The only voice I hear is Tim’s

Vince Li has been found not criminally responsible for the gruesome murder and beheading of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus last summer because he is mentally ill.

Both the Crown and the defence agreed that Li is a schizophrenic who was suffering from a psychotic episode when he killed the 22-year-old McLean.
Li, 40, will now be remanded to a secure psychiatric facility where he will receive treatment. A review panel will decide in the next six weeks which facility he will be transferred to.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to begin with a warning. The commentary I am about to offer you has graphic details that you may not want to expose your children to. They concern a hideous event that took place on a bus near Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. Today, a judge ruled on whether the man with the knife was criminally responsible. The ruling was a foregone conclusion, since this was a trial where the defence and prosecution were on the same page, both telling the judge that the defendant was NOT guilty legally, NOT criminally responsible for his actions. And today Justice John Scurfield, having no legal choice in the matter, acted lawfully when he ruled that Vincent Li was not criminally responsible. Li is being sent to an institution where he will receive treatment and assessed annually and some day a team of psychiatrists may decide that Vincent Li is ready to resume his life as a free man. For many people that is the end of the trail. For the victim’s mother, she wants a law passed, Tim’s law, that says if you are found NOT criminally responsible after having killed somebody, where there is no doubt who did the killing, that if you are committed to a mental facility, that you go there for life. I AGREE with her.

I know that the overwhelming majority of you agree with her. But there are times in this country where we are told by people with far more power than they deserve to have, that the MAJORITY is savagely ignorant, caring only about low rent emotions like revenge, and should be kept as far away as possible from decisions like this.

As a country we are being asked to accept the idea that if a man is suffering from a mental illness when committing the most hideous of crimes, then we must park our desire for punishment, we must avoid our feelings for the family of the victim, we must focus on one thing and one thing only and that is the current mindset and current ideology of Canada’s Psychiatric Community, who individually are for the most part, good and decent people, but collectively on some issues are not necessarily the country’s most reliable friends.

There are also many people in this country suffering from mental illness. Their families and friends are suffering with them. And many of them OVER-IDENTIFY with Vincent Li. Many of them say if the Majority of Canadians have a beef with this decision, they have a beef with all people who are suffering with mental illness, and if they think that someone who is suffering should be sent to an institution with no hope of ever getting out, the slippery slope is being created for all people suffering. This is where Canadians have to put up the stop sign and say, “I am sorry to inform you, that this is not about you or a member of your family. This is about someone who killed a young man and then proceeded to eat his kill.” And while many people are suffering from mental illness and deserve compassion and treatment, they are not all VINCENT LI and we’re not creating a more just and rational Canada by over-identifying with him. We are creating precisely the opposite.

I want to take you to the event in question by reading in a very straight forward way, the story that was filed by the Canadian Press earlier this week and appeared on news sites and newspapers all over the world.

The man who beheaded a passenger on a Greyhound bus was a victim himself, tormented by the voice of God telling him to do it, a forensic psychiatrist told Vince Li’s second-degree murder trial.

The voice told Li to use an assumed name and get on the bus traveling from Edmonton to Thunder Bay last July, Dr. Stanley Yaren said on the first day of Li’s trial.

Li chose to sit next to Tim McLean because McLean made a “friendly gesture’’ to him, Yaren said.

As the bus neared Portage la Prairie, Man., around 8:30 p.m., 40-year-old Li started hearing voices.

“A voice from God told him Mr. McLean was a force of evil and was about to execute him,’’ Yaren told the judge hearing the case.

“He had to act fast to protect himself. In response to that, in a state of panic and fearful for his life, he carried out the acts that he did.’’

Killing McLean wasn’t enough, Yaren said.

Li, whom Yaren diagnosed as schizophrenic, believed 22-year-old McLean was capable of coming back to life, so he continued to mutilate the body and scattered the parts around the bus, the psychiatrist testified.

Although he admitted his guilt to officers that night, Li pleaded not guilty yesterday. His lawyers are arguing he is not criminally responsible because he is mentally ill. (more…)

Greyhound Security Measures… are they kidding

Geyhounds increased security measures are a joke as we’ve all come to realize. The only reason they did anything at all was not because of what happened to Timothy rather it was to quiet the public demand for them to do something…anything. Was it a coincidence that these increased measures were put in place in late fall just prior to the upcoming holiday season? They did not want their ridership numbers to drop so they provided the public with a false sense of security. They published in the newspapers which 3 major terminals would be conducting the searches. I guess maybe criminals cannot read and figure out where NOT to board a bus with weapons or other banned items.(Vince Li did not get on the bus at a major depot) Until they, (Greyhound) get serious, checking and searching at all terminals, all passengers, and all luggage all the time and not after noon when security begins(I guess violent offenders don’t travel before noon). How do we the public even begin to take them seriously? what a joke, I find it insults our intelligence

Board reviews Li’s case in June

THE Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board will decide Vincent Li’s fate at a June 1 hearing. Relying solely on a report complied by Dr Stanley Yaren, a judge found  Li not criminally responsible last week for the slaying of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus near Portage la Prairie last summer. Bev Scharikow, administrator of the review board, said board members will review the evidence and decide where Li will be sent for treatment.

Li brutally stabbed McLean as he slept on the Greyhound bus, then later decapitated him and cannibalized him. Court was told last week by Dr Stanley Yaren, that Li is a schizophrenic who thought the voice of God told him to stab and decapitate McLean.

Scharikow said the hearing will be held at the downtown Law Courts complex and will be open to the public. Scharikow said Li will appear before the board every year. It will determine if he needs to remain institutionalized or if he is well enough to be released.

The evidence put before the board for its consideration is expected to include police reports, victim impact statements and psychiatric assessments, which say Li is a risk to himself and others.

Observers believe that the board will conclude Li must be sent to a secure psychiatric facility, either at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre or the Health Sciences Centre.

Manitoba’s review board has 81 patients under its jurisdiction. The nine members of the board include three lawyers, five psychiatrists and one lay member.

Listen Up TV Poll… Interesting Returns

I came across an interesting poll, on Listen Up TV asking viewers what their reaction was to Tim McLean’s killer being found “not criminally responsible?”
I clicked my vote! And was taken to the results page… interesting.

The results showed almost 20% of respondents had no reaction to the verdict, and almost one in four felt sympathy for the killer.  Cast you vote here

Listen Up TV also did a very interesting segment on Tim’s murder, and efforts to enact Tim’s Law        When Justice Meets Horror – Episode #366

Results
Disbelief 31%
Sympathy for the victim’s family 28%
Sympathy for the killer 23%
No reaction 19%

Who or what is to blame?

Posted on the blog “The Vanishing American”

Oddly, there were two mass slayings in the news today, one of them at a school in Germany and another in Alabama, where 11 died.
I can only offer sympathies and prayers for the bereaved surviving family members and friends.

After such incidents, there is always the soul-searching in the media, with endless questions about ‘why’ the killer did what he did, as if any explanation really suffices. Inevitably, there are likely to be calls for stricter gun controls, although the German incident seems to undermine the liberal idea that strict gun laws prevent such occurrences. But nonetheless, there will be laments about the ease with which Americans can obtain guns, and there will be blanket condemnations of ‘society’ and its guilt in incidents like this. There is always disparaging talk about the South or heartland America in general, and its ‘gun culture’, as if that is the problem rather than simply human evil.

Why is it that so many people today have a problem identifying evil? If somebody kills most of their own family members, as the Alabama shooter did, is that act not evil? The German shooter apparently targeted mostly girls. Nowadays, what with feminism and with even many conservatives regarding women as more or less the same as men, it is not particularly seen as cowardly to target women or girls, though the code of chivalry would see it as such.

Most of all, though, incidents like these mass slayings always provoke more discussion of ‘mental illness’, as it is accepted by almost 100 percent of society that anyone who commits such crimes is automatically ‘sick’ or a victim of a mental disorder. Again, this obscures questions of good and evil, and individual responsibility.

That problem was also evident in the story I blogged on the other day, about the Chinese immigrant in Canada who savagely killed a Canadian bus passenger, in a particularly gruesome fashion.

On the discussion thread following that blog entry, reader and commenter Fed Up Canuck posted this link to the blog of Canadian radio commentator Charles Adler, who wrote about the court decision: Canada – Guilty of Gullibility in the First Degree.

Yes, it’s been a bit of a rough week. Not nearly as rough for me, as for the family of Tim McLean. But one of the reasons I sounded a bit rough yesterday, was because I was trying as hard as possible to be restrained, out of respect for the event that was fresh and raw. The event being a judge rendering a verdict of not guilty of criminal responsibility, in the case of the beheading of a young Canadian named Tim McLean. To me, it felt like he had just laid down a guilty verdict on all of us.

The Canadian people found guilty of allowing an elite group of experts, who do business in the legal system, telling us what is right and what is wrong.

The Canadian people found guilty for allowing themselves to believe that confining a mentally ill person for life is the equivalent of condemning all people suffering from any kind of mental illness.

The Canadian people found guilty for supporting a public school system where REASON is not taught and so vile arguments are presented in courts of law, and courts of public opinion go unchallenged by many members of the public who should know better, but have never been given the tools by an education system because it’s more about indoctrination than education.

The Canadian people have been found guilty for allowing their country to be stolen from them by the jackals of political correctness and moral equivalence and baffle gab.”

Adler’s commentary is sound, and it applies to America almost as much as Canada, and most of those who left comments agreed with him and shared his outrage. However there are a few typically obnoxious and piously self-righteous liberals who leave typically nasty comments.

Like this commenter:

Brilliant Charles. Do as the US does. Shoot the guy on site. Lovely. Vigilante justice. Won’t be accused of being ‘elite’ then! Why don’t you move to the states if you find their style of justice so soothing to your scared self. You can take comfort in the fact that they imprison more people than any other country in the world, yet still have the worst crime rates.” (more…)

Does belief in God Constitute a Mental ilness

I think Dr Yaren made a complete mockery of the adversarial process that is the heart and soul of the Canadian criminal court system. If he agreed with the defence, he should have walked the floor and let someone who actually understands the role of prosecution do their job. This was no trial. Ironically, the only 2 witnesses called were never there despite having: the greyhound worker that sold him the ticket, the busload of permanently scarred passengers, the RCMP, and most importantly family. The outcome of the trial was determined well in advance of March 5th and the purposeful deletion of witnesses and a turncoat Psychiatrist is proof of that.

As well, no one can give me a straight answer about my question of faith. “Does belief in God constitute a mental illness?” My fury over the conduct of Dr Yaren lies in his VERY faulty logic used to determine Li’s mental “illness.” I believe the direct quote used in the papers is, “God made me do it.” God making you do something defaults you as schizophrenic? Or is it only when you take his name in murder? Who on Earth has the qualifications necessary to determine who gets to believe in God and who doesn’t? Where in Medical school is it taught that you can disprove one’s faith in God? Is it because God told you to kill? There is a religious text that espouses that very notion: it is called the Qu’ran. The 6th pillar of Islam is Jihad, the declaration of Holy War against those who sully the faith or names of Allah or Muhammad. Are 1.5 billion Muslims all schizophrenics? I would think that a religious cleric is infinitely more qualified than a Psychiatrist to determine one’s true faith in God. To disavow Li’s belief in God is to violate his religious freedoms so enjoyed by others in this country. I wonder if a rich, suburban, well read run of the mill Christian white person who commits a similar act would earn the same expedience of a predetermined NCR like Li? Is he or she mentally ill or just a cold blooded, sane killer b/c of a lack of historical hardships?

History proves time and again that murder is justifiable so long as God gives the green light. Examples? The Crusades led by King Richard that sacked Byzantium, then became Constantinople at the cost of many lives. Ironic that Constantinople fell to the same violence of the Ottomans (Muslims) in 1453. The Spanish pogroms that killed thousands of Jews by Muslim mobs in 11th century AD. The Spanish Inquisition led by Ferdinand and Isabella that saw people burned at the stake for refusing to covert to Christianity. The Salem witch hunts that tossed “witches” to their deaths as they were deemed servants of Satan. Modern day terrorists that are led by fanatical Imams to Jihad…9/11 ring a bell?

Were all the aforementioned murderers schizophrenics? I am not contesting that Li is mentally sick. I am sickened by how there was zero attempt by the prosecution to even consider challenging he was possibly sane at the time of the murder. And, he may have well known that what he did was wrong. I’d like someone ( a COMPETENT prosecutor) to explain how: writing a goodbye letter, using a fake name to buy a bus ticket, and walking on a bus with a hunting knife constitutes “not knowing what he was doing?”

I believe that Li would have shared a similar fate to that of Jeffrey Dahlmer if he had went to prison. And, since the definition of being Canadian is showing the world how un-american we are, that mentality carries over into our “coddle the criminal” court systems which are definitely the antithesis of American justice. At least there, the prosecution knows their responsibilities are NOT to collude with the defence.

A Mother’s Perspective on Tim’s Law

While I agree that prevention is the best cure,understand that it is not a matter of vengeance rather it is an issue of safety and accountability. The fact is that he is a very dangerous individual with an incurable disease. He has proven himself to be non- compliant with medication, that is how this tragedy came about. He left the treatment facility where he was diagnosed schizophrenic,catatonic state, against medical advice and refused to take his meds, he decided he was not ill and decided to listen to the voices in his head. Why was there no follow up on this “very disturbed” individual by the psychiatric community? They all certainly have a lot to say about how he should be treated now, after the fact. Why does the system give control of a “very disturbed”individuals care and treatment to that individual, when clearly they are not in a proper state of mind to make those decisions. I believe more in-put from the mentally ill persons family and friends needs to be considered in their treatment in order to prevent something as atrocious as this from happening. That being said, UNPROVOKED..INCURABLE..possibility of relapse even while medicated. I think the most humane thing that we as a society can do is treat Mr Li in a locked facility for the rest of his natural life for his safety and for our own. This man ate my sons eyes and approx 1/3 of his heart after cutting his head off his body,and removing many other body parts. Do I really need to explain that Mr Li, having my sons tongue nose and ear in a bag in his pocket absolutely screams to me NEVER FREE!! The only thing more insane than Mr Li’s illness would be for us as a society, to do nothing and allow him to one day be free to have the opportunity to do it again. Let me be clear here as well.. These people DO get out more often than you’d care to believe in often VERY short time(1-5 yrs for crimes this heinous), and thats wrong. In the verdict of NCR in this case, the issue of mental illnes is addressed but what about the issue of murder? if not Mr Li, who is accountable for the loss of my son’s life?? psychologically not accountable perhaps but absolutely criminally responsible. A crime was still committed here, negating that fact negates that my son had a life. Mr Li arrived in Canada in 2001 but did not obtain citizenship until 2005, the same year he was diagnosed Schizophrenic in Ontario, and the way the system works that diagnosis ceases once he crosses the border to another Province??? does any of this make sense???

Vincent Li Review Hearing Set for June 1

Vince Li was found not criminally responsible last week for the brutal slaying of Tim McLean last summer near Portage la Prairie, Man,is to make his first appearance before a review board June 1.

Members of the Criminal Code Review Board are expected to send Li to a secure psychiatric facility. The board will review his case every year to decide whether Li must remain institutionalized or whether he is well enough to be released.

At the June 1 hearing, the group will review police reports, victim impact statements and psychiatric assessments, which say Li is a risk to himself and others.

Carol DeDelley, mother of Tim McLean, along with other concerned citizens are lobbying for Tim’s Law to ensure Li and other violent NCR killers are never deemed “cured” and allowed to become a threat to others.

Timslaw.ca Adds Language Translator

The purpose of Tim’s Law is to raise awareness of deficiency in our legal system, which has allowed killers like Vincent Li, the perpetrator of the horrendous murder of Tim McLean, to freely mingle with an unsuspecting public. We have added a language translator to timslaw.ca to further engage and foster a dialogue inclusive of the varying attitudes and opinions,

Proponents of Tim’s Law hope not only to raise awareness of the inadequacy in Canada’s “Not Criminally Responsible” policy, but to also effect meaningful change that will prevent the possibility of repeat offences by NCR perpetrators.

While this translator feature may not offer the perfect solution, our hope is that people may overlook the inherent limitations these translators provide, and see the greater good and awareness that timslaw.ca seeks to promote. Timslaw.ca is endeavouring to provide an inclusive forum crossing both the cultural and opinionated spectrum present in Canadian society.

What Victim’s Should Know About N.C.R

• What Victims of Crime Should Know About Not Criminally Responsible Accused

The purpose of this pamphlet is to explain to victims of crime what happens when the Court finds the person accused of the crime to be “not criminally responsible” due to mental illness. Many people, including victims, are unsure of how the justice system handles cases involving mentally disordered accused. People often think that mentally disordered accused are acquitted which is not the case. This pamphlet explains the role of the Criminal Code Review Board in assessing the accused and making a disposition. It will also help victims understand their rights such as making victim impact statements at Review Board Hearings, obtaining information about the accused, and finding out about the status of the case.
What does a finding of ‘not criminally responsible’ mean?
A finding of ‘not criminally responsible’ means that the judge or jury has a reached a verdict that:
* the accused committed the offence;
* the accused, at the time of the offence, had a mental disorder that prevented him or her from appreciating the nature and quality of the offence; and

* the accused did not know that it was wrong.

What happens when the Court finds an accused ‘not criminally responsible’? In order to determine what happens to the accused, the Court will:

* hold a disposition hearing and issue an initial disposition order and the Review Board would then have 90 days from the time of the verdict to hold a hearing; or
* refer the case to the Review Board, established under the Criminal Code, for disposition. The Review Board must make an initial disposition within 45 days of the verdict unless the Court extends the time up to a period of 90 days.

What is the Review Board?

The Review Board is appointed under the Criminal Code to make or review the disposition of accused persons who have been found unfit for trial or “not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder”. The Board is made up of at least five members. The chairperson must be a judge, retired judge or person qualified to be appointed as a judge. There must be at least one licensed psychiatrist. When the Board sits to review cases, at least three members must be present, including the chairperson and the psychiatrist. (more…)