Wednesday, Mey 31, 2000 — North Shore News - 7

| Giving convicts internet access is wrong

THOSE of you who, on Saturday, spent your leisure moments listen- ing to Peter Warren on CKNW, were treated to _ an interview with a woman named Priscilla Wilcox, who runs a Web site called “prison pen ”

What a load of BS dot com! Wilcox waxed philosoph- ically about how these inmates running personal ads were rep- ular people who “just made a

“mistake.” Yeah and I'm the

Crown Prince of Denmark. One of the prisoners on the Canadian section of the Web site is Steven Lee LeClair. This is the texz of the nice little per- sonal ad for anyone who is so neurotic they" like to write to Tm Steve, I'm 52 and} have 18 years in on a life 25 “sentence. As you may imagine _Thave lots of time on my “hands.and I would love'to spend some of that time corre- nding with you. I’m a gre- : garious person and I am inter- ested in many things. I’m ina -minimum security institution in the Fraser Valley of British

“Te’s not a bad place butit would be a whole lot nicer if I

crime and punishment

bloody carnage there, he hijacked a cab at gunpoint and made the driver take him to the Richmond RCMP detach- ment. He then gregariously walked in to the front counter and as Constable Tom Agar walked over to ask if he could

help him, LeClair opened fire, shouting Agar from point blank range. Agar never had a chance.

But LeClair still wasn’e fin- ished. He began fring at another officer, Constable Wayne Hanniman, who was diving for cover behind a desk. Hanniman was hit in che thigh, but survived his wounds,

LeClair then, not so gre- gariously, went outside and, with the gun dangiing from

his fingertip, surrendered toa -

corporal responding to the “shots fired” alert put out by the radio dispatcher. He didn’t even have the decency to give that corporal the chance to rid society of his loathsome self.

_ Final score: four dead, three

dt at she: recognizes that _

et groups. Props to -

i age that no. one- cked for being differ-

what was actually letter. was::“no‘one’ shouldbe ‘disorder.”. Ah, :!

agai

‘you support somethin

“1 observed at first han:

wounded and this headcase is trolling for women on the

- Internet.

t well. the. bloody chaos at the Palace

I remember that ni

: Hotel: [ was among the thou: sand-plus police officers stand-

ing in formation outside the church at Constable Agas’s

mnths being Orton Gillingham method for |

‘emedial:’ .. cutoring.- -°. That

‘method ‘was. browne” into. ° “Canada from America by mein:

bers of thé Junior League, who en passed it on to special pe:

ple: who took over the volun- .

er training at various schools.

Once.the course was taken’ ©

to. the schools, the - results

cas heart-warming ‘and ‘chil-

“the volunteers x Guieely became, a iend and’ confident‘ to, their’ ~~ ’ Joy Hump!

my

we

that sight Props to sfoyon for relating a alse sense : e ¢ incapacity to, see peopie’ -

D they 2 are, who whe were genetically - ow you feel they.”

you didn’t have your:

of sympathy, for whi who

: tended’ to.be,. instead of should turn out..I wish ~-morals and values all twisted around, it really:

helped * assistant teacher, who could then: spend. more. time with .

funeral. To this day, I can clearly see Agar’s widow cont- ing down the steps from the church, dressed in black and wearing a veil to conceal her tears, weeping visibly, shoul- ders shaking as she walked behind the flag-draped coffin, siru 3 to walk with avo small children sobbing, as they clung to her legs.

Steven Lee LeClair is eligi- ble for parole in six years. Realistically, there’s probably little chance he will get out, given the nature of his crimes. But, in our warped sense of justice, he serves his time ina minimunr-security institution that’s “not a bad place.” While he bides his time in Club Fed, he advertises on the Internet looking for female “pen pals.”

Wilcox is running her Web

"site as a business not out of

the goodness of her heart. She charges inmates for their ads and is recruiting Web masters in other counties to expand

her site. She may be a latter-

day Elizabeth Fry for all I know. But to allow people like LeClair access to the Internet for the purpose of introducing him to neurotic women is wrong. As I write this, another trailer park tragedy is unfold ing in the Interior.

Don Faulkner, a convicted murderer out on parole less than 10 years after his convic- fon for Killing his mother in- law, has disappeared along with his gitlfiend, Karen Miller. Police are fearing the worst and have issued a Canada wide warrant for his arrest, Evidently, he has made

- another of Wilcox’s so-called

“mistakes.”

Faulkner was sentenced to .

life in prison folowing his con-

had: a special ‘learning

fewer - students she worked with..

“s The “teachers. from “one North Vancouver - requested,‘ could. they all be given the same course that we © : volunteers had been given? ‘Many mothers spent many,

years sine ‘the results of

their. e! which produced bright children, often Of higher

* intellect, ‘no: longer . handi- eens with the. ‘burden ‘to

onthe Orton» - Gillingham

“method will not fade away — it will always exist:to aid handi-.

“ped people, young and old. hreys West Vancouver

“:¢reates ‘some hostility when I read letters suc

as yours. I feel sorry for the teens out there who have no one to understand: them, who have to face people at school every-". .- day with similar values like your own. But f ‘don’t feel sorry for their sexual status, which is... certainly not a disorder. Instead, 1 feel sorry for ~ your disorder; you have to live with stich a restricted view ; of the world — but I don’t have: -: empathy for people like you, Ms. White because I don’t have any compassion or accep:

school .

gay and lesbian.

viction in 1990. At the tine he weat AWOL, he was in a halfivay housz following the suspension of his parole in January. He'd been out for two years.

There's certain inevitability to these types of stories. For some bizarre reason, otherwise rational women scem to be attracted to dangerous men. What they don’t realize is chat a leopard doesn’t change his spots. Look at the case of poct Susan Musgrave and bank rob- ber Stephen Reid.

Musgrave started commu- nicating with Reid while he was in prison after being a member of the so-called “Stopwatch Gang,” a group of bank robbers who used to time their robberies to ensure they were gone beforc police could respond. Reid wrete a forgi ettable book i in jail called Jackrabbit Parole.

Once out, he was feted by the Vancouver Island intelli- gentsia who permanently reside with their collective heads in the ether.

“What a success story,” they bleated.

But, just as sure as Carter has little liver pills, Reid soon retumed to his former ways and began bingeing on heroin,

* marijuana and cocaine.

He is now back where he belongs, in prison on an 18- year beef, ater a frightening bank robbe: chase 4 through Vi Vigo sirects. During the chase he was toss- ing indiscriminate shots at pur- | suing police. :

Musgrave’s version of _- Tammy Wynette" 's Stand By” ‘Your Man is pathetic. Maybe she and Reid can collaborate .

on a sequel book, They could ’

call it “Jackass Parole System.” Perhaps they could send a

copy to Priscilla Wilcox. —tknight@direct.ca

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tance. towards those who have’ none to give.

ance, but only if the govern: Lisa Cooper, age 16:

chiatric brainwashers to ode: