Saturday, May 26, 2012

Spotlight on the Pickton Inquiry



As the missing women inquiry draws to a fiery conclusion, every day we read new testimony about how the Hells Angels were tied to the Pickton farm. In fact that is the reason the public inquiry was shut down and transformed into a panel discussion instead of an inquiry.

David Cameron was the champion of justice and Wally Oppal was the snake in the grass scoundrel that censored the inquiry. We had expected that from him. He was likely the worst possible choice to head the inquiry. He fell before Gordon Campbell did because people were upset with what a lousy job he did as AG. Now he’s a giggling Austin Powers as he promotes his new acting career whilst committing welfare fraud at the missing women’s expense.

Most recently we read of three developments. A former sex trade worker recently testified at the inquiry that Pickton had invited her to a biker party on the farm. She said he referred to it as a biker party. We knew Hells Angels attended parties at Piggy’s palace. Pickton referring to it as a biker party would imply they were in charge. We found out that the Hells Angels had a grow op and ran an illegal booze can on site.

Last month the Vancouver Observer reported on a retired nurse named Bonnie Fournier who worked in the Downtown Eastside since 1968 but hasn't been allowed to testify at the Missing Women Inquiry. She had workered with numerous sex trade workers in the DTES for years. Late one night in 2000 she said she saw a black shape being dragged out the passenger side of a large vehicle on Cordova Street which turned out to be a person. If the truck Fournier saw was his, it meant Pickton had an accomplice. She asked the woman if it was him. “I can't say, because I'd be dead,” she told Fournier. “They'll kill me.” They implies more than one person. Wally opal has not allowed her to testify at the inquiry. He should be charged with obstruction of justice.

What’s even more disturbing is the testimony of another witness Bonnie Fournier was working with. “Sharon” said she was in Surrey, shoplifting at a mall -- she supported her drug addiction by stealing, not prostitution, Fournier said -- when two women who knew her from the Downtown Eastside approached and invited her to a party, “with free booze and drugs.” The women went to a “well-known Hells Angels spot” located on the King George Highway, just before it enters Surrey: a rental house they called the “House of Pain.” (We know it as the Surrey House of Horrors. that would have been on 108 Ave just off king George around the corner from Gus' shop)

“They went there, and then were moved by station wagon or van – 'We're going to a party with good music,'” Fournier was told. “They were taken to the (Pickton) farm from this house in Surrey. “After they got to the farm, Sharon said everyone was into the drugs – lots of drugs. When they pulled in there, she got a gut feeling that this was scary. . . she got a gut feeling and bolted from the car and ran to Lougheed Highway. She was picked up by a bus on Lougheed and given a ride in to Vancouver by a sympathetic driver.”

We know Yvonne Marie Boen's DNA was found at the Surrey house of horrors as well as on Pickton's Pig Farm. To hear new testimony of a van taking people from the House of Horrors in Surrey to a Hells Angels party at the Pickton farm is disturbing indeed.

The third new piece of information recently reported in the media is the fact that the police had the Hells angels on the Pickton farm under surveillance and they didn’t want to mention that over optics. They didn't want to be accused of bungling their job.

Bungling their job? That’s an interesting choice of words. Aside from meaning legal liability, it also implies leaking out information about a police operation that went bad. It sure sounds a lot like Operation Phoenix to me. I wonder if that is the operation they are talking about. Gary Bass, the former RCMP deputy commissioner in B.C., agreed during testimony Wednesday that several police operations were targeting the motorcycle gang in the Lower Mainland during that time.

Cameron Ward, the lawyer for two dozen family members of the murdered and missing women, suggested the women were taken to parties at Piggy’s Palace, given drugs and later killed on the Pickton farm. “The RCMP’s organized crime agency was simultaneously conducting intelligence operations on the Hells Angels members and the associates who were frequenting the area. Does that sound accurate?” Ward asked.

“I’ve never seen any reports or had any briefings that indicated something like that was happening,” Bass replied. But the records created by the many RCMP agencies investigating the gang haven’t been made available, Ward said. In fact, not only has important evidence been deemed inadmissible, numerous exhibits on the Inquiry’s web site are censored and deemed restricted. That is not a public inquiry.

This is where Wally Oppal committed treason and became an accomplice to murder. He stopped Cameron Ward from asking questions about the Hells Angels presence at the Pickton farm. He denied disclosure of police documents concerning their surveillance of the Hells Angels on the Pickton farm. Oppal said there was no connection between David Pickton, the Hells Angels and Piggy’s Palace and the mandate of the inquiry. That is absurd.

There is no connection between Dave Pickton, the Hells Angels and Piggy Palace with his red hearing mandate but there most certainly is within the real mandate of the inquiry. May I remind the court that the real name of this public inquiry is the Missing Women Inquiry. It is an inquiry about why so many women went missing and how we can prevent that from happening again.

Robert Pickton was convicted of murder on the premise that he may not have been the only person involved in the murders. In fact the judge’s instructions to the jury went so far as to say they could convict Robert Pickton even if he wasn’t the prime suspect, as long as he was an active participant. When new evidence comes forward about possible accessories in the murders and Wally Oppal buries that evidence then he becomes an accessory to murder.

4 comments:

  1. You're correct; Bass' reply, which one read first in the papers, is very disturbing and redolent of clumsy cover-ups. What does he mean; that his own force & others were investigating HA @ Picktons'; but no reports were EVER filed...?

    That must be one somnolent Police unit.

    So this can't be true, so he's lying.

    Next, one must think of why, and one's doing that now...

    ReplyDelete
  2. We know Cameron Ward mentioned OCA. That was the provincial organized crime task force created in 1999. Key high ranking members of the RCMP who have since retired sabotaged that agency and scuttled Operation Phoenix because they wanted the jurisdiction back which their campaign was successful in doing by April 1 2004. Al Dalstrom won an out of court settlement for his unlawful dismissal at the time. That settlement is likely covered by a gag order.

    We know that Richard Barszczewski from the RCMP prevented any charges being laid against any BC Hells Angel in the two and a half ton cocaine seizure aboard the Western Wind back in 2001. Robert Pickton was finally arrested in 2002.

    There is a huge cover up and Cameron Ward should be given the documents he has requested. There’s not a chance he’ll get them from Wally kangaroo court Oppal. It’s going to have to be a real civil suit in a real court of law. A public inquiry into the Pickton case means the public gets to see the documents regarding their investigation of the Hells Angels on the farm at that time. This is not a real public inquiry. It is a smoke and mirrors side show.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Apparently the RCMP don't have provide any information on any of their investigations concerning Pickton as the current inquiry is a provincial directive and the RCMP fall under federal jurisdiction.
    I know for a fact that Crime Watch volunteers under the direction of the Coquitlam RCMP conducted surveillance(recording license plate No.#s)of vehicles coming and going from Picktons farm since 1992 till the arrest. This evidence was never offered up or even mentioned during the inquiry.
    I suspect that RCMP had a hands off policy pertaining to Picktons activities as they were using him to kickoff investigations of gang members because undercover infiltration was easy at the farm. The murders of the women was an acceptable price to keep the farm open as far as law enforcement was concerned. Sickening to the extreme.

    ReplyDelete
  4. One more miserable datum. As far back as1984-85, if you lived north of the Fraser, you were hearing rumours about 'Piggy's Palace' as a Hells Angels hangout and that snuff was being made on the site, and that the participants were being protected by the Coquitlam RCMP. A number of elected and appointed officials, Police officials, and wealthy individuals were specificly identified as being on site and participating in the 'parties'. Activities at the farm were well known to police official for at least a decade before Picktons arrest. So who are the Pigs protecting here?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated so there will be a delay before they appear on the blog.