It was one of the first signs that Winnipeg had a major street gang problem. And it made headlines across Canada while sparking calls for tougher penalties for young offenders and tougher laws for organized crime members. But what I’ll remember most about the following story is this: The sight of a lifeless boy on the pavement, the sounds of screaming and the utter chaos in the night air. Joseph Spence was the first dead body I’d ever seen in my life.
I arrived at the scene within minutes of his shooting, having been monitoring the police scanner along with another young reporter, Nadia Moharib, and photographer Chris Procaylo. All three of us were relatively new employees at the Winnipeg Sun and were keen to make a good impression on our bosses. And so we would often hang out at night, rushing to major calls to get first-person witness accounts and photographs. We were just a couple blocks away when this one was broadcast over the airwaves. But I was not prepared for what I saw that night. And the vivid memory of it continues to haunt me to this day.
SUNDAY JULY 23, 1995
Joseph Spence had spent the night playing video games with friends at his grandparents’ residence. Now the 13-year-old Winnipeg boy, known to everyone as “Beeper”, was on his way to a nearby relative’s home. It was 2:30 a.m. As he pedaled his bicycle through the city’s gritty North End neighbourhood, Beeper and a small group of friends who were with him didn’t seem to notice the blue van approaching from behind. Inside were three young strangers hell-bent on revenge.
As they approached the intersection of Flora Avenue and Robinson Street, one of the strangers put on a pair of gloves and then picked up a sawed-off shotgun. He wiped down the weapon several times, then picked up a shotgun shell and did the same. The van rolled up beside Beeper and his buddies. The window came down. The man with the gun yelled for them to come closer. Before anyone knew what was happening, he raised the firearm and pulled the trigger. The result was catastrophic—for the young victim, the shell-shocked neighbourhood and the city at large.
It was an image Dale Wiltshire would never be able to forget. The 24-year-old off-duty Winnipeg police constable just happened to be driving down Flora Avenue, on her way to visit a friend, when she witnessed the sort of horrific event that no amount of training could have prepared her for. Beeper Spence had just been shot in front of her.
“It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Wiltshire would later tell colleagues. “I saw him fall—it was so close and so forceful it lifted him up in the air.”
She had only graduated into the police service one month earlier, but Wiltshire’s instincts immediately kicked in as soon as the shot rang out and the victim went down. She jumped out of her vehicle. Her first thought was to reach for her firearm. But she wasn’t in uniform, of course. She was unarmed. And scared. The suspect’s vehicle had sped away, leaving behind a scene of utter chaos. Several of the victim’s friends were screaming. Neighbours who heard the incident had come rushing outside. Sirens could be heard in the distance as police and paramedics rushed to the scene.
Wiltshire ran to the victim, instantly checking for a pulse. The damage from the shotgun blast was enormous. But the boy had briefly gasped for air, giving her some hope. Then the boy’s breathing suddenly stopped. Wiltshire turned him over on his back and began giving him CPR. Her boyfriend, who had been with her in the vehicle at the time, helped as well. But all their efforts would be for naught. Beeper was dead.
They called him the “question boy”—an ode to the inquisitive nature of the Grade 7 student at David Livingstone School. But now those who knew and loved Beeper Spence were the ones asking questions. Why would someone kill the popular teen in cold blood?
The initial theory being looked at by police was gangs. Winnipeg was struggling to cope with an emerging street crime scene that had seen the formation of several factions in recent years. While highly disorganized, there was no disputing just how dangerous some of these individuals could be. So-called “turf wars” were beginning to develop, with each group trying to stake their claim of the lucrative drug trade. The result was a growing amount of violence, including numerous acts that weren’t being reported to police but rather being dealt with by a form of street justice.
There were rumours circulating that Beeper himself was a member of the Indian Posse gang, which had quickly established itself as Winnipeg’s biggest with more than 100 members. However, those closest to Beeper knew the truth: While he certainly knew members of the gang, he wasn’t a member. But police believed those responsible for his death didn’t know that. They were suspected members of the Deuces gang, which was known as the main rival of the Indian Posse. They were much smaller, with only about 30 known members. Several Deuces members had been attacked in recent weeks. And word on the street was that they were looking to settle some scores with the Indian Posse.
“This was retaliation,” one neighbourhood resident told the Winnipeg Free Press. She had witnessed the ugly aftermath of the shooting after being awakened by the shotgun blast just outside her front window. “You know it’s not going to stop here. There’s going to be more killings,” she predicted.
Beeper himself had expressed concerns about gangs in the area, specifically about guilt by association. Beeper was living with his grandparents on Sinclair Street but would spend weekends with his father and aunt, who lived near the scene of the shooting. His grandfather, Nick Grisdale, recalled how members of the Deuces had harassed the boy in the past, believing him to be a rival. Now it appeared they had done a lot more than just harass him. Beeper had been caught in the crossfire, the victim of a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Bright. Chatty. Happy-go-lucky. These were some of the terms being used to describe Beeper Spence in the wake of his tragic shooting death.
Rick Johnston was the coach of Beeper’s peewee baseball team, called the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre Eagles. And he was now mourning the loss of a second player to violence. Last year, his star pitcher, Trevor Sanderson, was gunned down in a gang-related shooting, and now Beeper, another young hurler, had his promising life cut short. “It’s maddening,” Johnston told the Winnipeg Free Press. “There’s another one gone.” He said these types of senseless incidents were making him more determined than ever to get kids off the streets and into positive environments such as team sports. “It makes me want to fight even harder… I’m not throwing in any towels.”
Meanwhile, one of Beeper’s former teachers was speaking out as well, saying this type of deadly attack was her worst type of fear come true. “I’m worried sick when the end of June comes. At least when they are at school, you know the kids are safe,” Anastasia Yereniuk told the Free Press. “I was just sick when I heard [about Beeper]. He was a nice kid, full of life.” She described the culture of violence that had seemingly taken over many of the youth she taught. “I can’t say I’m surprised this happened,” she said. “They all hang around gangs here. It’s a sign of the times in this area. The gang problems have never seemed as bad as they are now.”
MONDAY JULY 24, 1995
They gathered close together, more than 100 strong, as the sun began to set on another hot summer’s day. It had been less than 48 hours since Beeper Spence was shot dead at this intersection. Now the boy’s photo, pasted to a large piece of cardboard, rested against the tree. Mourners, many of them in tears, signed their names after touching the image of the slain boy. A blue blanket adorned with his photo and a flowery cross of tissue paper was also nailed to the tree. A Catholic priest said prayers followed by eulogies by three of the boy’s friends.
“We just did it to show our love for him,” Beeper’s mother, Nancy Flett, told the Winnipeg Free Press. She repeated the family’s strong denials that Beeper had any kind of gang involvement: “The only colours he wore was the yellow T-shirt and baseball cap for the Winnipeg Boys and Girls Club.”
Meanwhile, police had made their first arrest. A teenage boy was picked up earlier in the day while walking down a North End street. He was now charged with first-degree murder, indicating justice officials believed this was a planned, pre-meditated act. Three more arrests would soon follow. And police admitted they were bracing for more potential violence. “We’re kind of holding our breath and hoping for the best,” police spokesman Eric Turner told reporters. “There is definite concern we’re in the midst of a very serious situation.”
Police were beefing up enforcement, and the 15 members of the street gang unit would be working overtime as they tried to keep a lid on any fallout or retaliation. “We’ll be keeping an ear to the ground to see which way the winds are blowing,” said Staff Sgt. Caron.
“Moms and dads, where are your kids.”
Ken Biener was growing frustrated at what he felt was the lack of accountability being shown by many Winnipeg parents. And so the inspector of the police youth division was speaking out in the wake of Beeper’s slaying, suggesting that allowing your young teen to roam the streets at all hours of the night was a bad idea. “I’m satisfied this is happening all over. But it’s the element of risk for kids that is different. Let’s face it, there are a lot of crusty things happening in the core area after dark,” Biener told the Winnipeg Free Press.
Beeper’s family members were stinging at allegations on radio call-in shows and newspaper letters-to-the-editor that they must not have cared about the young boy. “It was just a short walk to his auntie’s,” Nancy Flett explained. She repeated the story of how he and friends had been at his grandmother’s, but then was asked to leave because it was getting late and they were making too much noise. So they were on their way to Beeper’s nearby aunt’s home.
She and husband Stanley Spence split when Beeper was four. But that didn’t mean he was from what most people think of as a broken home, she said. “He was very well looked after, and he was well-loved by everyone,” said Flett. Meanwhile, she was now worried about the safety of her two other children, daughters aged 10 and 12, fearing there could be more violence to come.
“TIME FOR ACTION”
Editorial published in The Winnipeg Free Press, Tuesday July 25, 1995
The weekend shooting of 13-year-old Joseph Spence and the escalation of street gang violence in general raises the inevitable question: Can anything be done about it?
The answer is yes. The solutions aren’t simple, nor do they necessarily entail the expenditure of vast sums of money on new programs or the hiring of civil servants to run them. They do, however, require leadership and commitment on the part of some politicians and community leaders—the kind of leadership that has been lacking over the last few years.
Winnipeg has experienced a dramatic rise in youth related crime—particularly violent crime—since the start of the decade. Car thefts, purse snatchings, muggings and assaults are all up substantially over the numbers recorded just a few years ago.
Police attribute most of this increase to the growth and evolution of youth gangs in the inner city.
Indeed, police no longer refer to them as youth gangs; they’re now called street gangs. The police say these gangs have become more organized and actually control federal and provincial jails in Manitoba.
And what were city and provincial government officials doing while the youth gang problem worsened?
Well, Justice Minister Rosemary Vodrey held a youth crime summit a few years ago and decided the solution was to talk about harsher sentences, boot camps and cancelling drivers’ licenses of young offenders. The city, meanwhile, has done even less. As noted on this page last week, city council has given Mayor Susan Thompson a budget to hold conferences on youth crime, but nothing to help people actually do something about the problem.
In other words, the two levels of government closest to the issue have done virtually nothing.
Everyone knows why Winnipeg has a gang problem. Kids in the inner city—mostly native—are growing up in poverty, sometimes without strong parental support and often with a sense of alienation and hopelessness.
Short-term solutions are obvious. The city and the province have to make youth crime a priority and develop and fund the kinds of programs—like sports and recreation centres—that can give community workers a fighting chance to reach kids before they get into trouble.
In the long term, the Filmon government has to address the underlying causes of youth crime. It has to develop programs that reduce child poverty and make these kids believe they can have a future. That means making sure they have an opportunity to get an education that will lead to a decent job. It also means building a society that is tolerant and open, one where native youths can feel included rather than excluded. If not, the problems of the inner city will continue to grow— and spread.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23, 1996
He hadn’t pulled the trigger. But a Winnipeg teen would still have to pay for his role in the killing of Beeper Spence. The 16-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to murder, admitting he hid the shotgun and spent cartridge that had been used to gun down the teen less than a year earlier. Judge Philip Ashdown gave the youth one year of jail in addition to six-months of time already served. He was also placed on 18 months of supervised probation. His name could not be published.
“You’ve taken my only son away from me. You sit here like it was nothing,” Nancy Flett said in a victim impact statement she read aloud. “[Beeper] can never sit with us around the Christmas tree, he can never go to school... still, you can do these things. Nobody said you guys could go out there and play God.”
Crown attorney Cathy Everett said a strong message needed to be sent to anyone considering getting involved in this type of “brutal, tragic, cold-blooded offence.” Defence lawyer Jim Macdonald told court his client was an otherwise law-abiding young man who was on the honour roll in grades 7 and 8 and got pressured into helping hide the weapon other gang-involved peers. “He is not a gang member, but lives in a neighborhood riddled with gang members,” Macdonald said.
The judge questioned why all of these young people, including Beeper, were out so late at night. “One has to ask what happened to the parenting that night,” said Ashdown.
THURSDAY APRIL 24, 1997
They sat in the prisoner’s box, trading jokes and giggling as if they were in the back row of their high school classroom. Perhaps they were laughing at the justice system, which was about to give them a sweetheart deal. The three Winnipeg teenagers charged with first-degree murder in the drive-by shooting of Beeper Spence had all struck plea bargains to reduced charges. Conrad Johnson, now 17, who fired the fatal shot, admitted to second-degree murder. Kami Pozniak, now 18, and Fabian Torres, now 19, entered pleas to manslaughter. All three would be given adult sentences, meaning their names could now be published. Lawyers on both sides refused to discuss details of the last-minute resolution, which came just as the jury was about to be picked for the start of their six-week trial.
Crown attorney Sid Lerner gave a brief outline of the facts they were pleading guilty to. He described how Beeper was shot in the back as he was biking home. And he told court of a “celebratory” mood amongst his killers, who traded high-fives and literally patted Johnson on the back for pulling the trigger. He said Johnson was bent on revenge that night because he had found out his friend had been badly beaten by rival gang members. Beeper had nothing to do with that, of course. But that didn’t matter. After obtaining the sawed-off shotgun from a friend, the trio talked about payback. And so as they snaked their way through the North End, they spotted Beeper and decided his life would end at their hands. It was a cowardly act, one that simply could not be rationally explained. Now the killers would pay. But at a greatly reduced price.
FRIDAY MAY 23 1997
It was an emotional ending to a case that had sparked plenty of anger and sadness. The mother of Beeper Spence lashed out at her son’s killers as they appeared in court to be sentenced. Nancy Flett aimed much of her rage at Queen’s Bench Justice Sid Schwartz after he spared a jail sentence to one of the accused. Fabian Torres was given a one-year conditional sentence to be served in the community. The Crown was seeking prison and would eventually get their way on appeal, when the penalty would be increased to three-and-a-half years.
“You might as well do the same thing for the other fucking ones,” shouted Flett as the judge handed down his surprising sentence. She then turned her attention to Torres’s father, who was also in the courtroom. “You have your son Mr. Torres. I don’t have mine,” Flett said before storming out of court.
Kami Pozniak was given two years behind bars for her role after admitting to manslaughter. Conrad Johnson was given a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for six-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. There was no guarantee of ever being released, but he wouldn’t have to wait too long before he could apply. Schwartz told court he wasn’t going to bow to public pressure and dish out “high sentences on children.”
“Mr. Torres will go through life knowing he helped Mr. Johnson in the killing. Someday I hope [Torres] has a son and every time he looks at him, he will wonder if his son is at risk. That’s pretty heavy,” the judge said.
Torres was the first of the killers to apologize for his actions: “First of all I would like to express remorse and tell the family how sorry I am,” he said. “It’s one thing for me to talk to the priest and tell him how sorry I feel about what happened and what I did and my involvement in this, but it’s a different story facing the family altogether.” According to the Crown, Torres had urged Johnson to shoot Beeper, telling him to “bust a cap in his ass.” Pozniak also addressed the court, but by then Flett and her family had exited. “If the Spence family were here, I’d want to say I’m sorry again,” she said. Her lawyer, Evan Roitenberg said she is “not a monster” and simply got herself into a terrible situation through her peers. Johnson chose to remain silent.
JULY 2000
A service was held on the five-year anniversary of his killing. Nancy Flett helped organize the event at a local drop-in centre that bore his name, which drew children from the neighbourhood and included face-painting and traditional native dancers.
“I want to show kids the good way of life,” Flett told the Winnipeg Free Press. “To bring people together and to show the youth there is more to life than hanging around on street corners and getting into trouble.” Sadly, she said, the gang and violence situation in the city only seemed to be getting worse. And she thought the weak-kneed justice system was partially responsible. “I do not like this at all. They should have gotten life. They all played a part. I try to be strong for my girls, and I think I’m doing good for how far I’ve come. But every day I really wish my son was still alive.”
2008
It appeared Canada’s catch-and-release justice system was alive and well. Despite being convicted for their roles in a notorious Manitoba murder more than a decade earlier, parole documents revealed just how little time the three killers served behind bars and how their downward spirals had continued.
The man who gunned down Beeper Spence at the age of 15 walked out of a federal penitentiary in late January 2008, less than 10 years after he began serving a life sentence. It marked the second time the National Parole Board decided to take a gamble on Conrad Johnson’s freedom. His first bid at day parole didn’t work out so well. Johnson was first released in July 2006 but failed a drug test weeks later. He was displaying what parole officials called “deteriorating” social behaviour including throwing temper tantrums and lying. However, Johnson was given several additional chances to succeed. Parole officials didn’t revoke his release until February 2007 after several more drug test failures and increasingly problematic behaviour. Back behind bars, Johnson admitted his mistakes and blamed them on being given too much, too fast.
“You believed you had to catch up on your lost youth and began hanging out with people who had no goals or values,” the parole board wrote. “You started smoking pot in an attempt to fit in with your peers. You then began lying to your support network because you were scared to go back to prison.” Parole officials, in their January 2008 decision, felt Johnson had learned from his mistakes and was ready for another chance: “You have come to realize that being back in jail was a waste of your life... and that prison is not the place you want to be,” they wrote. “You stated that this was an experience you needed to awaken you. You now state that you are motivated to change your lifestyle and have taken positive steps in reaching this goal.”
Johnson had remained silent at his sentencing but was now discussing Beeper’s killing in some detail, admitting he mistakenly thought the 13-year-old was a rival gang member who’d assaulted one of his friends. He said he smoked marijuana and took LSD just prior to pulling the trigger on the sawed-off shotgun.
“You admit during the first several years of your incarceration you cared about little, gave no thought to the future and thought little about the crime you committed,” the parole board wrote. “You have [now] displayed what the board believes to be sincere emotional empathy for the victim. You compared the loss this family must have suffered to the loss you felt when your mother passed.”
The parole board applauded Johnson for taking steps to address his many problems, including drug abuse, poor relationship choices and anger management, by taking jailhouse treatment and programming. But they also cited his less than stellar track record behind bars as grounds for concern. He’d been hit with dozens of institutional charges, mainly for assaulting fellow inmates, being caught abusing contraband drugs, associating with gang members and abusing staff. Johnson also survived a brush with death after being stabbed in prison, then lashed out after his mother died and he couldn’t attend her funeral. Family, friends and associates had been caught several times trying to smuggle drugs to him during visits. However, since 2003 Johnson had showed “steady improvement” as his security status went from maximum to medium to low, where it currently stood.
Johnson was raised in a home “plagued with violence and abuse,” the parole board wrote. He became a habitual runaway by the age of 10. He only completed grade six. He began using drugs by 11, drinking excessively by 12. He started selling drugs as a young teen to support his addiction, then found a “surrogate family” in the form of a street gang.
The parole board rejected Johnson’s bid for full parole in January 2008, meaning he had to still report each night to a halfway house. They called a full release “premature at this point.” But they said he was on the right path, provided he avoided falling back into the same poor lifestyle choices that have seen him waste most of his life to date.
Despite being given numerous breaks by the system and cracks at freedom, Fabian Torres kept finding a way to land back in prison. Yet a forgiving parole board had ensured his stints didn’t last long. Torres’s first break may have been when he was convicted of manslaughter instead of second-degree murder for his role in the killing of Beeper Spence. He was originally given a 12-month conditional sentence, increased to three-and-a-half years in prison on Crown appeal. Still, Torres dodged a bullet and was back on the streets after serving only one-third of that penalty.
But he quickly went back to the gang and criminal lifestyle, culminating in an August 1998 home invasion. The victims were several adults and children. Torres and three co-accused, clad in masks, looted the home and stole the family’s van. They were nabbed after a brief chase with police. Torres’s parole was revoked, and he eventually received an additional 11 years in prison for the violent robbery.
Just six years later, Torres was back out. He was given day parole, which eventually turned into full parole in the fall of 2005. At the time, parole officials said Torres had made great progress in dealing with his demons, which stemmed from an abusive childhood, drug addiction and poor peer choices. But success was short-lived once again. On December 9, 2006, police stopped a speeding car. Torres was behind the wheel, the smell of marijuana in the air. Torres was arrested, but his parole was allowed to continue with a condition that he live at a community residential facility until his condition “stabilized.” Torres was allowed to go home a few weeks later. But he failed to appear in court on the drug charges and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was nabbed by police on Valentine’s Day 2007 after being caught driving without a licence. The parole board gave him yet another chance. But Torres blew it when he failed to meet with his parole officer in early March 2007.
Another warrant was issued and this time, parole was revoked. A drug test found Torres provided a false urine sample by using a device to store “clean” urine. He failed to say what drug he had been using. Torres spent two months in prison before the parole board decided to give him yet another chance in the summer of 2007. They said his breaches were serious but his risk “did not rise to an unmanageable level.” Torres was ordered to live at a halfway house and continue getting psychological counselling.
“It does not appear you have learned from your mistakes and you are indeed fortunate that you have not been revoked and returned to jail,” the parole board wrote. “Your impulsivity, poor decision-making and your inability to follow the conditions of your parole over the long term suggests you have a well-entrenched criminal mindset and values. Your behaviour suggests that you continue to require the structure, monitoring and controls of a halfway house.”
Kami Pozniak just couldn’t stay out of trouble. Court records show Pozniak had been convicted of 11 separate offences—including drugs, prostitution and failing to comply with court orders—since 2003 alone. Pozniak had been in and out of custody for much of that time, often getting released on bail only to be re-arrested on breach allegations or new substantive criminal charges.
During her sentencing for manslaughter, it was suggested Pozniak had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and made poor choices about her peers and lifestyle. Hope was expressed that some time behind bars would give her the chance to escape the past and move forward to a brighter future. Yet the sentencing judge heard Pozniak had not been making very good use of the time. Instead of focusing on treatment and programming, she was getting into violent disputes with other inmates and guards that landed her in segregation. She eventually got out—but like her co-accused Johnson and Torres, the revolving door of justice kept on swinging. In 2000, Pozniak appeared before a parliamentary standing committee in Ottawa that was exploring possible changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. One of the big issues then was whether youth criminals who were raised to adult court should be named in public, as Pozniak was.
“Every day when I go out, lots of people recognize my name when I get introduced to people. I have a hard time getting a job. When I attended school, the teachers knew who I was, and my law teacher knew who I was,” Pozniak told federal lawmakers, including Peter MacKay. “I find it very difficult to be known just as [a convicted criminal] instead of being known as me, being known as something I was labelled for in the past. It still reflects in my face every day I live out in the community.”
Kim Pate, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, described Pozniak at the time as a “young aboriginal woman who is struggling to complete school... is basically struggling to get back on her feet after that.” She told the committee that Pozniak had attempted suicide on multiple occasions and frequently found herself in segregation. “She unfortunately has had some of the worst experiences of our system and some of the worst experiences of the current system.”
Pozniak also told government officials she hoped to one day meet with Beeper’s family: “I’ve always wanted to meet with them. At my sentencing I apologized to the family for my responsibility in taking part in it. But the family isn’t ready for me, I guess, so I’m just waiting until that perspective comes.”
Kami Pozniak died in February 2011 at the age of 32. She was survived by two children. An official cause of death was never released publicly but those close to her told me it was linked to the various vices she’d spent her life fighting. She never did get that meeting with Beeper’s family that she had talked of wanting.
Fabian Torres has seemingly stayed out of trouble. Perhaps he finally got the fresh start in life his family predicted he would upon his release.
Conrad Johnson has continued to go through the revolving door of justice. After his second shot at freedom in 2008, he fled from a halfway house in Winnipeg in July 2009 and spent 15 months on the run. Officers caught up with Johnson in October 2010, finding him in a city hotel room with several high-ranking gang members and a large quantity of marijuana. Johnson was not charged for the drugs but did get slapped with being unlawfully at large.
He claimed he ran away because he wanted to see his newborn baby and knew he’d be in trouble for smoking pot. His day parole was cancelled. He spent a couple of years in remand custody before being returned to federal custody in December 2012. He enrolled in several substance-abuse programs, demonstrated model behaviour and was given a third shot in October 2013 when he was granted unescorted temporary absences for up to 72 hours of freedom per month. These came despite ongoing concerns about his risk to the public. They were supposed to be for “personal development” and included both family and social time. He claimed he was going to use the time to “participate in community activities such as church services, cultural ceremonies, and shopping centres” during which he would be in the company of his common-law wife. But parole documents show those privileges were revoked in the summer of 2014 after he got caught lying to parole board officials about how he was spending his free time.
Parole board officials say they received a tip Johnson was going around bragging to others about how he’d pulled the wool over their eyes. Specifically, his absences allowed him to attend weekly Narcotics Anonymous meetings to help deal with outstanding addictions issues. Yet Johnson was skipping out—a fact confirmed when federal officials did a surprise check-in and he was nowhere to be found.
“You initially acted as if there were no concerns,” the parole board wrote in their latest decision. “Then you claimed you missed your bus and became disoriented.” The parole board members said they could no longer trust him, especially considering his less-than-stellar track record. “You continue to have difficulties following the rules,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, I still hear occasionally from Beeper’s family. They are, understandably, outraged at the state of the youth justice system, the violent street gang scene in Winnipeg. Unfortunately there have been countless other young victims just like Beeper who have had their lives cut short in the nearly 20 years which have passed. Like him, several were the victim of mistaken identity, gunned down for simply wearing the wrong colours or walking through the wrong neighbourhood.
In 2013, a veteran staff sergeant in the community relations unit penned a very eloquent column in the Winnipeg Free Press that described how Beeper’s death wasn’t the wake-up call that it should have been:
“Unfortunately, Winnipeg’s gang situation has not improved since then. Aboriginal gangs aren’t the only ones to have taken hold in Winnipeg. But they certainly deserve special attention because of the harm they cause on their ancestral lands and the harm they cause to their communities,” Andy Golebioski wrote.
“In Winnipeg, several gangs exist, but a few really stand out as having a particularly destructive effect, not just because of their crimes, but because they claim a perverted sense of aboriginal identity. I’m talking about the Manitoba Warriors, the Native Syndicate and the Indian Posse. These gangs make a mockery of the words Indian, native and especially warrior. Their ancestors would be embarrassed.”
Golebioski called on local Aboriginal leaders to take a stand and work closely with law enforcement. “We, as the police, do our best to combat street gangs. However, it will take much more than just our enforcement and prevention efforts to eliminate their influence. Our entire community must rally around this cause and end it once and for all,” he wrote. “As a police service, our wish is to stand with aboriginal leadership as they publicly and privately condemn these gangs. We just need them to give us that opportunity.”