As the old adage goes, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.”

While the expression does some disservice to statistics, it’s good to recognize they have limitations.

Numbers can be an objective measure of many things — homicides, for example — but it’s wise to remember there are many subjective decisions behind them: someone makes a judgment call to decide if a particular datum belongs in Column “A” or Column “B.”

It’s mainly for this reason that I’ve decided to move my regular updates of homicide statistics in major Canadian cities to the Herald’s crime blog.

Some readers will know it’s something I’ve been doing on Twitter for a long time, but the site’s 140-character limit makes it difficult to properly explain the decisions behind the statistics I’m posting.

Like the various police departments that report the numbers, I make my own assessment about which cases make my list and which don’t. The result has been totals that don’t jibe with the “official” numbers posted by law enforcement agencies. Inevitably, every time I post an update on Twitter, I have to explain the discrepancies in a way that’s tiresome for me, and not particularly enlightening for readers.

My purpose in providing the updates is to give people a snapshot of crime across the country — and that’s all any one statistic is: a snapshot. The number of homicides doesn’t tell the entire story of what’s going on in any particular city, but as the most serious crime there is, there is a certain weight we assign it when considering crime and its impact on public safety.

Because I do these updates to give people one indicator of crime, I’ve decided to exclude fatal shootings by police. Although these cases, by definition, are homicides, they (usually) aren’t considered criminal killings resulting in murder or manslaughter charges. If and when one does, I’ll include it.

Another reason I exclude fatal officer-involved shootings is to maintain consistent comparisons between cities. Some jurisdictions include officer-involved shootings, some don’t. Some have changed their policy year to year.

A further inconsistency I attempt to address is late-reporting homicides. When police departments retroactively declare a case a homicide, they have different ways of reporting it: some will assign the case to the year the death took place; some will assign it to the current year. For consistency’s sake, I exclude late-reported cases from my count.

With the luxury of space the blog affords me, I will explain the difference between “official” and “adjusted” numbers when these discrepancies arise.

In Edmonton’s case, my “adjusted” number of 31 is four lower than the “official” caseload of 35 because I don’t include two officer-involved shootings and two late-reporting cases from 2010.

(To show you how tricky things can be, I think there’s a valid reason to increase Edmonton’s adjusted total to 32 by including the death of Anna Fedorio at an Edmonton seniors’ home in August. Fedorio’s fire death was the accidental result of a neighbour’s suicide using a homemade explosive. It could be argued that had Fedorio’s neighbour lived, he could have been charged with manslaughter. A similar Calgary case in 1994, when a man accidentally poisoned his neighbour with carbon monoxide fumes while killing himself in a running car, was classified as a murder-suicide, so I think there’s a precedent.)

Montreal’s total has been adjusted to exclude a case from 1999 that was formally classified as a homicide this year.

With those qualifiers in mind, here are the latest statistics, as of today:

Toronto: 32

Edmonton: 31 (adjusted) / 35 (official)

Winnipeg: 26

Metro Vancouver: 22

Montreal: 22 (adjusted) / 23 (official)

Metro Halifax: 9

Regina: 5

Saskatoon: 3

Calgary: 3

A man suffering from severe burns found last Thursday near a torched SUV in a northwest Calgary alley is the city’s fourth homicide of 2011. It’s Calgary’s first homicide since June, when intruders shot and killed a man during a home invasion in Marlborough.

Edmonton, meanwhile, recorded another homicide over the weekend, adding to an already grim toll in that city.

As useful and informative as people find these statistics, it’s important to note (as I have in a previous post) that they are a mere snapshot of crime. Raw numbers are of some use, but on their own, they don’t tell us why  something is happening. Calling the provincial capital “Deadmonton,” as some have, doesn’t enlighten anyone.

There are no pat answers about what’s happening in Edmonton. What can safely be said, however, is that it seems like an anomaly — just as Calgary’s four homicides are an unusually low number for this city.

As it is, using year-to-year statistics can be a mug’s game. Crime trends evolve over a period of several years. What those long-term statistics show — and this is equally true if you’re in Calgary or Edmonton — is the majority of homicides happen between people who know each other. Historically, for example, about a quarter of all homicides are domestic cases.

What’s happening in Edmonton doesn’t appear to be a departure from those long-term trends: the cases involve people who know each other — relatives, friends, or criminal associates. That doesn’t mean police shouldn’t be concerned and shouldn’t be looking at additional ways to tackle domestic violence, poverty and addictions, which are common threads that run through many of the cases. But on the other hand, the average Edmontonian shouldn’t feel any more vulnerable about being a victim of homicide now than they did before. It would be different if Edmonton was in the throes of a gang war like Calgary was a few years ago, when predictions of an innocent person being killed came tragically true in 2009.

It’s worthwhile to bear some of those qualifiers in mind when looking at the latest numbers:

Toronto: 34

Edmonton: 32 (adjusted) / 36 (official)*

Winnipeg: 30

Montreal: 25 (adjusted) / 26 (official)**

Metro Vancouver: 24

Metro Halifax: 9

Regina: 6

Calgary: 4

Saskatoon: 3

*Adjusted number doesn’t include two fatal officer-involved shootings and two late-reporting homicide cases from 2010.

**Adjusted number doesn’t include a missing person case from 1999 that was formally classified as a homicide this year.

With the recent decision by Edmonton police to rule the death of a woman in an explosion and fire at a seniors home a homicide, Edmonton has now equalled its grim record of 39 homicides set in 2005.

(I’d mused earlier that Anna Fedorio’s death as a result of an apparent suicide by a neighbour likely fit the definition of homicide, but I don’t take any satisfaction in being right. The case is tragic all around.)

In and of themselves, raw homicide numbers — as opposed to expressing homicide as a rate per 100,000 population — are not meant to be definitive. Let’s also bear in mind that officials in Edmonton have chosen to include four homicides for their own statistical/bureaucratic reasons, which further inflate its total compared to other cities. That’s why I created “official” and “adjusted” numbers, which I previously explained in this post.

It’s ironic and perhaps counter-intuitive to provide homicide statistics as an indicator of public safety and then offer a bunch of qualifiers. But any statistic presented without context isn’t very useful and potentially misleading.

So here’s the larger picture: despite the grim homicide numbers, good things ARE happening in Edmonton. I spoke with an analyst at the Edmonton Police Service today, who told me overall crime in the first nine months of 2011 is down 19.5 per cent over the same time period in 2010: violent crime decreased 5 per cent; property crime decreased 23.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, Calgary has recorded its sixth homicide of 2011, with the shooting death of a man outside a Beltline bar early Sunday. Overall crime in Calgary is down, too, but only six homicides at this point in the year is an aberration — a welcome one, as it turns out.

All things to ponder while looking at the latest numbers from across the country:

Toronto: 36

Edmonton: 35 (adjusted) / 39 (official)*

Winnipeg: 32

Montreal: 27 (adjusted) / 28 (official)**

Metro Vancouver: 27

Metro Halifax: 9

Regina: 6

Calgary: 6

Saskatoon: 3

*Adjusted number doesn’t include two fatal officer-involved shootings and two late-reporting homicide cases from 2010.

**Adjusted number doesn’t include a missing person case from 1999 that was formally classified as a homicide this year.

Calgary police have revealed that an elderly man who died earlier this year was the victim of a homicide. Wai Ho Tam, 79, died in March, months after he was assaulted while out for a walk on July 14, 2010.

Although Tam died this year, police have recorded the case as a 2010 homicide because he sustained the injuries allegedly responsible for his death during the assault last year. The case brings the number of homicides in Calgary during 2010 to 17.

Here are latest homicide statistics for 2011 from across the country:

Edmonton: 39 (adjusted) / 43 (official)*

Toronto: 39

Winnipeg: 32

Montreal: 28 (adjusted) / 29 (official)**

Metro Vancouver: 28

Metro Halifax: 9

Regina: 6

Calgary: 6

Saskatoon: 3

*Adjusted number doesn’t include two fatal officer-involved shootings and two late-reporting homicide cases from 2010.

**Adjusted number doesn’t include a missing person case from 1999 that was formally classified as a homicide this year.

(Click here for an earlier post with a detailed explanation of my rationale for the “adjusted” statistics.)

When police resort to deadly force and kill someone while responding to a call, it’s not only a tragedy for those involved, it’s a matter of public interest: we entrust police with the duty to protect us. When it results in the death of a citizen — as it did earlier this week when Calgary police answering a domestic disturbance call shot a 32-year-old man carrying an axe — police must justify their actions in the eyes of the public they serve.

As a result, the death of 32-year-old Peter Spiewak at his family’s home on Citadel Peak Circle N.W. will be the subject of intense investigation and scrutiny on a number of fronts. The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, a provincial agency that investigates events involving police that result in death or serious injury, has already started its probe. Provincial legislation also mandates that a fatality inquiry examining the circumstance of Spiewak’s death be held at some point.

The investigations of Spiewak’s death will be painstaking and likely take several months. In the meantime, public debate over the incident has already begun. While it’s healthy to have a public conversation about such a grave issue, it’s important that it’s a factual one. Unfortunately, few law enforcement-related topics are as clouded by misinformation as police shootings. To have an intelligent discussion on the issue, we need to dispense with these myths:

Police should “shoot to wound” and aim for arms or legs. Only in Hollywood cop movies and TV crime dramas are police officers able to disarm someone by shooting the gun out of their hand from vast distances. In real life, hitting a moving target while contending with obstacles, poor lighting or innocent people nearby is difficult — even for those trained with firearms. That’s why police are trained to aim for “centre mass,” (or the torso, in plain English): it’s the biggest target. It’s also home to many vital organs, which means opening fire on a suspect will likely result in death. That assumption is built into police training, which calls firearm use “deadly force.” An officer who draws, let alone fires, his or her sidearm does so in the belief a situation has escalated to the point they may have to kill the suspect to protect themselves or others.

Using a gun against someone armed with a knife or other weapon is excessive force. Police are trained to counter deadly force with deadly force. Although knives and other edged implements may not be capable of killing at a distance like guns, they are nevertheless deadly. It should be obvious, but if you need further proof, knives are the most commonly used weapon in Calgary homicides committed since 1992. Using less-lethal methods to stop a knife-wielding suspect could result in the person getting close enough to a victim or officer to kill or inflict serious injury. Tasers, for example, use prongs fired at the suspect to deliver an incapacitating electrical charge when they come in contact with the skin. But if a Taser misses or fails to get through a suspect’s clothing (as can happen), an officer would have precious little time for alternatives.

Police shouldn’t have fired (insert number here) shots. This assumes there’s an explicit rule governing how many shots police should fire in a deadly situation. In reality, police are trained to fire as many shots as necessary to stop the danger. Every situation is different. There may be cases when police fire too many shots — but determining that doesn’t rest on exceeding an arbitrary number.

At this early stage, it’s impossible to say if police were justified in shooting Spiewak. What can be safely said at this point, however, is the presence of a suspect armed with a deadly weapon is a situation where a properly trained officer’s response would be to draw his or her service pistol. It’s far less clear what Spiewak did with the axe, and if it warranted the officers opening fire. As ASIRT executive director Clifton Purvis said Friday, answering that question “is the nub of our investigation.”

With the release of its Homicide in Canada, 2010 report today, Statistics Canada has compiled information on longer-term trends in homicide rates across the country.  (You can read the entire StatsCan document below.)

The news isn’t as grim as it often appears — including in places like Edmonton, which is in the middle of a record year for homicides.

Nationally, the homicide rate was 1.62 per 100,000 in 2010, the lowest it has been since 1966. While skeptics and ideologues argue declining crime statistics are a mirage because people are no longer reporting crime, it’s safe to say homicides are still coming to the attention to the police.

In 2010, homicide rates in Calgary and Edmonton declined compared to the previous 10-year average. Winnipeg had the highest homicide rate among Canada’s 10 largest metropolitan areas, with 2.8 per 100,000.

In comparison, in the U.S. — lauded by many of those same ideologues for its “tough on crime” approach, the homicide rate is approximately 4.75 per 100,000. The U.S. homicide rate is the product of many factors  — the proliferation of handguns immediately springs to mind — and in and of themselves, the numbers aren’t a repudiation of the American justice system. But the disparity between the U.S. and Canada shows, on the whole, we live in a much safer society and raises fair questions about whether we need to pursue the same kinds of p9licies.

In recent months, I’ve been posting running homicide statistics from cities across Canada — first on Twitter, and later on this blog. My intent is to provide a snapshot, nothing more. Admittedly, it’s an exercise with little context and I’ve had my own qualms about it: annual spikes can provide a skewed picture, as Edmonton’s experience has sadly demonstrated. As well, reporting the number of homicides doesn’t provide as complete an accounting as the homicide rate, which adjusts for population.

The StatsCan report provides an opportunity to examine the municipal numbers in some greater depth. In addition to expressing homicide as a per-capita rate, the StatsCan numbers are different from the updates I usually provide because they’re broken down by “census metropolitan area.” In Calgary’s case, this means StatsCan includes homicides in surrounding communities policed by the RCMP, such as Airdrie, Cochrane and Chestermere.

Here’s the entire report:

The killing of a woman inside a home in Whitehorn on Friday is Calgary’s eighth homicide of 2011.

Authorities haven’t released the woman’s name pending the outcome of an autopsy, but investigators have charged her common-law husband, Gregory Sanders Houle, with second-degree murder.

In a year already exceptional due to the low number of killings in the city, another oddity: the case is the first domestic homicide of 2010. Historically, about 25 per cent of Calgary’s homicides involve spouses, domestic partners or other family members, which is in keeping with national trends.

Domestic violence remains a significant problem in Calgary, despite the low number of deadly outcomes: Calgary police respond to more than 16,000 domestic violence complaints every year.

Homicide statistics from across the country are below. If you’re looking for more long-term trends or interested in per-capita homicide stats, flip through a Statistics Canada report on homicide rates I embedded in a previous blog post. Otherwise, here are the latest raw numbers:

Toronto: 41

Edmonton: 39 (adjusted) / 43 (official)*

Winnipeg: 34

Metro Vancouver: 32

Montreal: 30 (adjusted) / 31 (official)**

Metro Halifax: 9

Calgary: 8

Regina: 6

Saskatoon: 4

*Adjusted number doesn’t include two fatal officer-involved shootings and two late-reporting homicide cases from 2010.

**Adjusted number doesn’t include a missing person case from 1999 that was formally classified as a homicide this year.

(Click here for an earlier post with a detailed explanation of my rationale for the “adjusted” statistics.)

With no killings between FOB and FK in nearly three years and the biggest case of them all — the 2009 triple murder at Bolsa Restaurant — resulting in at least two convictions, it would be tempting to assume all is quiet on Calgary’s gang front. That assumption would be wrong.

As detailed in a recent article, no small amount of effort goes into monitoring the gang members who aren’t either dead or in jail to prevent any further violence. However, we live in a society that values quantifiable results: while it’s easy to tally the number of bad guys who have been arrested, the amount of drugs seized or illegal guns taken off the street, it’s much harder to measure how many murders police may have prevented. It has happened, however, and only continued pressure will keep the violence in check.

But that’s not the only unfinished business for Calgary police: there are at least 20 homicides connected to the gang war which remain unsolved — investigations police have been able to devote more time to, thanks to the relatively low number of homicides recorded in Calgary during 2011.

Prior to the Bolsa massacre, when innocent restaurant patron Keni Su’a was slaughtered trying to flee the eatery, it was common for Calgarians to be indifferent to the death toll as long as gangsters kept killing each other. Bolsa exposed the fundamental flaw in that indifference: allow criminals with little regard for human life to run loose and it’s only a matter of time before an innocent is hurt or killed.

The public may not be clamouring for police to solve the murders of 20 people who were either gangsters or people who made the poor choice of hanging out with criminals, but Bolsa demonstrated why all Calgarians have a vested interest in getting their killers off the street.

For homicide investigators, an unsolved case is a case that needs solving — no matter if the victim was a criminal himself.

“We are looking at cold case homicides, and included in that is, of course, are all the organized crime ones,” Staff Sgt. Grant Miller of the homicide unit said recently.

“We’re motivated to solve them.”

We live in a country where the rule of law is supreme, and it dictates justice must be available to all — justice that’s meted out in a courtroom, not at the end of the barrel of a gun.

(UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this item, the National Post reported police have identified Joe Blow as a 25-year-old man who doesn’t have a driver’s licence. So far, no charges against him — though police have charged his mommy, who allegedly owns the motorcycle, with provincial motor vehicle offences.)

A YouTube user dubbing himself “Joe Blow” likely thought he was being cool when he uploaded a two-minute video of himself speeding through traffic at up to 300 km/h on a Vancouver Island highway.

Instead, he’s made himself an unwitting poster boy for traffic enforcement. I’d argue he’s given the folks who want people to sign the organ-donor waiver on the back of their health cards a wonderful PR opportunity as well.

No doubt Joe Blow fancies himself a highly-skilled rider — and as he threads the needle between lanes of traffic, it’s tempting to think what he lacks in brains he may possess in racing talent. But here’s the trouble: he’s not doing this in the controlled environment of a track. He’s instead drawn countless unsuspecting drivers into his dangerous game, where a simple lane change would spell certain death for Joe Blow and untold carnage for any motorist unlucky enough to be around him. No amount of shoulder-checking is going to spot a motorcycle coming up behind you at over 200 km/h.

Sgt. Colin Foster of the Calgary police traffic section — a motorcycle enthusiast himself — watched the video, and concedes Joe Blow has “mad skill.” But he also thinks Joe Blow is a menace.

“If the guy’s doing 300 km/h, that’s about 83 metres a second. He won’t be able to react to anything in front of him,” Foster says.

“At those speeds, you’re going to end up a smear on the road.”

Is Joe Blow an extreme case? Yes. But what everyday lead-footed drivers who complain about traffic enforcement rarely seem to realize is police aren’t exaggerating when they say speed kills. In a four-year study of collision data between 2004 and 2008 prepared by Alberta Transportation, police listed excessive speed as a factor in just under 30 per cent of fatal collisions. In 2010 (the most recent year with complete statistics) Alberta Transportation reported 344 people killed in collisions throughout the province. If 2010 was like the previous years — and there’s no reason to believe it wasn’t — that means approximately 100 of those deaths were due to excessive speed.

Anyone who believes police should “focus on the real criminals” instead of doing traffic enforcement, consider this: in 2010, there were 84 homicides in Alberta. Motorists like Joe Blow are responsible for killing more Albertans — be it themselves or others — than violent criminals.

Let’s hope police in B.C. throw the book at this clown.

Here’s the video:

In several years of reporting on crime, the funeral for Terrie Ann Dauphinais ranks among the most surreal and disturbing things I’ve seen.

Ten years ago today, someone killed Terrie, 24, in her home on Citadel Peak Circle N.W. The house bore no signs of forced entry, leading investigators to believe from the beginning Terrie knew her killer. Her three young children — four years old, two years old and eight months old — were locked inside their bedrooms for several hours as their mother lay dead just inside the front door.

Despite the seemingly narrow pool of suspects, the case remains unsolved.

Terrie’s estranged husband, Ken Dauphinais, was included in the group of potential suspects, with police identifying him at the time as a “person of interest.” (Ken, who now lives in Saskatoon with the couple’s three children, remains someone investigators want to speak to.)

You can imagine, then, the pall of suspicion and tension that hung over Terrie’s memorial service, which was held at a church she and Ken belonged to: the now-defunct Victory Cornerstone Church on Centre Street North.

Terrie’s parents, who had flown in from Ontario, walked out of the church in disgust along with other members of her family. Two homicide detectives stood at the back of the nave, intently watching the entire spectacle — and what a spectacle it was: a modern band cranking out Christian rock while the pastor presided like an old-time revival tent preacher, lifting his arms skyward and loudly proclaiming Terrie was in a better place.

“Terrie, I’m jealous — can we switch places for just a minute? I’d love to see what you see!” he cried at one point.

Believing the dead go on to a greater reward is a cornerstone of Christian faith and a comfort in times of grief, but this was farcical considering the violent way Terrie died — a crime that got scant mention during the service.

Friends eulogized Terrie, who was an active member of the congregation, calling her a “sister in Christ,” and a brief written statement in the memorial leaflet distributed to mourners said the church was “eager to see justice reached in this most tragic of deaths.”

Ten years later, most of people who packed that church have done little or nothing toward that end. They’ve seemingly moved on since the rock band played its last tune that day.

In 2008 and 2009, Terrie’s mother, Sue Martin, held vigils at the murder scene to mark the anniversary. Of all the people who eulogized Terrie at her funeral, only one — ONE — showed up.

I’m mindful people choose to grieve in private or shun the media spotlight, so I’ve asked sources many times over the years if Terrie’s friends in Calgary — people who said they prayed with Terrie and claimed they were there for her as she confided her innermost thoughts — have come forward with information. The candid answer has been “No,” though police have been too diplomatic to put it quite so bluntly in public.

I’m not implying someone has been knowingly harbouring a killer all these years. What I’m saying is homicides are often solved when seemingly insignificant or unrelated pieces of information suddenly become relevant when someone comes forward with a new piece of information that ties everything together. What troubles me, is few of Terrie’s so-called friends have even made the effort to offer up those minutiae in the hope it may turn into something.

“Someone may hold the key piece of the puzzle and not even realize it,” said Insp. Cliff O’Brien of the Calgary police major crimes section — a former homicide detective who investigated Terrie’s murder.

Like all unsolved homicides, the investigation into Terrie’s slaying is never closed — though it’s surely at an impasse. If you have any information about this case, call Calgary police at (403) 266-1234 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

Even in a bloody conflict responsible for killing at least 25 people — some of them innocent bystanders — Dec. 31, 2007 stands out for its violence.

The day started with the killing of veteran FOB Killers (FK) gang member Mark Kim in a downtown alleyway and ended with two FK gunmen firing nearly 20 shots at two rival FOB figures on a residential street in Sandstone. The targets, Matthew Chubak and Tyler MacDonald, weren’t hit, but one of them managed to fire back and wound one of the FK gunmen, Vinh Tung Truong.

A third shooting that afternoon in Forest Lawn has never been solved but is more than likely connected. At about 3:40 p.m., someone fired several shots in the parking lot of the Little Saigon mall at 4909 17th Avenue S.E. When police arrived, all that was left were two shot-up vehicles. Given what happened to Kim earlier that day and what transpired later, it’s a good bet the Forest Lawn shooting is connected.

When Truong, 30, pleaded guilty Monday to shooting at Chubak and MacDonald, the evidence that came out in court briefly opened the door on the world the gangsters live in.

At its most basic, the events of Dec. 31, 2007 embody the swift retribution and casual violence that was common at the height of the gang war. However, more interestingly, the episode offers a rare glimpse of the relationship between FK and one of the B.C. Mainland’s most notorious crime groups at that time, the United Nations gang.

Police in Calgary have acknowledged the ties between FK and the UN for a long time, but the case — along with reporting by the Vancouver Sun’s Kim Bolan, an authoritative chronicler of the Lower Mainland’s gang scene — shows the alliance in action.

Evidence entered in support of Truong’s guilty plea states after he was wounded while shooting at Chubak and MacDonald, he showed up at Vancouver General Hospital seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his left hip area. Truong initially told Vancouver police he was wounded at a rave in Vancouver, but later admitted he was shot in Calgary.

It’s not like gang members to be so forthcoming with police, so why did Truong and his story break down so easily?

An article written by Bolan in 2009 connects the dots: police wiretaps at the time captured UN gang leader Clay Roueche calling a naturopath, seeking off-the-books medical treatment for Truong.

Here are details of voicemails Roueche left for Dr. Jonas LaForge, from Bolan’s article:

“Hey bro, it’s me, ah, it’s a bit of an emergency if you could text me back whatever time you are available tomorrow, I gotta handle something right away, all expenses paid and all that, so call me as you can, OK? Bye,” Roueche said in his first call to the number of Dr. Jonas LaForge on New Year’s Eve, 2007.

An hour later Roueche left a second message for LaForge, indicating his “bro” had been shot.

“Hello. I have a friend here, uh, in town, I need to see you tomorrow, oh, middle abdomen, no exit, uh, that’s all I know.”

Roueche eventually reached LaForge, but not before someone resorted to taking Truong to the hospital — a fateful decision that got authorities involved and gave them grounds to get a blood sample that eventually tied him to the Calgary shooting.

Clay Roueche

With Roueche and several key UN players behind bars, it’s an open question how much of a force the gang remains in B.C.’s underworld. FK has a share of its own members in prison, but at least two — Michael Oduneye and Marcel Lanrdy — appeared headed to the West Coast, where they would remain under community supervision until their sentences expire next year. (Their actual whereabouts aren’t disclosed in parole documents made available to the media.)

Many FOB and FK members have told authorities they want to finish their sentences in other provinces, presumably to get out of the gang life. Given the relationship between FK members and gangsters in the Lower Mainland, one has to wonder about the sincerity of anyone heading to Vancouver.

The long arm of the law is closer to reaching more of the culprits responsible for the violence that killed at least 25 people and endangered countless others during a gang war that raged on Calgary streets between 2002 and 2009.

Tomorrow, lawyers will make sentencing submissions in the case of FOB Killers (FK) gang member Vinh Tung Truong, who was convicted in October  for a shooting that targeted two rivals in revenge for the murder of FK veteran Mark Kim on Dec. 31, 2007.

As that case draws to a conclusion, investigations into a trio of killings that happened at the height of the violence appear to be closing in on suspects.

Last week, police released images of a car believed to be involved in the shooting death of Kevin Anaya in August 2008. Two gunmen shot Anaya, 21, as he got out of his vehicle in front of a friend’s house on Marcombe Drive N.E. Anaya wasn’t a gang member, but knew people on both sides of the conflict. Over the years, sources have told me he was targeted by FOB.

Acura sedan sought in Kevin Anaya’s slaying.

Police followed the development in Anaya’s case with a public appeal to help identify two men linked to the killings of Kevin Ses and Tina Kong in Oct. 2008. Someone shot Ses and Kong, who were both 21, as they ate at the Food In East restaurant on Marlborough Drive N.E. Neither were gang members, but Ses knew people in FK and was friends with Mark Kim. At the height of the gang war, that was enough to mark Ses for death; Kong paid the ultimate price for nothing more than sharing a meal with him.

Investigators haven’t said much about what’s behind this recent progress, other than people have become more comfortable about coming forward as the years pass.

“Over time, people’s circumstances change, which is why we don’t give up on these files,” Staff Sgt. Grant Miller of the homicide unit said in an interview.

No doubt new information from the public helped police realize, four years later, that otherwise innocuous surveillance footage from a nearby convenience store held the images of two men likely involved in the shootings of Kong and Ses.

But it’s also interesting to note both the Anaya and Kong/Ses killings involve people targeted because of their connections to FK — making it more than likely FOB is behind them.

FOB was also responsible for the triple slaying at the Bolsa Restaurant on New Year’s Day 2009 — a fact that emerged during the trials of Real Christian Honorio, Michael Roberto and Nathan Zuccherato, who were each convicted of first-degree murder for shooting FK member Sanjeev Mann, his friend Aaron Bendle and innocent bystander Keni Su’a. (As the linked article states, the convictions are under appeal.)

Prosecutors relied on evidence gathered during Operation Synchronicity, a massive investigation that involved a confidential informant inside FOB and used undercover officers in a so-called “Mr. Big” sting to elicit incriminating statements from an unwitting Honorio.

Did Synchronicity yield evidence that pointed investigators toward the men who killed Anaya, Kong and Ses? Miller says the probe helped in moving those cases forward, but police still need more information before they can lay charges — hence the public appeals in recent days.

“We’re not there yet,” he says.

What’s also interesting is that public appeals, as a tactic, sometimes carry the risk of prompting a suspect to flee or go underground. For whatever reason, investigators decided the potential benefits outweigh that risk. Could it be because the prime suspects are already behind bars? Miller isn’t saying — but with many key members of FOB already in prison for other crimes, it’s something to keep in mind.

New information has given fresh life to the investigation into the killing of a Calgary senior 17 years ago and taken the case in a dramatically different direction.

Someone killed Florence Marie Parkkari in the bedroom of her bungalow at 123 Gloucester Cr. S.W. between 9:15 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1997 and the next morning, when a concerned neighbour found the 64-year-old’s body. A small amount of cash had been stolen from her purse. Her small dog, named Pika, was also hurt by the intruder.

For years, investigators pursued the theory a teenage burglar — possibly working with a young accomplice — got into the house by crawling through a small dog door at the rear of Parkkari’s home.

On Sunday — the 17th anniversary of the crime — Staff Sgt. Colin Chisholm said advances in forensic technology and information that came to light in recent interviews has pointed suspicion at an adult, or adults, who knew Parkkari.

Coming so many years later, the development has re-awakened some powerful emotions for the family, said her cousin, Douglas Parkkari.

“I sort of feel like this is an old wound that was scabbed over and now the scab has been pulled off,” he said.

Parkkari’s case was one of a group of unsolved killings from the 1990s that recently underwent a review by the homicide unit’s unsolved case team. At the time of the killing, crime scene investigators found a partial fingerprint and DNA they believed belonged to the suspect. Homicide detectives ran the fingerprint sample through Canadian and American police databases over the years, but never produced a match.

Chisholm wouldn’t say if investigators now have a match for either sample, but added new technology has given them new significance.

“There have been advances, obviously, in DNA technology and fingerprint technology since 1997,” he said.

With the focus now shifting in a different direction, police are also taking a fresh look at security camera footage they seized from properties in the area.

“We have the (surveillance) footage from then. We’ve retained it,” said Chisholm.

As well, people have recently come forward with new information, Chisholm said — and what they’ve said has put in a different light statements given to police at the time of the killing.

“We’re taking a look at a number of adults who were known to (Parkkari) at the time,” he said.

However, the group of people under suspicion does not include Richard Carlson, a nephew who lived in Parkkari’s house. Carlson, who has since died, was out of town when Parkkari was killed and the new evidence doesn’t implicate him, said Chisholm.

“We’re satisfied that individual is not a viable suspect,” he said.

In the weeks and months following the killing, investigators aggressively pursued the theory a young intruder killed Parkkari — a belief that arose, in part, from the work of an RCMP criminal profiler. Police went as far as checking attendance records from several schools and asking young people in the area to voluntarily submit fingerprint samples to eliminate themselves as suspects.

The new information may render that avenue of inquiry irrelevant, but Chisholm stressed it was never pursued at the expense of other viable theories.

“It (was based on) a profile, but you don’t narrow your focus to that being everything you were looking at,” he said.

Relatives described Parkkari — known as “Marie” to family members — as a “Prairie girl” who was born in Redcliff, outside Medicine Hat. She worked for the Royal Bank for more than 30 years, ending in 1988. Parkkari was also a skilled craftswoman who made Raggedy Anne-style dolls and built doll houses that would be raffled off for Christmas fundraisers held by a local hospital.

“She was, to me, a very special person and had a lot of skills,” said Douglas Parkkari.

jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com

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A judge will decide Thursday on the fate of a man who killed peace officer Rod Lazenby, but the victim’s family is certain there is no outcome that can ease their grief.

“The trial has answered some of our questions and given us more questions. We continue to hope that justice will be served, but we all know it will not relieve our pain,” Lazenby’s sister, Robyn Halbert, said outside court Wednesday.

Trevor Kloschinsky, 49, has admitted he killed Lazenby on Aug. 10, 2012, when the Municipal District of Foothills officer went to his rented property near Priddis in response to a complaint about an illegal kennel.

Despite the admission, the court must decide if Kloschinsky is guilty of first-degree murder — or if he is not criminally responsible for his actions due to a mental disorder at the time of the killing.

Defence lawyer Maggie O’Shaughnessy contends Kloschinsky was not criminally responsible; Crown prosecutor Jim Sawa is not opposing the defence’s submission.

For a court to find someone not criminally responsible, the Criminal Code says they must be suffering from a mental disorder “that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.”

In final arguments before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Beth Hughes on Wednesday, O’Shaughnessy said Kloschinsky meets both those legal tests.

“The defence is not seeking an acquittal in a trial situation,” she said.

“(Kloschinsky) is clearly still unwell.”

Defendants found not criminally responsible are placed under the jurisdiction of the Alberta Review Board, which has the authority to keep them confined to a secure psychiatric facility, subject to annual reviews.

Court heard Lazenby was strangled and suffered 56 external injuries including multiple scattered scrapes, bruises and cuts on his face, head, neck, stomach, back, arms and legs, as well as numerous internal injuries.

Kloschinsky bred blue heeler dogs on the rural property he rented near Priddis, but the operation had become the subject of a complaint that drew Lazenby to the site on the day in question.

An agreed statement of facts entered as evidence earlier in the week stated Kloschinsky “has a fixed belief that officer Lazenby was on Mr. Kloschinsky’s property, illegally” and that “Lazenby suffered a heart attack during their struggle.”

Testifying on Tuesday, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sergio Santana said Kloschinsky harboured delusions that people were plotting against him and believed he needed to arrest Lazenby.

“He wasn’t aware it was wrong,” Santana told court.

Related

• Psychiatrist says suspect in slaying of bylaw officer was actively psychotic
• Trial begins for Trevor Kloschinsky, accused of killing peace officer

After the deadly confrontation, Kloschinsky drove Lazenby to a southeast Calgary police station in Lazenby’s marked cruiser and told officers he’d caught a “dog thief.”

Police attempted to give him CPR, but Lazenby was pronounced dead an hour later after being rushed to Rockyview General Hospital.

Prior to becoming a peace officer, Lazenby was an RCMP officer with a distinguished, 35-year career. He retired in 2006 and moved to High River to be closer to his family and began working for the M.D. of Foothills.

As a community peace officer, Lazenby performed his duties unarmed. The killing sparked a debate about whether more types of peace officers should carry weapons. Lazenby’s wife, Lolita, said publicly following his death that she wished her husband had been working with a partner or had a means of contacting police for backup.

In addition to the criminal trial, the provincial Peace Officer Act requires a separate review into Lazenby’s killing while on duty.

“We will continue to ask questions, to push for change, so that this does not happen to another family,” Halbert said.

jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com

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The Calgary police homicide unit is investigating after a man in his 30s was found lying on a southeast sidewalk suffering from stab wounds on Monday morning.

The man was transported to hospital in serious life-threatening condition and he succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

He was found by police around 7:15 a.m. in the 5300 block of 5 Avenue S.E.

The man’s death is being treated as suspicious and the homicide unit is investigating.

On Monday morning, yellow police tape cordoned off several houses in Penbrooke Meadows, near the sidewalk where the man was found suffering from stab wounds.

Blood was splattered on the sidewalk and a vehicle, and a shoe lay on the road.

One neighbour said she was woken up by yelling and swear words around 7:10 am.

Another said she heard people outside talking early Monday morning but didn’t hear anything alarming.

“I thought it was kind of early to hear them. Usually there is no one there that early, ” said Tammy Kramer.

Kramer said after police cars descended on the neighbourhood, she drove her daughter to school because she was scared to walk.

“It’s very scary because my kids walk to school and work,” she said.

Alex Quan said he wasn’t surprised to see police cars outside his home.

“Stuff like this happens everywhere nowadays,” he said.

EMS spokesperson Stuart Brideaux said EMS were called to the scene by police.

The man was rushed to Peter Lougheed Hospital in life threatening condition before he succumbed to his injuries.

Brideaux said it’s not clear if where the man was found, on a sidewalk in the 5300 block of 5 th Ave SE, is where he was injured, or if he was dropped off at that location.

More to come…

When Sardar Atiq Khan was found dead inside the Martindale home he shared with his wife and two young children early one morning in May, officials believed he had died from a drug overdose.

But on Tuesday, nearly seven months after the 41-year-old man was found dead, police have labelled his death a homicide.

Khan, who was unemployed and had lived in Calgary for eight years, had been travelling and returned to Calgary just a week before he was killed, according to police.

Investigators are now hoping to speak to anyone who may have had contact with Khan in the week prior to his death.

It was Khan’s wife who found him dead inside his home on Martindale Drive N.E. around 6:15 a.m. on May 30, according to police.

The father of two had last been seen alive late in the evening on May 29, and investigators believe he was dead for only a short period of time before he was found.

Police believe Khan was targeted by people who knew him or his family.

“We don’t believe this was a random incident. We believe that the persons involved knew the victim or the victim’s family. There were no signs of forced entry or indications of a struggle in the residence,” homicide unit Staff Sgt. Doug Andrus told media on Tuesday.

Police are not releasing Khan’s cause of death because the investigation is ongoing.

Andrus said there was drug paraphernalia and indications of drug use in the house, and while it was initially believed Khan died from a drug overdose, investigators treated the death as suspicious from the beginning.

Khan’s family, who have been co-operative with investigators, also thought his death was suspicious given the circumstances, Andrus said.

Andrus said it took several months for preliminary toxicology results and investigative steps to deem the death a homicide.

“This has been an ongoing investigation, we’ve been working in consultation with the Medical Examiner’s Office,” he said.

Anyone with information about Khan’s death is asked to contact police at 403-266-1234 or Crime Stoppers anonymously.

AKlingbeil@calgaryherald.com

City police are asking the public for help identifying three people who may have information about a shooting in southwest Calgary on New Year’s Day that killed one man and injured six others.

Officers were called to a fourplex in the 1900 block of 36th Street S.W. in the community of Killarney at around 5 a.m. to respond to reports of shots fired at a house party where more than 50 people were in attendance.

Seven people were taken to hospital. One of them, identified as 27-year-old Abdullahi Ahmed of Calgary, later died from massive brain trauma after being shot in the forehead.

Earlier this month, police were interviewing a suspect, who was believed to be an invited guest to the party. He remains a person of interest, though no charges have been laid at this point.

“We are still looking to speak to other witnesses that were at the party,” Staff Sgt. Colin Chisholm said Thursday.

He said investigators have spoken to just under half of the people who attended the party.

“As time passes, we’re putting more pieces together,” Chisholm said.

Investigators have obtained CCTV images of three women believed to be guests at the party and who may have more information about what happened. Chisholm declined to comment on where the CCTV images were obtained.

The first woman is described as a lighter-skinned, black woman in her early 20s, with long hair. She was wearing a fur vest with a jean vest over top.

Courtesy of Calgary Police Service.

The second woman is a lighter-skinned black woman in her mid-20s, with long straight hair. She was wearing a red dress and white coat.

Courtesy of Calgary Police Service.

The last woman is a lighter-skinned black woman in her mid-20s, with long wavy hair. She was wearing a short, horizontal striped light dark dress.

Courtesy of Calgary Police Service.

Anyone who recognizes those women or has information on their whereabouts is urged to contact police.

BOWDEN — Nearly 15 years removed from the “crackhead mode” that prompted him to choke, stab and then drown a paraplegic family friend who refused to lend him $10, a former Calgary resident will take his first steps toward freedom with day passes from prison.

The Parole Board of Canada granted Tyler Preston Agate’s application for escorted temporary absences, which will allow him to leave Bowden Institution for community service outings under the supervision of a prison guard.

Agate, who is in his mid-40s, is serving a life sentence for killing Douglas Arthur Klein in the victim’s southwest Calgary home in July 2000. Agate became enraged when Klein refused to lend him money for a taxi and subjected the victim to an attack so prolonged that he left the house to buy cocaine at one point.

Klein, 50, had been in a wheelchair since the age of 14, when he contracted transverse myelitis — an inflammation of the spinal cord — that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

After pulling Klein out of his wheelchair and choking him, Agate beat him and stabbed him with a pair of scissors. He then slit a hole in a waterbed bladder and left Klein face down in the water.

“The circumstances were kind of horrific. They were sustained. They had torturous elements,” parole board member Murray Dodds told Agate following a hearing Thursday at Bowden Institution south of Red Deer.

However, Dodds and parole board member Ron Kuban decided Agate has made enough progress during his time in prison that he was ready to take gradual steps toward freedom, beginning with a series of escorted passes.

Agate was transferred to the minimum-security annex outside the prison walls in October 2013 and has a track record of good behaviour during his time in prison.

“You’ve done some good things to get here,” said Dodds.

Police initially charged Agate with first-degree murder but Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Chrumka convicted him of second-degree murder, ruling the killing didn’t have the elements of planning and deliberation to warrant a conviction on the more serious charge. Chrumka set Agate’s parole eligibility at 20 years.

“I felt like if capital punishment was still valid, I would be deserving of that,” Agate told the parole board.

In a statement to homicide detectives following the crime, Agate said he snapped and was in “crackhead mode” when he killed Klein. On Thursday, Agate said he had been seeking help for his addiction and nobody had been willing to help him. Klein’s refusal to lend him a small amount of money pushed him over the edge, he said.

The precise details of Agate’s community service plans weren’t disclosed during the hearing, other than a passing comment that he wanted to do volunteer speaking engagements.

“I’m turning into a decent man and I have a lot of potential,” he said.

Agate’s passes are valid for one year and carry conditions forbidding him from consuming drugs and alcohol. He will be eligible for day parole in 2017, which would allow him to live a halfway house under a nightly curfew.

jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com

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BOWDEN — Blacking out from alcohol and pills may have prevented Nathan Pelletier from remembering how he killed his 12-year-old stepsister in 1998, but the Parole Board of Canada said his own lack of insight is keeping him from explaining why he did it.

For that reason, the parole board rejected Pelletier’s application Thursday for unescorted temporary passes from prison to visit his father, saying he poses too much of a risk to be in the community without the presence of a prison guard.

“You have had a long time to think about it,” said parole board member Ron Kuban, who delivered the two-member panel’s decision following a hearing at Bowden Institution in central Alberta.

“You need to understand … what was going on inside you and in your environment so you don’t repeat it.”

Pelletier, now in his early 30s, skipped school Jan. 13, 1998, and had been drinking heavily and taking pills when he attacked Brunet inside their northeast Calgary home. Pelletier then phoned 911 and laid down on the couch until police and paramedics arrived at his house on San Diego Green N.E.

When police arrived, Pelletier was wearing women’s clothing. At his trial, the Crown alleged the clothes were evidence that Pelletier planned the killing, arguing that he had sent her out of the house earlier in the day so he had time to set up an ambush when she returned.

However, the trial judge convicted Pelletier of second-degree murder and characterized the killing as an impulsive act. The case was heard in adult court, meaning Pelletier, who was 16 at the time of the killing, received an automatic life sentence — but the Young Offenders Act (as it was known then) allowed his parole eligibility to be set at seven years, lower than the adult minimum of 10 years for second-degree murder.

Pelletier previously applied for parole in 2013 and was denied after being unable to tell the board why he killed Brunet. Under questioning from the parole board on Thursday, Pelletier rejected suggestions he planned the crime and couldn’t say why he killed Brunet.

“There was no planning. The only thing I was planning to do that day was kill myself,” he said.

Pelletier told the parole board he was angry at the time of the killing and felt “abandoned” by family members. His mother was an alcoholic and unreliable, while his brother had previously kicked him out of his house in the months before the killing.

“That was the start of my downward spiral. I felt like I had nothing left,” he said.

Although Pelletier’s questioning provided few revelations, a statement by his father, Joseph, contained an apology that took him by surprise.

Addressing the parole board in favour of his son’s release, Joseph Pelletier said he had been blind to his son’s problems at the time. The elder Pelletier said he was a long-haul trucker at the time of the killings and he was oblivious to his son’s problems.

“I didn’t see, feel or hear that my son needed help,” he said.

As his father spoke, Pelletier began to sob. Joseph Pelletier said he had never spoken so candidly with his son because they had always been supervised by correctional officers. He pleaded with the parole board to allow him unsupervised visits so they can continue rebuilding their relationship.

“I want him to understand he’s not a monster. I trust him with my life,” he said.

The parole board encouraged father and son to continue rebuilding their relationship — but within the confines of escorted passes until Pelletier makes more progress.

jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com

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Witnesses began testifying Monday morning as the preliminary inquiry began for a Calgary man accused of stabbing five people to death in the city’s worst mass killing.

The hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial against Matthew de Grood, who is charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of Lawrence Hong, Josh Hunter, Kaitlin Perras, Zackariah Rathwell and Jordan Segura during a get-together celebrating the last day of classes at the University of Calgary last April.

Relatives and friends of the victims, along with de Grood’s parents, packed the courtroom for the hearing, which is subject to a publication ban that forbids reporting any of the details.

Crown prosecutor Neil Wiberg said outside court that it has been an emotional day for the victims’ families.

“Five outstanding young people were murdered, and I’m sure this brings back horrible memories,” he said.

The Crown expects to call 13 witnesses during the hearing, which is scheduled to take a week.

Defence lawyer Allan Fay said it’s important to thoroughly examine the Crown’s evidence against de Grood, 23, before any trial takes place.

“This is an extremely serious matter, and there’s a lot of evidence that’s very important to explore: we know what it looks like on paper, but these cases never look in court like they look on paper,” he said outside court.

jvanrassel@calgaryherald.com

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