the stupid people that want to ban all firearms realize that it just does NOT work.

It's the "B...b..b..but look at what happened at Columbine!" people that make me sick. Two guys run around a school and kill what...8 to 10 other kids with guns? Imagine that all guns and knives were banned. They would have used metal poles or baseball bats instead. Let me tell you something...you may or may not survive a gunshot wound...but you definately won't live if someone caves in your skull with a bat.

There are no mass-shooting rampages that go on, like the Democrats and other liberal groups would like you to beleive. If everyone DID have a gun, anyone who started trying to shoot up a crowd of people would die before he got off the third shot because somone would pull their own weapon and give him a few more orifices to bleed out from.
Take it to P&R.

Ban all baseball bats and blunt club like instruments.

I think there are a tonne of things we can relate this to, poor parenting, poor eduction, teachers giving up on them, no real role models, no community programs to keep them occupied.

.

"poor parenting, poor education, teachers giving up on them, no real role models, no community programs to keep them occupied"; We have always had these things - and worse. Of course, we have also always had crime, but today we see more violent crime by youths.

What we did not always have is video games that glorify killing. When we allow young impressionable minds to spend hours playing video games that reward the player for the number of people he/she kills, you have to expect bad results when they snap out of the video game delirium. Hours and hours of graphic killing - mostly senseless use of an arsenal of weapons stacked up onto more and more horribly detailed images.

You have to watch what you put in your head, especially when you are young. When a person entertains themselves for hours and sometimes days with that kind of mind numbing violence, the mind molding that goes on is naturally demented and dangerous.

So how do we explain that the crime rate per capita was way higher in the old west during gold rush times? No TV.
Sometimes I think being a vigilante would be a good thing. :)
Steven

You see...THIS is the main fault of liberal countries that think that they can solve all violent crime by simply making guns illegal....the criminals will simply change tactics. Since they don't have guns, they now roam around in PACKS in order to subdue their victims with overwhelming force...and the victim has no viable means to protect him/herself because guns are banned.


Gang violence, especially swarmings, are not newly related to gun laws. Swarmings were one of the top crimes when I was in highschool over 20 years ago. I've been swarmed myself, 2 times. Laws change, the crimes evolve, but not by leaps and bounds. Swarmings occur because of a power struggle. Regardless of the weapon they have or don't have access to.

That said, the weapon of choice where I grew up was a knife. Just a daily fact of life. Yes it was a very poor neighbourhood. The drugs we were avoiding, pot, acid, X was coming up, crack and oh well I forget the other one. I don't know about you guys, but I don't see a big difference in todays world, except how the media brings it to the limelight.

Gang violence, especially swarmings, are not newly related to gun laws. Swarmings were one of the top crimes when I was in highschool over 20 years ago. I've been swarmed myself, 2 times. Laws change, the crimes evolve, but not by leaps and bounds. Swarmings occur because of a power struggle. Regardless of the weapon they have or don't have access to.

That said, the weapon of choice where I grew up was a knife. Just a daily fact of life. Yes it was a very poor neighbourhood. The drugs we were avoiding, pot, acid, X was coming up, crack and oh well I forget the other one. I don't know about you guys, but I don't see a big difference in todays world, except how the media brings it to the limelight.

BTW, What is "swarming"?

As for drugs, I think things ARE worse today than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Today, meth is a problem of course, but perhaps even more prominant is that so many high school kids are getting started on a life of opiate addiction thanks to snorting Oxycontin. I read that some 25% of high school students have tried oxycontin - synthetic opium! That is incredible. I know a number of newly graduated young adults who started snorting oxy in high school and are now full-blown heroin addicts. These are kids from good neighboods and good families.

When I was in high school, nobody was doing heroin - nobody even thought about heroin. Heroin was some kind of dark curse for street sludge slime-balls. You never saw heroin or heard of anybody actually using heroin. It is amazing to me to actually know several families who have children injecting heroin at 17, 18, and 19 years old.

Swarming is just a newish term for being attacked by a group of teenage thugs, usually to rob you.

I think it's a term that's mainly been used in Canada.

Simple solution

Bring back flogging

It isn't the whole solution but it's a just punishment for deliberately causing someone pain or injury.