Caught flat-footed

Okay, so killer Russell Williams has had his days in court and has been sent up the river, or down it if he's headed to the Kingston pen, probably forever.

Don't slam the door on your way in.

 
Nothing can bring back his brutally murdered victims, Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd, nor repair the broken families he tore apart.

Tweed sex assault victims Jane Doe, who was a very young mother of a weeks-old infant when Williams attacked her, and Laurie Massicotte will have nightmares forever. It's hard to imagine the trauma they suffered, and will continue to suffer.

Hopefully, the other victims, whose most intimate spaces and places were invaded and violated by Williams can find peace. But I suspect they may be lying in bed right now thinking, there but for the grace of God ...

Which is why, despite how the Ontario Provincial Police thinks it has neatly wrapped up this case, I keep tripping over the loose ends.

I have already covered off the way the media have been handling Williams predilection for photographing himself in little girls' panties. In any case, Elizabeth Pickett and Bina Becker have done a much more thorough job of analyzing that angle. Have a read here, here and here. (Elizabeth also considers military culture in the wake of the trial here.)

So what's left?

How about what strikes me as police ineptitude and insensitivity?

First of all, I highly recommend you take 45 minutes to watch an edition of CBC's the fifth estate from last month. It's available online here. Titled ''Above Suspicion,'' it reveals a lot about Williams' invasions -- dozens of invasions -- of women's homes, bedrooms and drawers (and no, that's not a pun.)

Stick with it and you'll be asking yourself, how could the cops have blown this badly?

At least have a look at the fifth's map here. Notice anything?

Now look at another CBC map as well as a CTV map of the Ottawa neighbourhood where Williams' wife lived. Notice anything?

Like maybe a street map and some coloured pins on an OPP wall would have shown a pattern of invasions with similar characteristics?

  

Why did it take so long for the police to start cooperating?

Don't forget, in the wake of the Bernardo-Homolka case, the Campbell report was stinging in its criticism of how the cops handled the case.

Campbell, who conducted a public inquiry into the Bernardo probe, went on to conclude that there was an "astounding and dangerous lack of co-operation between police forces" and a litany of errors, miscalculations and disputes.

The failure to share information prevented police from identifying Bernardo as the terrorizing "Scarborough rapist," whose victims were spread across several police jurisdictions.

Elizabeth takes a run at the Campbell report and how it relates to this case here.

Every single one of Russell's crimes -- except for Comeau's murder in Brighton -- happened within the OPP's Eastern Region. And, while Belleville has its own police force, and Orleans is served by the Ottawa force, somebody should have put it together.

But it wasn't until Lloyd went missing, and the Belleville police under Chief Cory McMullan got involved, that all the boys started playing together.

It's true that many victims did not report break-ins because they did not know about them or they believed the police would laugh them off. After all, it's just another panty raid?

The very fact that some victims hesitated speaks to how women fear that their complains will be discounted.

And no wonder:

There’s a troubling number missing from the latest report from Statistics Canada on criminal victimization. I went looking for the figure because it was there in the last version of the report, in 2004 – it showed that just 8% of all sexual assaults in 2004 were reported to police, a puny 42,000 assaults reported among the total of 512,000 committed. Expressed another way, less than 1 out of every 10 sexual assaults committed was reported to police. It is a pitiful and shameful statistic, a reflection of the fact that despite decades of progress in dealing with sexual abuse and exploitation, authorities have done little to make the process of reporting abuse and confronting abusers less frightening and intimidating. The vast majority of victims still suffer in silence. Statistics Canada refuses to release the figure for 2009. What if things are getting worse? What if they are getting much worse? I’ve produced a disturbing statistic that suggests, if the number is valid, that far fewer sexual assault victims are reporting to police.

Considering how many news outlets treated Williams ''fetish,'' it's no big surprise to many that women will put up and shut up.

Again, this speaks to how the police discounted these violations: They issued no warning to Tweed citizens until after Massicotte was attacked.

Not surprisingly, they were very disrespectful, at least according to Massicotte who fled the court room this week, of what the two sexual assault survivors went through.

Today she emailed. Here's some of what she wrote (I added the boldface):

Out of the respect of the deceased,I will not even attempt to be heard @ this time, submit my impact statement, nor show my face or presence in that court in Belleville since my regretful appearance Monday A.M., when me & my family literally fled that court house @ 11:20, the 1st possible dignified break after hearing THE GUILTY PLEA on all counts with the sexual assaults being blended with the other less serious, none the less disturbing home invasions. I feel that there is a time & place for everything & it is my belief for the living DEAD and their families. Call me over sensitive but those are my true feelings on how this case is being conducted as a survivor of his Hanois (sic) violent acts. So be it! I once again feel used & disrespected by the Crown & the police.

I feel liked chopped liver & I can't even comprehend how the little one is feeling. Now if I could get a message out to the masses it would be-if you survive a violent act of sex don't report it, just run for cover & find your own protection minus the police & the system they represent.

As Massicotte has repeatedly said, she felt the police could have done a much better job on all levels, from plain old detective work to treating victims with more respect.

Maybe Lloyd and Comeau would still be alive if they had.

Meanwhile the media have gone gaga for interrogator Det. Sgt. Jim Smyth.

While there is no question that the skilfull Smyth showed incredible calm and patience in getting Williams to confess, it's not as if the police didn't have a  basement full of panties as evidence.

What's more, it seems obvious that the killer, considering how he would eventually transfer his assets to his wife, was anxious to avoid horrendous legal fees on what would be a losing case. He's a sociopath but he's not stupid.

Today, incredibly, the OPP put out a news release congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Well yes. After all, they had the media spotlight all this week on their dog and pony show. Williams is in the slammer. You can all go home now. Nothing to see here.

And yet, as the the fifth estate documentary reports, it took a few locals driving in a truck late at night to spot Williams' SUV parked in a field near Lloyd's house to put it all together.

I think an inquest is in order.

You?

Photos by The Star's Steve Russell.

Comments

[the regina mom]

Damned rights an inquest is in order! OMFG! That the police did not believe the victims, that they did not investigate, that they did not warn the community that a predator was on the loose -- OMFG! It's a horror beyond horrors!

Some say we live in a police state, and I don't necessarily argue. But I would add that we live in a state with incompetent policing.

[CanNurse]

Brilliant! Much more info than I've seen ANYWHERE else, & connecting many dots. The police should be looking hard & long at their own lack of action, when they had SO much to go on. It is inexcusable. An inquest with actual real flex & power to change things would be MOST welcome! Thanks.

[Hugo B.]

Inquest? Absolutely!. You've managed once more to put a very complex issue ranging several law enforcement issues into this corner: Accountability.
Aside from that, in my opinion a strong, stinking stream of "old boy's order" still rules the upper echelons of law and order.
Because this sorry case reminded me of one Charles Randal Smith, the Sick Kid's pathologist whose pig-headed opinions resulted in wrongful convictions of mothers and parents.
It's the old "don't question father, he knows best", - I'd hate to think where all that streaming stink came from. But it is there, as you say, preventing victims of abuse from reporting, they do not trust people in authority.
How can this be? How can anyone live in a suffocating violent chaos, and be silent at the same time?
John Lennon was right. Women are the N's. of the world;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5lMxWWK218

[Kim P]

Count me in who was a girl, a teenager, and an adult (several different offences) who was sexually assaulted, raped, and had my house broken into several times, and I was too afraid to involve the police (I didn't want to be further victimized by that system, with all the aggravation, frustration, abuse, blame and none of the resolve), and when I did report the B&E's, had the reaction of NO investigation or being taken seriously by the police, even though I told them who the likely (ex-common-law) suspect was, of whom I had a restraining order against ....
They do not take women seriously. They do not want to get involved. They are willing to put our lives a risk, and back pedal and cover their tracks (just like the Williams' case) and pat themselves on the back, no thanks to their negligence, when coincidence wraps things up for them. I am beyond angry. Inquest???? I wish charges could be laid against the respective police departments and those inept puppets involved would lose their jobs and be found criminally negligent in their neglect of duty.

[hysperia]

If you weren't reporting on this case, no one would be. Why isn't this article a major feature in The Star? I don't get it. When we need a feminist journalist, for some damned reason, we get Heather Mallick.

[Kat]

Once again, thank you Antonia.

I started to wonder about this as soon as I heard that Williams had invaded the bedrooms of teenage girls. Teenagers tend not to be taken seriously at the best of times, never mind when they're claiming their room was invaded and their stuff is moved or missing. Actually, it doesn't always get better if you're a grown woman reporting similar stuff.

Why is it someone literally has to die before people are willing to pay attention?

[Connie Donoghue]

Whoa!! Excellent blog-articles!! Again. ! And I have to say that with reference to the less than shining performance of the OPP and Ontario police forces collectively over the last year....I STILL have this horrible-heartburny-nagging-suspicion that the police forces involved ensured that a woman officer was promoted to chief in the heartland of the attacks at a politically-sensitive time simply to be part of anticipated major-case-management 'success' media ops.

But that cant be!? Could it? The police responding to an imminent judicial inquiry *before* they formally institute the major-case cooperation/integrated investigation on region-wide crimes against women?

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

wouldn't some of these women have been alive today if they had been allowed to carry concealed weapons?

maybe that question should be reopened in the light of this case.