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Sirpa Kuzyk wiped her tears Wednesday as she stood at the end of her long driveway just outside the village of Wilno.
“We could have prevented this,” Kuzyk said. “This all could have been prevented.”
The death of her daughter, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, and of two other women, Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, and Carol Culleton, 66, she says highlights a justice system that is failing victims of domestic abuse and forcing them to live in fear.
The women should have been notified that the man who now stands accused of three counts of first-degree murder had been released from prison, she added.
“Why were these people not informed about his being out in the open? How could he get a gun and drive around and target without anybody being warned?”
Tuesday was to have been Renfrew County’s annual Take Back the Night march to raise awareness about sexual violence. Instead, organizers spent much of the day in lockdown at the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre in Pembroke as police tracked down a suspected killer on the run and news trickled in about what would be one of the worst single days of violence against women in the county’s history.
Before noon Tuesday, police had found Kuzyk, Warmerdam and Culleton dead in their homes. Basil Joseph Borutski — a former partner of two of the victims and thought to have had a brief relationship with the third — was released from jail late last year after serving 19 months for assault, theft and a firearms offence.
The crimes have left many people throughout Renfrew County reeling. “Everyone is connected to these murders in some way,” said Killaloe’s Genevieve Way, a friend of Warmerdam who also knows Borutski.
Many are asking whether the criminal justice system should — or could — have done more to prevent the deaths of the women.
Friends say at least two of them feared their former partner.
“Everybody knew she was a target,” Way said of Warmerdam. “Police knew she was a target. She told them.”
Those who work with women in Renfrew County also say there are issues — including geography, isolation, often sparse cellphone coverage and easy access to guns — that make rural women more vulnerable to domestic violence, and that needs to be addressed.
Did the criminal justice system fail Warmerdam, Kuzyk and Culleton? It might be too soon to come up with an answer, if there is one, but many are asking the question.
It was not clear on Wednesday whether any of the victims knew that Borutski had been released from jail nine months ago, or whether any protection had been provided to them. Way said she spoke to Warmerdam on the weekend and doesn’t believe she knew Borutski was out of jail. “I had been in touch with her every few days and she would have mentioned if she was worried.”
While court documents reveal that both Kuzyk and Warmerdam filed complaints to police that Borutski threatened them, it’s not clear what responsibility police had to warn them of his release from jail or if they were part of ongoing open investigations. The province’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services confirmed he was “on probation and subject to community supervision by order of the court from December 27, 2014 to December 26, 2016.”
Carl Bromwich, a councillor in the Township of Madawaska Valley and chair of the local community policing advisory committee, praised the work of the Ontario Provincial Police, who arrested the suspect within five hours but was angry about the “way it all came down.”
“How did this man ever get away without being supervised? This points right to Queen’s Park.”
A probation officer comes to the community just once a week, he said, and is “completely overloaded. Obviously this guy went rogue.”
Court documents show that Borutski has, over the years, repeatedly broken the conditions of his parole.
OPP spokeswoman Sgt. Kristine Rae said the force could not discuss whether there were investigations open against Borutski and why charges might not have been laid in those investigations. The provincial police also refused to detail their involvement with the victims prior to their killings, saying potential witnesses cannot be identified even in death.
The clear allegations listed in police documents have raised questions about domestic violence investigations and how suspects known to police with outstanding charges are monitored.
Staff Sgt. Jamie Dunlop of the Ottawa Police Service told the Citizen that domestic violence cases can prove difficult to investigate. Ottawa police partner assault investigators were not involved in any investigations involving Borutski, but the force’s officers did apprehend the accused triple killer in rural west Ottawa Tuesday.
Ontario law provides a provincial mandate for police investigating domestic violence to lay charges without the co-operation of victims, but there still needs to be evidence in the absence of that co-operation.
“We still need reasonable grounds to lay a charge,” Dunlop said.
Domestic violence can often be private and historical, which presents challenges when police need witnesses, full co-operation of victims, and to collect immediate evidence. Accusations by complainants sometimes can’t be corroborated with the passage of time, Dunlop said.
“It’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of do we have evidence that we can go on to corroborate the accusation,” Dunlop said. It’s a barrier to being able to lay a charge and successfully prosecute it.
Criminal harassment, stalking, and uttering threats are also difficult to prove when there isn’t physical evidence. In order to lay a criminal harassment charge, the courts have indicated that police need to be satisfied there is a pattern of behaviour and that the suspect is aware that the behaviour and associated contact is unwanted.
Recent court cases, Dunlop said, have started to recognize that complainants need not necessarily be fearful of people but that if they are altering their daily habits to avoid unwanted contact that the case for criminal harassment is increasingly present.
In the unfolding of Tuesday’s events, concern has been raised over whether Kuzyk and Warmerdam, named in court documents, would have been aware that their alleged aggressor had been released into the community.
Dunlop said Ottawa police make every effort to notify complainants when accused persons in ongoing cases are released on conditions. Court liaison officers, partner assault investigators, and even patrol officers try to reach the alleged victims and explain the conditions. When someone is convicted in domestic violence cases and is then released when their jail term is over, the province should communicate the same information to victims through a parole officer.
Sexual violence activist and researcher Julie Lalonde, who was in Renfrew County on Tuesday, is among those asking whether enough was done to protect the victims in Tuesday’s killings. “They (authorities) must have known he was at high risk to reoffend. These were not random women. I believe the system failed them. If he was such high risk, why was he allowed to go back to the community? Why was nothing done to protect these women?”
There is a high risk committee in Renfrew County that women can participate in, along with police, victim services, social workers and someone from the Crown attorney’s office, said Rosalie Wilcox, residential manager of the Bernadette McCann House for Women, a women’s shelter. The committee helps women develop safety plans, among other things, but it is unclear whether any of the victims worked with the committee.
Lalonde said rural life creates more challenges for women in abusive relationships, causing some of them to decide to stay. “There is no public transit. There are high levels of poverty, and very few economic opportunities. Often you can’t leave your abuser.” She added that the “fear of retribution” is real for people who come forward, because communities are small and it is hard to remain anonymous.
Ontario has put a great deal of effort in the past decade into trying to prevent domestic homicides. Peter Jaffee, a professor of education at the University of Western Ontario, serves on the committee that reviews every domestic violence death in the province. In the past 30 years, there has been a significant reduction in domestic homicides, he said, in part because of increased public awareness, enhanced training of police officers and justice officials and other efforts.
“There has been lots of progress, but there is still lots of work to do. One death is too many. Three is an overwhelming tragedy. Hopefully, there can be a thorough review and analysis to know how deaths like these can be prevented in the future. That has to be the priority here.”
Simon Lapierre, an associate professor at University of Ottawa’s School of Social Work, is among those concerned that, even with attention focused on the issue, women’s fears are often not listened to. He said restraining orders “don’t work very well” when it comes to violence against women. And often when women call police to say they feel their lives are threatened or at risk, “we tend to minimize the risk. We really need to take it seriously and take action.
“When a woman gets killed by an ex-partner or a partner, and either the woman or the man had been in contact with the police or the criminal justice system, if that happens, there is someone failing somewhere and we need to put all our resources into finding out how.”
Still, no matter what the resources, stopping someone bent on killing is not always possible, said Holly Johnson, associate professor in the University of Ottawa’s department of criminology and leading researcher of violence against women. “When men set out to kill their partners, they find a way.”
In Pembroke, meanwhile, organizers have rescheduled the Take Back the Night march to next Monday and will use the event to speak out about violence against women.
On Wednesday, JoAnne Brooks, director of the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew and co-chair of the committee to end violence against women, and others dressed in black and carried signs about stopping violence against women to the Pembroke Court House where Borutski was making a court appearance.
“For those of us who work in the world of supporting survivors of violence, it is the kind of reality we all walk in every day. When it happens that there is violence and murder, it is overwhelmingly sad.”
Brooks was also organizing a vigil for the three victims at a monument in Petawawa, which was built to honour 17 Renfrew County women killed by men since the 1960s. The county’s committee for abused women spent 10 years working to have that monument built.
Now three new names will be added to it.
With files from Meghan Hurley and Dave Dutton
查看原文...
“We could have prevented this,” Kuzyk said. “This all could have been prevented.”
The death of her daughter, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, and of two other women, Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, and Carol Culleton, 66, she says highlights a justice system that is failing victims of domestic abuse and forcing them to live in fear.
The women should have been notified that the man who now stands accused of three counts of first-degree murder had been released from prison, she added.
“Why were these people not informed about his being out in the open? How could he get a gun and drive around and target without anybody being warned?”
Tuesday was to have been Renfrew County’s annual Take Back the Night march to raise awareness about sexual violence. Instead, organizers spent much of the day in lockdown at the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre in Pembroke as police tracked down a suspected killer on the run and news trickled in about what would be one of the worst single days of violence against women in the county’s history.
Before noon Tuesday, police had found Kuzyk, Warmerdam and Culleton dead in their homes. Basil Joseph Borutski — a former partner of two of the victims and thought to have had a brief relationship with the third — was released from jail late last year after serving 19 months for assault, theft and a firearms offence.
The crimes have left many people throughout Renfrew County reeling. “Everyone is connected to these murders in some way,” said Killaloe’s Genevieve Way, a friend of Warmerdam who also knows Borutski.
Many are asking whether the criminal justice system should — or could — have done more to prevent the deaths of the women.
Friends say at least two of them feared their former partner.
“Everybody knew she was a target,” Way said of Warmerdam. “Police knew she was a target. She told them.”
Those who work with women in Renfrew County also say there are issues — including geography, isolation, often sparse cellphone coverage and easy access to guns — that make rural women more vulnerable to domestic violence, and that needs to be addressed.
Did the criminal justice system fail Warmerdam, Kuzyk and Culleton? It might be too soon to come up with an answer, if there is one, but many are asking the question.
It was not clear on Wednesday whether any of the victims knew that Borutski had been released from jail nine months ago, or whether any protection had been provided to them. Way said she spoke to Warmerdam on the weekend and doesn’t believe she knew Borutski was out of jail. “I had been in touch with her every few days and she would have mentioned if she was worried.”
While court documents reveal that both Kuzyk and Warmerdam filed complaints to police that Borutski threatened them, it’s not clear what responsibility police had to warn them of his release from jail or if they were part of ongoing open investigations. The province’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services confirmed he was “on probation and subject to community supervision by order of the court from December 27, 2014 to December 26, 2016.”
Carl Bromwich, a councillor in the Township of Madawaska Valley and chair of the local community policing advisory committee, praised the work of the Ontario Provincial Police, who arrested the suspect within five hours but was angry about the “way it all came down.”
“How did this man ever get away without being supervised? This points right to Queen’s Park.”
A probation officer comes to the community just once a week, he said, and is “completely overloaded. Obviously this guy went rogue.”
Court documents show that Borutski has, over the years, repeatedly broken the conditions of his parole.
OPP spokeswoman Sgt. Kristine Rae said the force could not discuss whether there were investigations open against Borutski and why charges might not have been laid in those investigations. The provincial police also refused to detail their involvement with the victims prior to their killings, saying potential witnesses cannot be identified even in death.
The clear allegations listed in police documents have raised questions about domestic violence investigations and how suspects known to police with outstanding charges are monitored.
Staff Sgt. Jamie Dunlop of the Ottawa Police Service told the Citizen that domestic violence cases can prove difficult to investigate. Ottawa police partner assault investigators were not involved in any investigations involving Borutski, but the force’s officers did apprehend the accused triple killer in rural west Ottawa Tuesday.
Ontario law provides a provincial mandate for police investigating domestic violence to lay charges without the co-operation of victims, but there still needs to be evidence in the absence of that co-operation.
“We still need reasonable grounds to lay a charge,” Dunlop said.
Domestic violence can often be private and historical, which presents challenges when police need witnesses, full co-operation of victims, and to collect immediate evidence. Accusations by complainants sometimes can’t be corroborated with the passage of time, Dunlop said.
“It’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of do we have evidence that we can go on to corroborate the accusation,” Dunlop said. It’s a barrier to being able to lay a charge and successfully prosecute it.
Criminal harassment, stalking, and uttering threats are also difficult to prove when there isn’t physical evidence. In order to lay a criminal harassment charge, the courts have indicated that police need to be satisfied there is a pattern of behaviour and that the suspect is aware that the behaviour and associated contact is unwanted.
Recent court cases, Dunlop said, have started to recognize that complainants need not necessarily be fearful of people but that if they are altering their daily habits to avoid unwanted contact that the case for criminal harassment is increasingly present.
In the unfolding of Tuesday’s events, concern has been raised over whether Kuzyk and Warmerdam, named in court documents, would have been aware that their alleged aggressor had been released into the community.
Dunlop said Ottawa police make every effort to notify complainants when accused persons in ongoing cases are released on conditions. Court liaison officers, partner assault investigators, and even patrol officers try to reach the alleged victims and explain the conditions. When someone is convicted in domestic violence cases and is then released when their jail term is over, the province should communicate the same information to victims through a parole officer.
Sexual violence activist and researcher Julie Lalonde, who was in Renfrew County on Tuesday, is among those asking whether enough was done to protect the victims in Tuesday’s killings. “They (authorities) must have known he was at high risk to reoffend. These were not random women. I believe the system failed them. If he was such high risk, why was he allowed to go back to the community? Why was nothing done to protect these women?”
There is a high risk committee in Renfrew County that women can participate in, along with police, victim services, social workers and someone from the Crown attorney’s office, said Rosalie Wilcox, residential manager of the Bernadette McCann House for Women, a women’s shelter. The committee helps women develop safety plans, among other things, but it is unclear whether any of the victims worked with the committee.
Lalonde said rural life creates more challenges for women in abusive relationships, causing some of them to decide to stay. “There is no public transit. There are high levels of poverty, and very few economic opportunities. Often you can’t leave your abuser.” She added that the “fear of retribution” is real for people who come forward, because communities are small and it is hard to remain anonymous.
Ontario has put a great deal of effort in the past decade into trying to prevent domestic homicides. Peter Jaffee, a professor of education at the University of Western Ontario, serves on the committee that reviews every domestic violence death in the province. In the past 30 years, there has been a significant reduction in domestic homicides, he said, in part because of increased public awareness, enhanced training of police officers and justice officials and other efforts.
“There has been lots of progress, but there is still lots of work to do. One death is too many. Three is an overwhelming tragedy. Hopefully, there can be a thorough review and analysis to know how deaths like these can be prevented in the future. That has to be the priority here.”
Simon Lapierre, an associate professor at University of Ottawa’s School of Social Work, is among those concerned that, even with attention focused on the issue, women’s fears are often not listened to. He said restraining orders “don’t work very well” when it comes to violence against women. And often when women call police to say they feel their lives are threatened or at risk, “we tend to minimize the risk. We really need to take it seriously and take action.
“When a woman gets killed by an ex-partner or a partner, and either the woman or the man had been in contact with the police or the criminal justice system, if that happens, there is someone failing somewhere and we need to put all our resources into finding out how.”
Still, no matter what the resources, stopping someone bent on killing is not always possible, said Holly Johnson, associate professor in the University of Ottawa’s department of criminology and leading researcher of violence against women. “When men set out to kill their partners, they find a way.”
In Pembroke, meanwhile, organizers have rescheduled the Take Back the Night march to next Monday and will use the event to speak out about violence against women.
On Wednesday, JoAnne Brooks, director of the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre of Renfrew and co-chair of the committee to end violence against women, and others dressed in black and carried signs about stopping violence against women to the Pembroke Court House where Borutski was making a court appearance.
“For those of us who work in the world of supporting survivors of violence, it is the kind of reality we all walk in every day. When it happens that there is violence and murder, it is overwhelmingly sad.”
Brooks was also organizing a vigil for the three victims at a monument in Petawawa, which was built to honour 17 Renfrew County women killed by men since the 1960s. The county’s committee for abused women spent 10 years working to have that monument built.
Now three new names will be added to it.
With files from Meghan Hurley and Dave Dutton
查看原文...
