Last week's attempted glorification of Indian Posse fugitive Danny Wolfe resulted in a hurried about-face by CBC-TV on Friday; evidentally the outcry of viewers about Wolfe's unchallenged claim that his crime sprees were rooted in his parents being 'victims of residential schools' embarassed CBC into balancing their initial report.
Common sense comments by inner-city viewers included insisting that when even actual residents of the schools had served in the armed forces and lived within the law, and raised hard-working honest children, intergenerational-victim Wolfe still bore personal responsibility for his own life and actions.
His own actions have included previous convictions for threatening witnesses and a violent home invasion; and Wolfe currently faces first degree murder and attempted murder charges in a Saskatchewan home invasion--which is why he went on the lam after a Regina prison break.
The history of the Indian Posse, the Wolfe Brothers, and the disturbing attitude that the police are the enemy and hiding a dangerous wanted escapee is an acceptable way of life within some Manitoba communities, are bad enough. As The Black Rod reported in summarizing that background:
But nobody is talking about an even more frightening aspect of that street-level support for criminals--- how it has infected the aboriginal population at large, spreading into the so-called native leadership, the media, and filtering through right up into the inner cabinet of Manitoba's NDP government.
Unless this poison is addressed quickly and decisively, it will continue to corrode the body politic and determine just how violent the coming clash of cultures is going to be.
Now, TGCTS has learned that the vaunted closed-circuit surveillance camera initiative being stage-managed by the Winnipeg Police Service is proposing to abandon the residents of the North and West End -- the most frequent victims of violent street gangs like the IP and Mad Cowz, the neighbourhoods swarmed by cops just last week in their capture of Danny Wolfe -- in favour of more politically fashionable neighborhoods and causes.
This news comes on the heels of yet another shooting on Magnus Avenue, where a 17 year old boy was nearly killed on the weekend.
According to the list we received from a listener in the know, Magnus Avenue, the site of 4 murders and numerous shootings and arsons in the recent past, is not considered a "hot spot" by city police.
But the Millenium Library, site of no known shootings or murders, is on the police list to get equipped with a camera.
On Monday we will report on the responses of organizations that were supposedly consulted in this process, and of elected officials whose crime-riddled residential streets might be shunned in favour of 9, almost exclusively downtown locations.
Then, on Tuesday at 5 PM, Mayor Sam Katz will join us at our on-site broadcast from CDI College. The question of whether he will endorse police turning their back on the people of the North End and Spence Neighbourhood to the IP and their ilk will be front and centre in our interview; along with questions about Bus Rapid Transit and Park and Ride, the U of Manitoba Blue Bomber Stadium proposal, and the provincial government blinking on expensive upgrades they have demanded to the civic wastewater treatment facilities.
