In more than a decade of journalism, I have frequently covered crime, policing and public safety issues.
Whether its reporting directly from the scenes of gun murders, exploring the impacts of violence on communities, or investigating in depth missing women cases or police misconduct allegations, my work has been published in This Magazine, Windspeaker, Vancouver Observer — and recognized with awards and nominations from both the Canadian Journalism Foundation and the Canadian Association of Journalists.
Below are some samples from my public safety portfolio.
On Dec. 6, SWN Resources announced it was halting its shale gas exploration for the year, incomplete. Now, as the community awaits the Texan firm’s likely future return, Windspeaker has learned the community is launching healing circles to deal with the trauma of the police raid, as well as contemplating a court battle over their treaty rights.
Burnaby RCMP have filed theft and mischief charges against a man they say destroyed six of their cruisers using two stolen vehicles and then flooded Burnaby General Hospital’s emergency ward room early Sunday morning.
Police used a battering ram to force their way into a Downtown Eastside rooming house suite Monday after an assault suspect barricaded himself into his room, ending an eight-hour standoff.
Amidst a rising tide of hate activity in Canada, a Calgary couple have been targeted again and again for their activism with Anti-Racist Action Calgary.
Many say students’ pro-rape and racist chants are part of a bigger problem that needs addressing.
A string of unexplained sex worker deaths in the same New Westminster, B.C. apartment building continues to shake the region’s sex worker community, amidst outrage that drug toxicology reports for the women are still unavailable a full month after the first death.
The Crown is appealing the acquittal of a RCMP officer charged with lying before the inquiry into the Vancouver airport Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski.
A growing outcry over orientation-week chants encouraging rape has led student leaders at the University of B.C. to abandon their FROSH celebrations altogether, pledging more education on the issue of sexual assault.
One Lower Mainland police force is trying a cheeky new tactic to discourage bad drivers: embarrassing them online.
Street nurse Bonnie Fournier is remembered as the “mom of the Downtown Eastside.”
David P Ball 