News From Behind The Wheel

December 2011

2011-12-17T08:03:00.000-05:00

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November 2011

2011-11-02T06:13:00.001-04:00

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October 2011

2011-09-29T09:51:00.000-04:00

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Taxing nights behind the wheel

2011-09-13T09:36:00.000-04:00

From the Queen's Journal:

Kingston taxi driver Mordeen Bondett opens up about her nights on the road

By Terra-Ann Arnone, Features Editor

Mordeen Bondett said her worst experience as a Kingston taxi driver was with a Queen’s student last year.

"He told me that I was just a servant," the seven-year Amey’s taxi veteran said. "He told me that he judged a person by what they did for a living and what I did for a living wasn’t respectable."

The mother of two teared up and turned away from me as she spoke.

"Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this," she said. "All I’ll say is that at that time, two of our drivers had PhDs."

Bondett, who works the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, let me ride along with her on Saturday night.

Her car had a surveillance camera installed on the windshield five years ago after studies in Winnipeg and Chicago found that video surveillance was the most successful method for taxi driver protection.

The cameras, which run about $1,700 each, take a picture of customers as they step in the cab and will record video if the driver touches an emergency button beside the steering wheel.

"I was personally against this in the beginning," she said. "I didn’t want my children to see me attacked or killed on camera."

Her outlook changed after a night-time encounter with two men.

"One was wearing a zip-up black sweater in the middle of summer and it tipped me off that something might be wrong," she said.

Bondett watched in the rear-view mirror as the man unzipped his sweater and reached into the breast pocket.

Before she could turn the camera on, the other man said, "I don’t want to do anything that will land me back in jail."

The customers asked Bondett to stop the car, paid their fare and left.

"Now I’m glad we have the cameras because our customers are aware of them and behave differently," Bondett said.

When the emergency button is pressed and the surveillance camera is activated, a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks the driver’s whereabouts and sends all available taxis to their aid.

She said people are often concerned about a woman driving alone at night.

"You can be afraid of the daylight too," Bondett said.

In 2007, Amey’s driver David Krick was stabbed to death inside his cab at 7 a.m.

"I can’t begin to imagine," she said. "I just have to keep myself strong and alert."

Taxi fares are standardized by the Kingston Taxi Commission, with current rates at $2.85 for the first 77 metres of travel and $0.10 for every 77 metres after that.

Amey’s taxi owns 20 per cent of their fleet, with the remaining cars owned privately by drivers. Bondett doesn’t own the cab she drives.

Drivers who don’t own their own cars make 42 per cent commission off fares. Cab owners bring 100 per cent of fare money home.

"Many students don’t realize that a good portion of our income depends on tips," she said. "Some of the drivers resent the fact that students don’t tip as well."

Bondett averages $2 to $5 in tips per ride.

"I find that most students are friendly, polite and grateful," she said. "But occasionally you have students who forget we’re human beings too."

Bondett keeps plastic bags, bandaids, Kleenex and gum in her car for customers.

"I stock up on plastic bags during Frosh Week and Homecoming," she said. "That’s when most people vomit."

When someone vomits in a cab, a driver can clean it themselves and continue with their shift or send it in for cleaning and forego a night’s wages. Clean-up incurs an $80 charge for the passenger.

"I’m impressed with students who bring their own plastic bags," Bondett said.

The Kleenex is mainly for students coming back from the train station after a holiday at home, Bondett said.

"I can go through a number of Kleenex boxes, especially after Thanksgiving," she said. "That’s when all the breakups happen."

Bondett said she’s noticed differences between Queen’s students and students from Royal Military College and St. Lawrence College.

"I find the university students, maybe because they’re here longer, feel like the city is more their’s," she said. "Whereas the college students are here for shorter periods and act more like guests.

"I always try to treat customers the way I would want my children treated," she said.

Bondett is asked frequently if she is an ex-convict by students during Frosh Week.

"It’s a rumour that runs rampant," she said. "There is no taxi driver in Kingston that is an ex-con."

The Kingston Taxi Commission mandates that all drivers undergo a criminal record check through the Canadian Police Information Centre.

Bondett works a 12-hour shift five times a week.

"I do it so that I can eat," she said. "But if you’re out here for 12 hours at a time, enjoying your job really helps — and I do."

Having a bad night — usually one involving vomit, an unpaid fare or mistreatment — can take a toll on drivers, Bondett said.

"One bad customer takes two [good customers] to erase it from your mind," she said. "One to show you that they’re not all bad and another to wash away the hurt."

August 2011

2011-07-25T08:42:00.000-04:00

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July 2011

2011-06-24T12:30:00.000-04:00

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June 2011

2011-06-07T06:38:00.000-04:00

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May 2011

2011-05-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

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April 2011

2011-04-13T17:00:00.000-04:00

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Man not responsible for stabbing cab driver

2011-03-03T08:23:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

A 25-year-old man, who stabbed an Amey's cab driver for no apparent reason in November 2009 and then stole his taxi, has been declared not criminally responsible for his crimes by reason of mental illness.

Timothy L. McGonegal was arraigned in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice Monday on charges of attempted murder, stealing a car while armed with a knife, dangerous driving and violating probation by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.

Defence lawyer Dave Crowe entered pleas of not guilty on McGonegal's behalf on the basis that he could not be held criminally responsible for his actions.

Assistant Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis then tendered the video statement that McGonegal gave to police after his arrest and invited Justice Rommel Masse to make a finding that he did commit the acts that gave rise to the charges. A short hearing followed to determine whether McGonegal could be held criminally responsible for his actions. Masse ultimately concluded he couldn't.

Laarhuis told the judge that following the Nov. 4, 2009, attack, a Kingston Police detective broached the subject of counselling with cab driver John Barnes, the stabbing victim. Barnes said he was aware of the dangers inherent to his occupation, the prosecutor told the court, and said he was going back to work.

He just wanted to know why he was stabbed, Laarhuis told the judge, because he said it was so unnecessary.

"Sadly," Laarhuis disclosed, Barnes died early in January from cancer.

The morning he crossed paths with McGonegal, the prosecutor related, Barnes was parked on the Kingston Centre lot waiting for a fare. Laarhuis told the judge that McGonegal showed up at 3:10 a.m., headed directly to Barnes's cab, leaned in and asked if Barnes could drive him to Napanee.

The cab driver agreed. Mc-Gonegal got into the front passenger seat and Barnes called his dispatcher for the flat rate -- $65. Then, after the cab had pulled out, McGonegal asked Barnes if he accepted debit.

Laarhuis said it's company policy to get the money up front, so Barnes pulled onto another lot at Princess and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, but as he reached for the debit machine, McGonegal plunged a knife into the centre of his chest without warning.

Masse was told the blade went in about an inch, but Laarhuis said the doctors who treated him believe it failed to penetrate Barnes's heart because the blade was deflected by his sternum.

Laarhuis said Barnes started to tell McGonegal that he'd just begun his shift and had no money, at the same time reaching for the door handle to escape, but his hand slipped.

According to the prosecutor, McGonegal responded by pushing harder on the knife, which at that point was still embedded in Barnes's chest. He ordered the cab driver to get out of his cab.

Laarhuis said Barnes later recalled that he half stepped and half stumbled out the driver's side door and found himself standing at the rear of his cab watching McGonegal slide across the seat and get behind the wheel. Mc-Gonegal then sped north on Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and Barnes used his cellphone to call his dispatcher for help.

Not long after that, police found the taxi in a ditch off the west-bound ramp to Hwy. 401. McGonegal was on foot, about 300 metres west of the abandoned cab, walking along the south side of the highway.

Laarhuis said Kingston Police questioned him after his arrest and McGonegal told them where he'd thrown the knife out the cab's window after the stabbing. Masse was told that a blue and silver folding knife with a 3 1/2-inch blade was later recovered.

That information came in one of the rare moments, however, when McGonegal was both responsive and relatively lucid.

When he was subsequently in-t erviewed, Laarhuis told the judge McGonegal talked about secret societies, his need to get in touch with his "heritage" as a member of a race apart from the rest of us, and "vampires of Ohio" among other themes.

McGonegal even declared, at one point, that "the universe needs dead bodies ... strung across the universe" to protect the earth from the effects of a thinning ozone layer. He suggested the human shield effect could best be accomplished by people swallowing TNT.

When his police interviewer asked him if his victim was a selection or random, McGonegal replied, "honestly ma'am, just happened to be the unfortunate one," and when she invited him to describe what happened between him and the cab driver, he told her "I broke," but he quickly went on to claim he was a Hells Angel and made a series of cryptic and seemingly random remarks.

Later in the interview, Mc-Gonegal compared himself to the fictional villain Hannibal Lecter and claimed to be a cannibal. He then went on to complain about being tortured and about having a chip implanted somewhere in his body that controlled his behaviour.

Laarhuis told the judge Mc-Gonegal has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and added that "he's had very active symptoms" since about May 2009.

Consequently, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Hucker was asked by the Crown attorney's office to conduct a psychiatric evaluation for the court. It was Dave Crowe who called the doctor to the witness stand, however, and under questioning by him, Hucker testified that when he met Mc-Gonegal at Providence Continuing Care last November, what struck him was "a very prominent thought disorder," characterized by disorganized ideas and individual words imbued with special potency or underlying meanings unique to McGonegal.

The doctor said there's also a medical history, provided primarily by the man's father, of his deterioration through 2009, "but I think he's been ill a lot longer than that," Hucker told the court.

He also calculated that by the time he interviewed McGonegal, nine months had passed since the court ordered that he receive treatment. He was on anti-psychotic drugs, Hucker said, but he saw little improvement and told the judge, "he has shown no insight into his illness."

"What we're getting now are variations on why he did what he did," he told the judge. "He's drawing on his delusions for explanations."

Hucker said he had no doubts McGonegal was delusional when he stabbed a complete stranger.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2011 The Whig Standard

March 2011

2011-03-03T08:20:00.000-05:00

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February 2011

2011-01-26T16:58:00.000-05:00

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Skipping out on cab fares proves costly for man, 46

2010-12-07T08:39:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

A 46-year old man who developed an aversion to paying for his taxi rides has been sentenced to jail for 26 days and placed on probation for a year.

In addition, Samuel W. Parkinson was ordered Friday to pay the $383.90 he owes taxi drivers in Kingston and Ottawa after he pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontar io Court of Justice to two counts of transportation fraud and violating a police-issued release undertaking by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.

Justice Judith Beaman was told that Parkinson committed the first fraud on March 16 when he hired a Blue Line Taxi in Ottawa and had the cabbie drive him to Gananoque.

Upon arrival, however, Parkinson got out of the cab and disappeared into Gananoque's Bell Tower Mall, according to assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada, leaving the cab driver on the hook for the $370 fare.

Skoropada said Parkinson was subsequently arrested for the crime but police released him without requiring him to seek bail from a justice of the peace. Instead, he signed an undertaking agreeing to obey the law while waiting for his day in court.

On Nov. 1, however, Beaman was told Parkinson repeated his crime, albeit for a much smaller amount, this time with an Amey's Taxi in Kingston.

Skoropada said Parkinson took a trip from Division Street to College Street, running up $13.90 on the meter. The judge was told he was more brazen the second time around, however. When he got to where he wanted to go, Skoropada said, he got out of the cab, told the driver, "I'm not paying," and left.

As a result, Parkinson ended up spending 34 days in pretrial custody before entering his pleas and his defence lawyer, John Dillon, said his client's wife finally decided she'd had enough and left him.

Dillon also told the judge Parkinson suffered abuse as a youth in the Maritimes and is currently in therapy where "he hopes to get to the bottom of his criminal behaviour."

Parkinson had been in Ottawa looking for a job, according to his lawyer, when he committed the first fraud.

Dillon said his client didn't have any money to get home to Brockville but he hoped when he got into the cab in Ottawa that a friend in Gananoque would pay for his ride. Unfortunately, the friend wasn't home, according to Dillon.

The defence lawyer offered no explanation for his client's reprisal of the offence last month but the judge was assured that Parkinson wants to make restitution.

"I want to get out and grab this right by the horns and get my life straightened out," Parkinson told her.

Beaman agreed to accept the lawyers' joint recommendation on sentencing, but she didn't sound optimistic.

"You have an unbelievably bad record," she told him, for like offences, violence and drugs.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

December 2010

2010-12-06T16:37:00.000-05:00

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Letter to the Taxi Commission

2010-11-28T19:20:00.000-05:00

Please click here to read a letter to the Taxi Commission from our editor, Roy Ambury.

Crown drops accessory charge

2010-11-17T07:41:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A charge of accessory after the fact to murder was withdrawn Monday in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice against the girlfriend of Richard E. Smith, three days after Smith was found not guilty of the 2007 murder of Kingston cab driver David Krick.

Laura Clow, 42, was present in the 117 Carruthers Ave. apartment she shared with Smith, 34, on the night of June 17, 2007, when Kingston Police tried to force their way in to prevent what they believed was the destruction of evidence.

About 16 hours after the murder, Smith's neighbours told police about seeing a man in his apartment's bathroom burning what they believed -- and what subsequently proved to be -- strips of cloth.

It was Clow, wearing only pyja ma bottoms, who finally opened the apartment door to officers past midnight that night after they tried to kick it in, having had no luck with banging on doors and windows and loudly announcing their presence. Jurors at Smith's trial were told Smith and Clow were the only occupants of the apartment.

Smith, a parolee at the time, was still subject until late November 2007 to a four-year, eight-month sentence for the knifepoint abduction, sexual assault and robbery of a woman in Milton, Ont. He wasn't charged with the fatal stabbing of 50-year-old David Krick until October 2007, when he was already back in custody on an unrelated charge.

Clow was soon after charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder, although there were indications during Smith's trial that they were estranged by then.

With his jury acquittal at the end of a five-week trial in Superio r Court, however, assistant Crown attorney Janet O'Brien said in withdrawing the charge against Clow that there was no prospect of a conviction.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Jury finds man not guilty

2010-11-13T06:55:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

After three years behind bars awaiting trial, the man accused of murdering Amey's taxi driver David Krick is free.

Richard Edmund Smith, 34, was tried for second-degree murder over the past five weeks in Superior Court in connection with Krick's June 2007 stabbing death.

Friday morning, at 11:07, the foreman of his jury stood and announced that the verdict was not guilty.

The victim's family, sitting in the spectators' benches, looked shocked.

They believe the right man was on trial: Krick's 73-year-old mother, Shirley Krick, fought tears and his sister Brenda's jaw literally dropped upon hearing the words, while her brother, Raymond, and sister-in-law, Robyn Lawlor, sat silent.

Staff Sgt. Bill Kennedy of the Kingston Police clearly disagreed with the jury's verdict.

Kennedy headed the police department's major case unit at the time of Krick's murder on June 17, 2007, and led the investigation that resulted in Smith's arrest four months later.

After the jury and Justice Douglas Belch left the court, as officers went to the prisoner's dock to remove Smith's handcuffs and leg shackles, Kennedy exploded. Addressing himself to Const. Jim Lindsay, the police officer assigned to court house security, Kennedy growled: "Let him go. Let the killer go, Jimmy."

"I'm absolutely disgusted," Kennedy then announced, adding to Smith: "Go out and do it again."

As Smith left the Frontenac County Court House with his lawyers and walked through the parking lot, Kennedy called after him to enjoy his freedom because David Krick won't be enjoying his. Smith, head down, didn't respond.

Krick's family had already left, walking slowly but with dignity away from the court house, their disappointment palpable.

Even Smith's lawyer, Mary-Jane Kingston was touched by their situation, observing that Shirley Krick and her daughter are "wonderful people."

The two women faithfully attended almost every day of Smith's preliminary hearing and trial, absenting themselves only during those parts that involved graphic evidence of the injuries sustained by their son and brother.

Jury deliberations in Canada are secret, so no one will ever know how the verdict was reached, but before they were sequestered Thursday night and taken to a local hotel, jurors had sent notes to the judge five times requesting a recap of specific bits of witness testimony.

Their sixth and final question, asking what Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton said Smith was wearing when she was out with him the night of June 16, 2007, into the early hours of June 17, was answered by Belch at 10:35 a.m. yesterday, 20 minutes before they arrived at their verdict.

Belch told them Martin-Chatterton testified, "he was wearing a sweater. I don't recall the colour. It was like a knit sweater. It had sleeves."

Both lawyers and the judge had already told jurors that the case would come down to a matter of identity and credibility. The forensic evidence gathered during the investigation provided no direct link between Smith and the murdered taxi driver.

The Crown presented a largely circumstantial case that placed Smith a few blocks from the spot where Krick's stolen taxi was found a little less than an hour after its discovery.

There were also two instances of Smith's conduct the day of the murder that, in the estimation of police and assistant Crown attorneys John Skoropada and Elisabeth Foxton, cast him in a suspicious light: Smith's ready and uncorroborated explanation for his presence on Palace Road between 7:28 and 7:43 a.m. on a Father's Day Sunday and his burning of strips of cloth in his bathroom for over an hour with the lights off later that night.

Key pieces of the Crown's case were also problematic. The identification of Smith in the prisoner's dock at trial by Const. Lester Tang, was weakened by his failure to make it earlier at the preliminary hearing.

Tang said that Smith was the man he'd seen running from the parking lot off Macpherson Avenue where Krick's taxi was found minutes before 7 a.m. the morning of the murder. But he also described that man as having a round face and appearing well fed when other witnesses who knew Smith at the time said he was skinny and looked like a drug user.

Likewise, Holly Holland, a recovering crack cocaine addict, who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand implicating Smith in the murder on June 30, 2007, admitted she was on a drug binge with him when he confessed the murder to her.

Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, suggested to jurors her mind and memory played tricks on her in her drug-addled condition and implied, in the alternative, that a criminal charge against her was dropped in Nova Scotia after she gave her statement.

He never put that question to Holland, however, suggesting it instead to Staff Sgt. Kennedy, who testified he wasn't aware the charge had been dropped.

There were things that the jurors weren't allowed to know during the trial.

Defence lawyer Leslie questioned both Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, the woman who'd been with Smith the night before the murder and into the early hours of that Father's Day Sunday, and Holly Holland, who said she'd bought drugs from him and done drugs with him a number of times, about their impressions of his client's character.

Both agreed with Leslie they'd never seen his client with a knife. Martin-Chatterton also agreed that he'd always been "courteous" around her. Holland, when asked if she'd ever seen him violent or threatening said, "no".

There was no indication that either witness would have known -- and the jury wasn't told -- that Smith, who's originally from Hamilton, has been violent in the past.

He was convicted in 2003, in Milton, after he accosted a woman in the parking lot of a donut shop, forced her into her car at knifepoint, drove to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, he forced his victim to drive to an ATM and withdraw cash for him from her account before he let her go.

He still hadn't completed the four-year, eight-month sentence he received for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, robbery, possession of property obtained by crime and driving while disqualified in October 2007 when he was charged with Krick's murder, and he wouldn't complete it until a month later on Nov. 30, 2007.

Nor was that Smith's first crime. His record dates to 1993 and includes property crimes, six convictions for failing to comply with conditions attached to various forms of release, impaired driving and domestic violence.

Jurors were told during his trial that Smith was hanging out in bars, using and selling drugs and cheating on his girlfriend. They weren't told that he was on parole, with conditions that prohibited him from drinking or using drugs and required him to report all of his intimate relationships because of his history of domestic violence.

The jury additionally wasn't told about the arguments in their absence, that the numerous delays -- with the exception of a three-day voir dire, a trial within a trial, on the admissibility of evidence -- were to accommodate defence lawyer Leslie. Nor did they know that he'd intended to make an issue in his closing argument of the Crown's decision not to call Smith's girlfriend at the time of the murder as a witness.

Leslie argued, in the absence of the jury, that Laura Clow, who shared the apartment at 117 Carruthers Ave. with Smith and was present when police seized burned cloth from their apartment's bathroom was "an important witness," but he chose not to put her on the stand himself.

Justice Belch ultimately forbid Leslie from suggesting the Crown was remiss in not calling Clow and told him if his order was ignored he would instruct them not to speculate on evidence they had not heard.

Jurors also didn't know that on Oct. 29, the Friday they were left in their jury room for almost seven hours without an explanation, it was because Leslie was talking to his client about pleading guilty to the homicide in return for a deal on sentencing.

After the verdict came in, Leslie told the Whig-Standard, "it was Richard's decision not to take the deal," to which co-counsel Mary- Jane Kingston quickly added "he can't plead to something he didn't do."

Leslie said, "that's what he said. That was his decision and he made the right decision."

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

No verdict after first day of jury deliberation

2010-11-12T07:47:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

The jury on the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of fatally stabbing Amey's Taxi driver David Wayne Krick in June 2007 was sequestered at 8:30 p.m. Thursday without a verdict.

Richard Edmund Smith, 34, has been on trial for the crime over the past five weeks in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice. In that time, the seven women and five men chosen to decide his case have heard testimony from 26 witnesses, including a woman who claims Smith confessed the murder to her a month after it happened.

Yesterday, following 3 1/2 hours of instruction from Justice Douglas Belch on the law and its application -- interrupted by a 30minute break to observe Remembrance Day -- the case was turned over to the jury to decide.

They must now be kept together, apart from all outside influences, until they reach a verdict. Consequently, they were taken from the court house to a hotel for the night by jury constables and will be brought back this morning to resume their deliberations.

In instructing them, Justice Belch told them that while he is the judge of the law, they are the judges of the facts and "as judges of the facts, your first duty is to decide what are the facts in this case."

Belch said "the evidence does not have to answer every question raised in this case." They must determine, however, whether it satisfies them of Smith's guilt or leaves them with a reasonable doubt that would require them to acquit.

The judge also observed that "this is a case that has a lot of circumstantial evidence," and explained what that means using the example of a raincoat and umbrella. If a person looks outside and sees that it's raining, he told them, that would be direct evidence of the weather. But if they see someone come in from outside wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella that would be indirect or circumstantial evidence of rain.

"In making your decision," Belch instructed jurors, "both kinds of evidence count. The law treats both equally." He also admonished them to use their common sense and experience in making their assessments.

Belch touched on the very limited contribution science and forensics were able to make in the case presented to jurors and said, "it seems to me, and both counsel have said this, that this case is all about identity."

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Lawyers make final pitch

2010-11-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

"This is a whodunit," the jury on Richard Smith's second-degree murder case was told Wednesday by assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada. "Who killed David Krick?" he asked rhetorically: "I'm telling you Richard Smith killed David Krick."

He then reminded them of evidence they'd heard at the start of the trial from 28-year-old Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, who testified that she'd spent the Saturday evening of June 16, 2007, in a bar with Smith, leaving with him and another man, identified in court only as Chris, at closing time in the early hours of June 17, 2007.

Martin-Chatterton told jurors she had sex with both men at Chris's apartment before she took a cab home to South Barlett Street. She recalled that he didn't want her to go and told her he'd come by her place later.

She also said that, upon waking around noon that Father's Day Sunday, she found a message Smith had left on her answering machine just after 4 a.m. indicating he'd made good on that promise but hadn't been able to wake her.

Skoropada reminded jurors that Krick, 50, who drove for Amey's Taxi was dispatched to pick up his last known fare from the YMCA parking lot off Wright Crescent about two and a half hours later that morning, at 6:33 a.m.

Jurors heard during the trial that the panic button in his cab was pushed about 10 minutes later and that Krick managed to make a 911 call before he was found on the sidewalk on Durham Street, stabbed 31 times and without vital signs.

Krick's cab, Amey's taxi No. 71, meanwhile, had been stolen and driven back to within blocks of the spot where he'd picked up his last fare. It was found abandoned in a parking lot off Macpherson Avenue and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and the police officers who made the initial discovery both saw a man bolt from the area, minutes before 7 a.m. But they weren't able to catch him.

Police were still in the vicinity looking for the runner when Smith roused the suspicions of Amey's cab driver Jai Scouten, who pointed him out, walking south on Palace Road, to Const. Edward Gaulton.

Scouten said he became curious about Smith because he drove past him three times and "he refused to look at me." He testified that he pulled alongside the pedestrian and told him "we were looking for a guy," without disclosing why. Smith, jurors were told, responded by volunteering that he was coming from his employer's place on Wright Crescent, adding that he didn't know the address, which Scouten also found odd.

Gaulton testified that he stopped Smith at 7:43 a.m. after talking to Scouten, searched and questioned him and received the same information that Scouten had, plus the name of his employer -- Harry Buttle -- and Smith's claim that he'd gone to Buttle's apartment to enquire about work. He told jurors he didn't believe Smith, but the clothes Smith was wearing didn't match the suspect description -- light-coloured or faded jeans and a black, long-sleeved jersey. He also didn't see any evidence of blood or injury to indicate Smith might have been involved in a knife attack.

Buttle died before the trial began, but jurors heard his recorded testimony from Smith's preliminary hearing . He testified that he was away from his apartment between 7 and 9:30 a.m. that morning. He said Smith later told him that he'd dropped by to enquire about jobs and thought it "strange," in that he'd never done it before.

Skoropada questioned Smith's claim of an early morning visit to his employer and told jurors "it defies logic that someone who's been out partying until at least 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning wouldn't have called ahead."

He suggested to them Smith's explanation was a lie, "to deflect suspicion away from himself about why he's on Palace Road."

He also reminded them that they'd heard evidence about Smith having friends on Cliff Crescent, a few blocks south of where Krick's cab was found, and said Buttle testified at the preliminary hearing that Smith kept extra clothes at the home of one of those friends and in Buttle's van, which was parked on Wright Crescent.

The Crown prosecutor directed jurors to a map that's been tacked to the wall opposite them throughout the trial and asked them to take note of where David Krick was found, behind the "no-tell motel" that housed the now-defunct XXX Sports Bar, which Smith frequented. He also asked them to note where Buttle and Smith's friend on Cliff Crescent lived, and the spot where Smith was stopped on Palace Road almost an hour after police saw a suspect fleeing the vicinity of Krick's abandoned cab. Skoropada observed, gesturing toward the map, that "Richard Smith lives in the middle of this."

In his closing, Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, invited the jury to reject key evidence from two of the Crown's witnesses in the trial: Const. Lester Tang, who identified Smith in the prisoner's dock as the man he'd seen crouching and then running from the An Clachan parking lot off Macpherson the morning of the murder; and Holly Holland, an admitted crack cocaine addict who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand on July 30, 2007, implicating Smith.

Holland was in Quinte Detention Centre when Krick was killed, but testified that immediately after her release, she went on a drug binge with Smith and another man named George at an apartment on Joseph Street. She claims that Smith told her while they smoked crack together that he'd killed "the cab driver" and afterward ran into an apartment building to escape. She said he told her he didn't get much money and speculated that he was trying to impress her.

Leslie suggested, however, that after days of drug use without sleep or food or any intake of fluids, Holland's memory played tricks on her. He theorized that her mind, under the influence of drugs, imported a conversation about the murder she'd overheard between strangers when she first arrived at the Joseph Street apartment.

The defence lawyer also questioned Tang's ability to make any identification based on a glimpse of the runner's face that Tang estimated had lasted only a second. He reminded jurors that Tang didn't identify his client during his preliminary hearing and said at this point "he might be lying, and then again he might not be." Leslie suggested the constable's recall was tainted by seeing a photograph of his client in the newspaper following Smith's arrest in October 2007.

Likewise, he largely dismissed the evidence of his client's neighbours, who testified about seeing a man burning what they believed were strips of cloth in Smith's bathroom for about an hour beginning around 11 p.m. on June 17, 2007.

"You might say to yourself, 'that's weird, that's a bit weird what Richard Smith was doing that night.' Fine, think that," Leslie told them. "I think it's weird." But it doesn't matter, he said, because the forensics expert who examined the material police retrieved from the apartment's toilet and sink couldn't tell them anything more than the material included fragments of denim.

Skoropada, in his closing, said the absence of forensics in this case isn't surprising because this is real life, not CSI Miami. He noted that in addition to not finding Smith's fingerprints in Krick's taxi, for instance, the forensic experts weren't able to identify any belonging to Krick.

But Leslie emphasized repeatedly to jurors that the onus lies with the Crown to prove his client committed the murder and "Richard Smith doesn't have to prove anything."

Skoropada used the analogy of a "constellation effect," and told the jury that when you look at one or two stars in a constellation "you have no idea what you're looking at," but when you look at them all together it becomes obvious.

Leslie borrowed the Crown's analogy comparing components of the evidence to stars in the Big Dipper and told jurors, "this huge constellation of factors that pull everything in to convince you he's guilty rests on Holly Holland." If you take out Holland and Lester Tang, Leslie told them, "you might think it's the Big Dipper, but you wouldn't be sure, and in Canadian law you have to be sure."

"I'm not going to tell you Richard Smith is a nice guy," Leslie said. "We know he sold drugs. He sold drugs to Holly (Holland)."

He warned them, as well, that emotion can play no part in their deliberations.

"What happened to Mr. Krick is horrible," he said. "He did not deserve what happened to him. But you cannot say, 'someone has to pay the price.' "

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Defence presents no evidence

2010-11-10T07:48:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Jurors on the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of fatally stabbing Kingston taxi driver David Wayne Krick learned on Tuesday that they've heard all of the testimony that will be presented in the case.

Their work, which is to assess the evidence of witnesses and decide if it convinces them beyond a reasonable doubt that Richard E. Smith committed the crime, will begin in earnest on Thursday.

The 12-person jury, seven women and five men, was sent home early last Friday morning, after learning that the Crown had completed its case and would present no more evidence.

Toronto defence lawyer Gregory Leslie indicated at the close of the Crown's case that he wasn't prepared at that time to indicate whether he would call witnesses.

Jurors were instructed to return late Tuesday morning to begin hearing the defence case.

When the trial resumed, however, Leslie informed the court that after consulting with his Kingston co-counsel, Mary Jane Kingston, "it is the position of the defence the Crown has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt and the defence will not be calling any evidence."

That left Justice Douglas Belch with a scheduling question, since the lawyers for the Crown and defence still have to present their summations to the jury and Remembrance Day, which is a court holiday, falls on Thursday.

Belch explained to jurors that his charge will follow the lawyer's summations, instructing jurors on the law and how to apply it in this case. Once it's delivered, they must remain together until they have a verdict. They can't go home.

Belch told jurors he appreciated there might be some among them with Remembrance Day commitments and said he would never order them to sit on that day. But he also noted that the November observance is not a statutory holiday.

In the end, he left it up to the jurors to decide how they wanted to proceed.

Belch outlined several possible options in addition to beginning deliberations on Remembrance Day, including beginning them on Friday with the possibility of being sequestered into Saturday, or taking a break in proceedings until Monday.

The judge estimated that his charge will take about three hours and he warned jurors that their discussions in the jury room will probably be lengthy.

He advised them to pack small overnight bags of necessities, such as medications, and to bring them with them on the day of his charge, just in case they have to be sequestered overnight at a hotel.

He then sent them to their jury room to make their first decision in the case.

They emerged less than an hour later after sending word to the judge that they were willing to sit on Remembrance Day and wanted to get on with their task.

They were then instructed to return at 2 p.m. today to hear the closing arguments of the Crown and defence lawyers, with the defence speaking last since no defence witnesses were called.

Justice Belch will then instruct the jury Thursday morning and send them immediately to their jury room to decide the case.

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

November 2010

2010-11-06T08:32:00.001-04:00

Click here to download this month's issue.

Prosecution turns over Smith case to defence

2010-11-06T08:26:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Jurors on the murder trial of Richard E. Smith were told Friday morning that the Crown has completed its case and will call no more evidence against the 34-year-old, who's accused of killing Amey's cab driver David Wayne Krick in 2007.

The trial now moves to a phase in which the defence has the opportunity, though no obligation, to call evidence. Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie of Toronto, has asked that the jury return Tuesday, when they'll learn whether they will hear from any more witnesses before they're asked to deliberate.

Jurors began hearing testimony in the case on Oct. 12 when they were told about the Father's Day Sunday morning when the panic button was pushed inside Krick's cab and a subsequent 911 call he was able to make, asking for help because he'd been stabbed.

Amey's Taxi dispatcher Kenneth Osborn testified that Krick had been dispatched to pick up a fare in the YMCA parking lot on Wright Crescent at 6:30 a.m. on June 17, 2007. He estimated it was 10 minutes later that the emergency signal from car 71 registered on his monitor and he went to voice trying to contact Krick, without success. Osborn told jurors he was alerting other taxi drivers in the vicinity that a member of the fleet was in trouble when he received the call from police "asking about car 71 and Dave Krick."

Osborn said he didn't know at that time how they'd got the car number or Krick's name, but he immediately accessed the cab's GPS (Global Positioning System) history and discovered it was moving down Victoria Street.

He stayed on the line with police dispatch, relaying the cab's route as it turned west, then cut down College Street almost to Union before backtracking to Brock, eventually coming to a stop west of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard off Macpherson Avenue, in the parking lot of Queen's University's An Clachan apartment complex.

Krick, meanwhile, had been found by a fellow cab driver. He'd been stabbed 31 times and was lying across the sidewalk, partly on a lawn on Durham Street. He had no detectable vital signs, but a police officer and Amey's driver Shelley Scott, who both arrived very soon after his initial discovery, performed CPR on Krick until paramedics arrived and took him to hospital, where his chest was opened in an effort to save him.

However, forensic pathologist Dr. David Dexter, who performed Krick's autopsy the following day, told jurors that the pericardial sac around the 50-year-old cabby's heart had been cut; both of his lungs were collapsed by his wounds; and nine penetrating wounds he'd received had caused "extensive hemorrhage."

Dexter was unable to calculate the blood loss with accuracy, explaining that surgeons would have removed much of the fluid during their attempt to save Krick's life.

Dexter also suggested that due to the "relatively small entrance wounds" he found, Krick's external blood loss could have been much slower than his internal blood loss.

Jurors have also been told that as two Kingston Police cruisers turned onto Macpherson Avenue the morning of the stabbing -- just before they found Krick's cab -- Const. Lester Tang, who was driving the second cruiser, observed a man crouched suspiciously in the An Clachan parking lot between two vehicles. He testified that their eyes met and the man took off running.

Tang and Const. Mike Campbell, who was in the lead cruiser, gave chase after turning into the parking lot at 6:52 a.m., but were not able to catch the runner.

Tang, the only person to see the man's face, later looked at 925 mug shots without finding the runner, although he picked out photos of three individuals he thought bore some resemblance to the suspect.

Jurors were later told by Det. Shawn Bough -- who put the photo lineup together -- that Smith's picture had not been among those 925 images.

Jai Scouten, an Amey's cab driver who was cruising the area near the YMCA almost half an hour later, on the look out for the same runner for whom police were still searching, testified about a man walking south on Palace Road from Wright Crescent, who caught his attention because "I drove by him three times and he refused to look at me."

Scouten pulled over and spoke to the man, but said he became more suspicious when the stranger appeared to him to be a little too forthcoming, volunteering that he'd just been to the home of his employer on Wright Crescent to enquire about work.

Scouten told jurors that he pointed out the pedestrian -- Smith, as it happened -- to the first police constable he met farther along Palace Road.

Const. Edward Gaulton, who stopped Smith and talked to him around 7:43 a.m. after speaking to Scouten, was also suspicious of his explanation for his presence on Palace Road at the height of their man hunt.

Gaulton told jurors he patted down Smith, using the opportunity to scrutinize him for any trace of blood or sign of injury consistent with a knife attack. He testified that he saw neither and also noted that while Smith was in the suspect's range for height and build and had short hair like the man they were seeking, none of his clothing matched. The runner had been wearing blue jeans and Smith, 51 minutes after the sighting, was wearing beige pants.

Const. Tang, when he testified in the third week of Smith's trial, identified him in the prisoner's dock as the man he'd seen crouching for one or two seconds and then running from the An Clachan parking lot. But jurors also learned it was the first time Tang had ever made that identification, even though he'd previously testified at Smith's preliminary hearing late in 2009.

Smith's employer in June 2007, Harold (Harry) Buttle, died before the trial began. Jurors heard his preliminary hearing testimony, however, when he said he didn't see Smith the morning of the murder, but was later told by Smith that he'd come by the apartment to find out about jobs the following day.

Buttle, who was 64 at the time, said he found that odd. But he liked Smith and believed him. He disclosed, as well, that he sometimes drank with his helper and that they smoked cigarettes laced with cocaine together. Buttle mentioned several addresses where Smith had friends and had stayed during the time he knew him, including addresses on Cliff Crescent, just south of Macpherson Avenue.

Var ious forensic witnesses have also testified at the trial to date, but none of them have provided any link between Smith and the murdered cab driver. Fingerprint analysts found few useable prints in or on Krick's cab and the only two identified were eliminated as belonging to other cab drivers.

All of the blood found in the cab belonged to Krick and there was nothing to indicate how much, if any, might have got on his assailant. Likewise, none of the more than 10 knives collected by police was ever established to be the murder weapon.

Jurors have heard that the night after the murder, police tried to break down the door to Smith's apartment at 117 Carruthers Ave. without a warrant, after learning that a man had been seen in his bathroom burning what the next-door neighbours believed was fabric .

A hair, fibre and textile expert from the Centre for Forensic Sciences, later testified that she examined burned and unburned fabric fragments, fibres and yarns recovered from the apartment's toilet bowl and sink. She was able to determine that at least some of the material was denim, but wasn't able to say anything else about it.

Smith wasn't charged with the murder, jurors have been told, until October 2007 after police tracked down a woman who'd called in an anonymous tip to the Amey's Taxi stand two months earlier, on July 30.

She claims he admitted to her that he killed the cabby while she and Smith were bingeing on crack cocaine.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Officer says he saw smoke

2010-11-05T08:21:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

The Kingston Police officer who was in charge of the city's Major Case Unit in 2007 testified on Thursday that Richard Smith's apartment wasn't searched early in the investigation into cab driver David Krick's murder because he didn't have grounds for a search warrant.

Staff Sgt. William (Bill) Kennedy, who has since moved to head up a platoon of uniformed patrol officers, told jurors that he and other officers were prepared, in the early hours of June 18, 2007, to force their way into the 117 Carruthers Ave. apartment Smith then shared with his girlfriend. But, he said, "my intention was to stop the burning of the evidence that was going on there."

Under questioning by Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie, the staff sergeant said he believed "exigent circumstances" justified his entering the apartment without a warrant to collect what was left of fabric that was reportedly being burned in the bathroom. But he didn't have the authority to search the rest of the apartment for evidence, he said.

Kennedy also told Leslie he didn't attempt to get a telewarrant to authorize his entry that night because he feared the evidence would be completely destroyed in the one to five hours the process could take. Nor did he apply for a regular warrant the following day, because at that point, "I didn't believe we had the grounds to allege the offence that needed to be alleged."

Kennedy, who led the Kingston Police Major Case Unit for four years, was testifying at Smith's second-degree murder trial arising from the stabbing death of Amey's Taxi driver David Wayne Krick, who was 50 at the time of his death on June 17, 2007, Father's Day Sunday that year. Smith, 34, has pleaded not guilty to the crime.

Jurors were reminded again yesterday by Smith's defence lawyer, Leslie, that the 34-year-old wasn't charged with the murder until Oct. 11 that year, almost three months after it happened. Leslie also disclosed that his client was already in custody -- as a result of an arrest on Aug. 1 -- when the murder charge was laid.

Previous witnesses have alluded to a search warrant executed on 117 Carruthers, apartment No. 1, on Nov. 8, 2007 -- after Smith had been charged and almost four months after the murder. A plumber opened up traps on the drains at that time, but nothing linking Smith to Krick's fatal stabbing was recovered in the search.

A group of detectives and patrol officers led by Kennedy did enter Smith's apartment, approximately 18 hours after the murder, however. According to Kennedy, they went in around 12:30 a.m. on June 18, 2007, and remained there until 2:25 a.m.

Major Case Unit Det. Guy Forbes, who testified earlier in the trial, told jurors that he'd been trying to get a follow-up interview with Smith since late afternoon on the day of the murder.

Smith, jurors have heard, became a person of interest after a patrol officer found him walking on Palace Road at 7:43 a.m. not far from where the murdered taxi driver's cab had been discovered almost an hour earlier in a parking lot off MacPherson Avenue.

Police and taxis were still circulating in the area on the lookout for a six-foot man with short hair who'd been seen crouching between vehicles near the cab and then running from the parking lot in among the buildings of Queen's University's An Clachan apartment complex.

Smith, when he was stopped by Const. Edward Gaulton, was the right height and build and had short hair, but none of his clothes matched those of the runner, who'd been described as wearing a dark, long-sleeved jersey and light blue or faded jeans. Gaulton testified Smith was in beige pants, a red T-shirt and black ball hat and was carrying a green windbreaker.

Still, after failing to find Smith home at 4:20 p.m., Forbes returned to the Carruthers Avenue apartment around midnight. He told jurors he was unable to get a response from inside and was preparing to leave when a next-door neighbour told him a man had been burning what he and his wife believed was fabric in the bathroom of Smith's apartment.

Forbes relayed that information to Kennedy and Kennedy testified he arrived with other officers and "we were banging on the door, banging on the windows, yelling we were the police very loudly," but with no result.

Finally, he said he began kicking the door and other officers joined in until one of the triangular sections at the bottom cracked. He testified the door never budged on its hinges, but following the crack, "we heard a voice scream from inside and we could see a female running from the back telling us to stop."

He told jurors "we stopped," and the door was opened by Smith's girlfriend, wearing nothing but pyjama bottoms and crossing her arms over her chest.

Smith emerged from the back bedroom afterward wearing a housecoat and Kennedy said he didn't seem as upset as he would have expected.

Kennedy also said there was smoke hanging about a foot from the ceiling when they entered, which dissipated as officers came in and out over the two hours they were there. He recalled there were also a couple of small candles and some incense burning in the bathroom in the area of the sink and toilet, where jurors have already heard some fragments of charred fabric and fabric fibers, including small quantities of denim, were recovered.

Kennedy said the case against Smith didn't start to come together, however, until August, 2007, when the man with whom Smith had been staying on Joseph Street identified Holly Holland as the woman who'd spent several days in his apartment near the end of July, drug bingeing with him and Smith. Jurors were told that the man has since died.

Holland testified Wednesday that she and Smith were smoking crack cocaine together when he told her he'd stabbed the cab driver and she speculated that he was trying to impress her. She didn't care then, she admitted, because "once you do a hit of crack you'd sell your grandmother on the couch for another hit of crack." But after her drug of choice ran out and she'd returned home and slept off its residual affects, she told jurors her conscience couldn't handle knowing about a murder and doing nothing.

Consequently, she said she made an anonymous call to the Amey's Taxi stand on July 30, 2007, and supplied information to a dispatcher there that ultimately pointed investigators toward Smith.

Kennedy said "Holly was a dead end," when she'd been interviewed by detectives at Quinte Detention Centre earlier in July, before her drug binge with Smith. She was questioned originally, he said, on the suggestion of another potential informant and because she was a known crack addict.

Consequently, when the July 30 tip was relayed to the Major Case Unit, according to Kennedy, investigators thought the anonymous tipster might have been Smith's girlfriend.

Holland, meanwhile, had left Kingston with her uncle and cousins and returned to the East Coast.

Leslie asked if the staff sergeant was aware of Cape Breton Police withdrawing a probation violation against Holland on Nov. 19, 2007, more than a month after she gave a video-statement implicating Smith in Krick's murder.

"I wasn't," Kennedy told him. The case continues this morning at the Frontenac County Court House.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Man bragged about stabbing: witness

2010-11-04T08:12:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A woman who claims Richard Smith told her that he'd stabbed cab driver David Wayne Krick about a month after the murder -- while she and Smith smoked crack cocaine together -- was grilled Wednesday about her recollection of events.

Holly Holland, 27, remained firm in her belief that she didn't misunderstand or hallucinate Smith's admission, insisting at one point to defence lawyer Gregory Leslie: "I'm not delusional."

Holland was testifying in Kingston's Superior Court at Smith's second-degree murder trial on an allegation that he stabbed the 50-year-old Amey's cab driver to death on Father's Day three years ago. He's pleaded not guilty.

Krick was found lying on Durham Street around 6:45 a.m. on June 17, 2007. He'd been stabbed 31 times.

Amey's dispatcher Brian Nesbitt testified yesterday about a morning in July 2007 when he was helping to answer phones at the taxi stand and an anonymous woman called with a claim that she knew who the cab driver's killer was.

"She said he was bragging to people about it," Nesbitt recalled.

"She said his name was Richard S. She didn't say anything else. She didn't give a last name."

Nesbitt said the woman described the killer's location, using landmarks rather than an address. He told jurors she said he was on a street off Division Street, near a high school, with a gas station on the corner.

Nesbitt said there's only one high school in that area and the now-defunct Sunoco gas bar at the corner of Division and Joseph streets was the only service station in proximity.

He also recalled that the anonymous informant identified the killer's specific locale as "a grey building" and said he was in "No. 9," but he couldn't recall her indicating whether that number related to a room or an apartment.

Nesbitt said he asked the caller why she hadn't contacted police directly with her information and she told him "she'd recently been in jail or involved with the law," and didn't want to deal with them.

He wrote down everything she told him and relayed that information to Amey's Taxi owner Mark Greenwood.

Greenwood remembered he verbally reported everything his dispatcher had told him to Kingston Police and he was told they'd logged the tip, but he never actually gave them the notes Nesbitt jotted down.

Holland, who no longer lives in Kingston, told jurors she was the woman who made that anonymous call. Holland candidly admitted that she was addicted to crack cocaine at the time, but said she's currently clean.

"I haven't done any drugs in three years," she testified. "It seems longer."

When she came to Kingston late in 2006, however, she was fully addicted to crack, as well as subject to a two-year conditional sentence that had her on house arrest, as a result of a robbery conviction in Nova Scotia. Her sentence was transferred to Kingston to permit her to look after the home and family of an aunt, who'd been recently paralyzed and sustained brain damage in a car accident.

Holland said she was concerned about breaking the rules of her house arrest for about a week after arriving here, until she realized that her supervisor only called to check on her during the daytime, that she never called more than once and didn't call every day.

After that, she testified, "the nervousness wore off pretty quick" and she started testing her restrictions, becoming bolder after she was permitted to take a part-time job at Tim Hortons. Eventually, she found her way to XXX Sports Bar and Billiards, where she met Smith.

Holland agreed with defence lawyer Leslie that she immediately recognized him as a fellow drug user and recalled that they started talking about drugs soon after they met. She testified that she bought drugs from Smith many times.

Jurors learned Holland was at the home of another acquaintance, smoking crack, when the apartment was visited by police investigating a crime in the building. Holland, who wasn't supposed to be there, gave officers a false name. That got her arrested for obstruction up-o n their return and she ended up spending some time in Quinte Detention Centre in the summer of 2007.

Under questioning by assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada, Holland revealed that while she was in the provincial jail she was visited by two Kingston Police officers.

She couldn't remember their names, but recalled one was black and one was white and the white officer told her if she could provide them with any information about the murder of the cab driver "they could shorten my sentence."

Holland suggested the offer had appeal. "Quinte was terrible," she recalled. "The guards used to call me princess in there and the girls didn't like me."

She couldn't tell the officers anything, she said, because at that time she didn't know anything.

After she got out of jail, though, Holland said the first thing she did after cleaning her aunt's house was to look up a girlfriend hoping to score some crack.

Holland said her friend didn't have any drugs but knew where they could get some. The two of them travelled together to an apartment owned by "a big Lebanese guy" named George.

She recalled that they were met in the parking lot by Smith and that when they went inside the apartment, there were between five and seven men already there, all smoking crack and all strangers.

Holland told jurors that she and her friend bought some crack and shared it. She also said she was "pretty sure" the men were talking about the cab driver's murder when they entered and recalled them making "eye gestures" to each other that she interpreted as cautions that she shouldn't be allowed to overhear.

Eventually, she said, the men all left and her female friend left, but she remained.

Skoropada asked her why she didn't leave with her friend and Holland replied "she didn't have any drugs," but there were still drugs in George's apartment and she wanted to do them.

She doesn't know exactly how long she stayed there, but agreed with Leslie it could have been as long as four days. She overdosed at one point, after allowing herself to be injected with cocaine while smoking crack continuously without eating, drinking or sleeping.

She described the sensation of smoking crack as "a big release" on the exhale, and even though the rush lasts only seconds and cocaine costs about $100 a gram, she said "it's indescribable."

"As soon as you're done, you want another hit."

It was while smoking crack with Smith that he told her about stabbing Krick, she testified.

"He didn't tell me much," she said, just that he'd stabbed the cab driver "three or four times" and then ran into an apartment "and that he didn't get much money, something like that."

Asked why he'd told her, she said Smith was always trying to impress her.

Eventually, the drugs ran out at the Joseph Street apartment and Holland said she went home to her aunt and uncle's house and slept for more than a day.

When she woke, she said "it was too much for my conscience," but she couldn't tell police what she knew without admitting she'd been violating her house arrest.

Consequently, she called the taxi stand, she said, and she left Kingston not long afterward.

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Expert can't pinpoint location of attack

2010-11-03T08:25:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A senior forensic analyst and blood stain expert, who examined the taxi of murder victim David Krick and photographs of the sidewalk in front of 14 Durham St. where he was found stabbed 31 times, was unable to shed light on exactly what happened that Father's Day morning in and around Krick's cab.

David Sibley, a civilian attached to the OPP forensics unit in Orillia, was testifying Tuesday, at the trial of Richard Smith, 34, in Kingston's Superior Court.

Smith is charged with second-degree murder in the June 17, 2007, stabbing death of Krick, a 50-year-old Amey's Taxi driver. He pleaded not guilty to the crime four weeks ago when his trial began in front of a Superior Court jury.

Sibley testified that he found both "passive" blood stains and cast-off blood drops on the exterior of Krick's cab, but only "passive" blood stain patterns inside the cab, and most of those in the back seat area. He also explained to jurors that passive stains are created by blood droplets dripping from any "blood source," including the victim, his assailant or the weapon used in the murder.

Sibley said he wasn't able to determine where Krick and his assailant were located in the cab from the blood patterns he studied, nor could he estimate how long the attack lasted. He could only say that the Centre for Forensic Sciences had identified all of the blood samples collected from both the taxi and Durham Street as belonging to David Krick.

"I do an analysis, based on the blood that's there," he told jurors, under questioning by assistant Crown attorney Elisabeth Foxton.

"But just because blood isn't there," he added, "doesn't mean an event didn't happen."

Sibley described a series of passive blood drops captured in photographs of the sidewalk on Durham Street. The trail travelled in an easterly direction, he told jurors, veering toward the road at one point, and then back toward the inner edge of the sidewalk.

Jurors have already been told that Krick was found at one end of that trail, lying partly on the sidewalk and partly on the grass, his cellphone still in the hand of one outstretched arm.

It was there that one of his fellow drivers and a Kingston Police constable initiated CPR in an attempt to revive Krick before paramedics arrived.

Sibley wasn't asked to analyze the blood pattern evidence until 10 days after the murder, however, and the photographs from which he was given to work captured only the blood staining on the ground. He said he wasn't told exactly where Krick was found.

He described a large "drip pattern" at that end of the blood trail, however, where blood droplets fell on top of blood already on the ground, creating a distinctive spray pattern and indicating, he said, that the "blood source was there for a period of time".

Nearby, there was also a large contact stain on the sidewalk, created by a bloody surface pressing against the concrete and a pool of blood, which Sibley said was indicative of a blood source having been in that particular spot for a long period of time.

Sibley also examined blood on the exterior, rear passenger-side door of Krick's cab and testified the droplets had definitely fallen from above, flowed down the closed door and angled back in a way that suggested they'd been deposited before Krick's cab was stolen and driven west to a parking lot off Macpherson Avenue, on the other side of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard.

He found a pattern of cast-off blood drops on that section of the cab's exterior as well, which Sibley said he thought had been created by "someone with blood on his hand making a swiping motion." He then demonstrated the action, which Justice Douglas Belch described for the record as being similar to the beginning of a backswing in golf.

Sibley was unable to determine whether the person with Krick's blood on his hand was Krick's assailant or Krick, however.

Likewise, when Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie, suggested to the blood pattern analyst that a large contact stain on the back of the driver's seat in the taxi appeared to be a bloody hand print with fingers, Sibley said "I would never call it that."

He offered no theories as to what had caused the stain and refused to speculate.

Leslie questioned the absence of cast-off blood patterns inside the cab, if a knife had in fact been wielded in that relatively confined space.

But Sibley said there were a number of variables that could account for that, including the location of the wounds.

"If you're stabbing into clothing," he told the defence lawyer, "you're wiping the blood off as (the knife) comes out of the clothing."

He agreed with Leslie, howeve r, that it wasn't a certainty clothing would wick all of the blood from a knife blade as it was withdrawn.

Leslie told Sibley it had been suggested that Krick was seated in the driver's seat of his cab when his assailant attacked from the back seat. He asked the forensic analyst if his findings inside the cab could provide any insight. But Sibley simply told him "I can't say that."

The blood droplets, he testified, gave no indication of exactly who was where in the cab at any given point in time.

He also disagreed with Leslie's suggestion that, in light of Krick's blood loss, his assailant would also have been covered in blood.

Sibley did agree it was unlikely an assailant would be able to clean any significant amount of blood from his hands without soap and water.

He also agreed that using just water, he would expect blood stains on clothes to remain visible.

But the blood pattern analyst also agreed with assistant Crown attorney Foxton that an assailant's success at cleaning and hiding blood stains would depend on how much blood he'd gotten on himself in the first place.

And there was no way to know that, according to Sibley.

The trial continues this morning at the Frontenac County Court House.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Charred material, threads found in suspect's toilet: detective

2010-11-02T07:48:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A Kingston Police detective testified Monday at Richard Smith's murder trial that 17 hours after cab driver David Wayne Krick was murdered, he and another officer went to the 34-year-old Smith's apartment and pounded on the door for at least five minutes, yelling "Kingston Police" and shining flashlights through the windows without getting any response from inside.

Det. Const. Guy Forbes told jurors that he was getting ready to leave when one of Smith's next-door neighbours "discreetly got my attention" and passed on some information that led to him calling for additional officers instead, one of whom tried to kick in the front door.

Smith is on trial for second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Krick, 50. He's pleaded not guilty to the crime, which happened in the early morning hours of a Father's Day on June 17, 2007.

The jury has already heard testimony from Smith's neighbours, who watched a man in the bathroom of Smith's apartment next door at 117 Carruthers Ave. burning what they believed were strips of fabric for about an hour before midnight.

Christopher Pike told jurors, earlier in the trial, that after police arrived around midnight that night his wife made him go downstairs and talk to them. He said he told one of them about the burning and recalled that the officer thanked him, but looked perturbed as he went to his radio.

Forbes agreed, under questioning by Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie, that the Major Case Unit to which he was assigned had three different "persons of interest" early in the investigation and his client was only one of them.

He also agreed with Leslie that Smith had become a person of interest after he was found walking on Palace Road, not far from where Krick's taxi was abandoned on Macpherson Avenue, just shy of an hour after the cab was discovered.

Forbes testified that he was tasked, later that day, with talking to Smith and said he went to 117 Carruthers originally around 4:20 p.m. At that time, he said he spoke to another tenant in the same building, who assisted him in identifying which apartment Smith lived in, but told him Smith wasn't home.

Consequently, Forbes and another officer returned around midnight, he told jurors, and attempted "to wake someone up."

Forbes said the neighbourhood was very quiet and there was no one in the street when they arrived. He also told jurors they tried both the front and back doors of the split-level. He disclosed that he even boosted the other detective up on the rear deck where " he was banging and shining his flashlight inside," and reported that he could see a television on, but no other sign that anyone was home.

Forbes said that he could also smell smoke coming from the apartment and "there was smoke being illuminated in the beam of my flashlight."

It made him think someone was home, he told jurors, but "I didn't know what the source of the smoke was."

After speaking to Pike, however, Forbes said he called Staff Sgt. Bill Kennedy, who was in charge of the investigation, and asked for more officers. Then he and the detective he was partnered with that night assumed positions where they'd be able to see if anyone tried to enter or leave Smith's apartment.

Forbes said one of the patrol officers who subsequently arrived with Kennedy and other members of the Major Case Unit attempted to kick in the apartment's front door. But it turned out to be too heavy and didn't entirely give way.

Soon after he started trying, however, Forbes said the door was suddenly opened by a woman, identified to jurors as Smith's girlfriend.

As soon as they entered, he said "I observed smoke in the air."

Forbes, who said he's five-foot- 10, estimated that it was hanging about a foot or two above his head. He testified that he went directly to the bath-room, where he observed some charred material and blue threads in the toilet bowl. He didn't touch anything, he testified, but reported his discovery to Kennedy and then looked in the apartment's rear bedroom to ascertain whether anyone besides Smith and his girlfriend were in the apartment.

Forbes said they were the only ones there.

Jurors also heard from Const. Robert Etherington, the Kingston Police Forensic Identification Officer who collected the material from the toilet bowl in Smith's apartment, as well as some black flecks that caught his attention in the bathroom sink.

Etherington also took photographs; collected blood swabs from Durham Street where Krick was found on the sidewalk stabbed 31 times; and additional swabs and fingerprints from the exterior of his taxi about nine blocks away. The cab, Amey's Taxi number 71, was stolen after Krick was stabbed and was then driven back to the same area where he'd earlier picked up his last known fare on Wright Crescent. It was abandoned on the other side of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard in the parking lot of Queen's University's An Clachan apartment complex off Macpherson.

Jurors learned that all of the blood swabs collected were later determined to be Krick's.

Likewise, there's no fingerprint evidence linking anyone to the crime.

Retired OPP forensic analyst Norman Sneddon told jurors "I wish it was like on TV, but it's not. The surfaces of a vehicle are not very good for fingerprint identification."

Sneddon fingerprinted the exterior and interior of Amey's Taxi number 71, a 2007 Chevrolet Impala, and inventoried and tested the contents of its interior. He found only a handful of prints suitable for identification and two of them belonged to other drivers while three weren't listed with AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System maintained by the RCMP. Under questioning by Smith's other defence lawyer, Mary Jane Kingston, he testified that none of the prints he found belonged to Smith.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Jurors hear no new evidence at trial

2010-10-30T07:55:00.011-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Jurors at the trial of the man accused of murdering Kingston cab driver David Wayne Krick almost 3 1/2 years ago heard no new evidence Friday.

Instead, they spent the day unexpectedly closeted in their jury room and were brought into the courtroom around 4:40 p.m. with apologies from Justice Douglas Belch for the "long delay."

The judge then told them they wouldn't hear from another wit-n ess until Monday and sent them home for the weekend.

Richard Edmund Smith, 34, stands accused of second-degree murder in Krick's death by stabbing on Father's Day, June 17, 2007. He pleaded not guilty to the crime three weeks ago when his trial began in Kingston's Superior Court.

So far, jurors have heard evidence about the panic button in Krick's taxi being pushed that morning shortly before 6:45 a.m., sending a signal to his dispatcher that he was in trouble, and a subsequent 911 call he managed to make from his cellphone.

They've been told that while police and fellow taxi drivers searched the area around Park, Victoria and Durham streets for him, Krick's cab, Amey's Taxi No. 71, was driven west, back toward the neighbourhood where he'd picked up his last known fare. The cab was found, abandoned, in the parking lot of Queen's University's An Clachan complex off Macpherson Avenue.

The jury also heard testimony from the first two police officers to locate the stolen taxi. One of them, Const. Lester Tang, identified Smith in court as the man he chased but lost after seeing him crouched between two vehicles not far from the abandoned cab.

Tang, who also testified at Smith's preliminary hearing, had not previously made that identification.

Two cab drivers and a police officer described finding Krick on Durham Street, almost simultaneous with the discovery of his cab about nine blocks away, and the attempts that were made to revive him with CPR at the scene.

Jurors have been told the slender 50-year-old cab driver had been stabbed 31 times and the attack had collapsed both his lungs and punctured his heart.

Const. Edward Gaulton testified that in the aftermath of the stabbing, as police and cab drivers patrolled the streets around Macpherson looking for the suspect who had earlier run from the An Clachan parking lot, Smith was pointed out to him walking on Palace Road and he stopped and questioned him.

He told jurors that Smith, who he estimated to be six feet tall and approximately 180 to 190 pounds, was physically in the suspect's range, but the clothes he was wearing were completely different. The suspect for whom police were looking was believed to be wearing a black, long-sleeved jersey and light blue or faded blue jeans. Smith, when Gaulton saw him, was wearing beige pants, a red T-shirt, black ball cap and carrying a green windbreaker.

Gaulton was suspicious, however, of Smith's claim that he was just returning from the home of his employer, Harry Buttle, on Wright Crescent and that he'd gone to ask him about upcoming jobs early on a Sunday morning.

Buttle, a sub-contractor who worked installing carpet and flooring for 43 years, was in poor health and died before Smith's trial began. He testified at his helper's preliminary hearing in 2009, however, and jurors heard his recorded testimony from that day.

Buttle said he wasn't home between 7 and 9:30 that morning, having taken his wife's car for an oil change at Canadian Tire, near the Cataraqui Town Centre. Buttle said he left the car there and walked home to 94 Wright Cres. and never spoke to Smith that morning.

He testified that Smith told him later that he'd stopped by, however, and while Buttle believed him, he said he found it " strange," in that Smith had never come to his apartment before to ask about work.

Jurors have been told that police twice went to Smith's apartment at 117 Carruthers later that day. The first time, in the late afternoon or early evening, they spoke to a couple in the neighbouring apartment building who had just returned from a bridal shower in Cornwall.

Later, officers returned some time around midnight and those same neighbours told them about seeing a man in Smith's apartment burning what they believed were strips of fabric in the apartment's bathroom.

Jurors later heard from Barbara E. Doupe, a hair, fibre and textile expert from the Centre for Forensic Sciences, who examined a small quantity of cloth fibre and yarn, much of it charred, that had been collected by police from the toilet and sink of Smith's apartment.

She was able to identify some of the material as denim, but said there was too little of it to say whether it came from a garment or some other textile.

Det. Shawn Bough, who was a member of the Kingston Police Department's Major Case Unit at the time of the murder, has also testified to the jury that Smith was one of three persons of interest early in the case. Jurors have heard that Smith wasn't arrested the night of the murder when police collected the burned material from his bathroom.

His neighbour saw him working on his property the next day, and jurors learned from the preliminary hearing testimony of Smith's boss that he work for Buttle until August that year when the 62-year-old went into hospital.

The jury has yet to hear exactly how police came to charge Smith with the murder.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Nine of 31 stab wounds were deadly: pathologist

2010-10-29T08:13:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

The forensic pathologist who conducted David Wayne Krick's autopsy told jurors yesterday that he couldn't say definitively where or exactly how the 50-year-old cab driver was positioned when he was fatally stabbed, but he believed it possible "many of the wounds" could have been inflicted while Krick was still inside his taxi.

Dr. David Dexter, who was director of Kingston's forensic pathology unit until his retirement in 2008, was testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Richard E. Smith, now in its third week in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice.

Smith, 34, has pleaded not guilty to the crime, committed on Father's Day, June 17, 2007.

Dexter told jurors the wounds he saw on Krick's body could have been inflicted by an assailant reaching forward from the back seat of the taxi. But, to account for the distribution of wounds on Krick's back, front and both sides, the doctor said the cab driver would have had to have been moving.

Dexter told jurors that Krick, who he described as a "fairly thin individual" at five-foot-10 and 128 pounds, died from the cumulative effects of "multiple stab wounds" that collapsed his lungs, pierced his heart and resulted in what Dexter described as significant hemorrhaging.

Under questioning by assistant Crown attorney Elisabeth Foxton, the doctor described 31 wounds on Krick's neck, right hand and torso, most of them in the cab driver's back and all but the two on his hand positioned above the level of his diaphragm. Dexter also disclosed that nine of those stab wounds, which penetrated deep into Krick's chest cavity, could have each been fatal on their own, entering between his ribs, through his back and through his chest.

He described the two wounds to Krick's right hand -- one in the back of his hand and the other on his palm below the thumb -- as defensive-type wounds, but later agreed under questioning by Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie, that the characterization was based purely on location. There was no way of knowing, he said, whether they actually resulted from an attempt by Krick to ward off his assailant.

Additionally, Dexter found evidence of bleeding at the base of Krick's brain and some swelling in the brain itself, which he had examined by a neuro-surgeon. He testified that the brain injury was "consistent with what's called a closed head injury," caused by some sort of impact. It wouldn't have been sufficient to kill him, the doctor told jurors, but it could have caused him to lose consciousness.

He couldn't determine exactly what caused the brain injury. Dexter said Krick's scalp and skull were intact with no obvious bruise site, leading him to suspect the impact may have been diffused over a large area. But "where the impact occurred I could not define, post-mortem."

Foxton asked him if it could have been caused by Krick falling and hitting his head. The doctor agreed that was plausible, but he didn't know.

What he could tell, he said, was that the stab wounds and the brain injury "all appeared to be fresh and concurrent," happening "more or less at the same time."

Toxicology found no alcohol or drugs in Krick's system when he died, Dexter told jurors, and had he not met with foul play that day, the doctor said his health was "quite reasonable."

Jurors also learned that Krick's assailant didn't take the time to search him. During the postmortem examination, hospital staff found six $20 bills and three $5 bills in one of his pants pockets and his wallet in another.

Dexter said he couldn't determine in what sequence Krick's wounds were inflicted. But there were multiple factors that would have contributed to his "rapid loss of consciousness," he said, including blood loss, the collapse of his lungs and a tear one of stab wounds had opened in his heart.

Jurors were told his blood vessels would have been compromised in their ability to deliver oxygen to his brain by all of those injuries.

Dexter, after examining Krick's wounds, said it was also "possible" that they were all caused by a single weapon, and if they were, he said, "it appears to be sharp, it appears to be thin bladed."

He estimated, based on the depth of penetration of the fatal wounds, that the blade involved was "in the order of 15 cm long" and about "1.2 cm wide."

It could have been longer, allowing for the possibility that the blade wasn't driven all the way in, he testified. Under questioning by defence lawyer Leslie, he conceded that factoring in chest compaction, the blade might have been slightly shorter. He didn't find any hilt marks to assist in that determination.

Dexter testified that none of the blades police brought to him for examination fit the parameters of the weapon that caused Krick's wounds, however.

Leslie suggested that 31 stab wounds is unusual and the doctor agreed "it is a lot of wounds," and more than he usually sees with a stabbing victim. But he was qualified in adopting the defence lawyer's characterization of the attack as "frenzied." Dexter responded: "Perhaps, yes," later elaborating that while "it is unusual to see this number of stabbing wounds," he couldn't comment on what else was going on during the attack.

Krick's wounds don't illuminate his assailant, according to Dexter. He told jurors, during questioning by Leslie, that it was impossible to tell how the knife was held, whether the assailant was right-or left-handed or how tall or heavy was the person wielding the knife.

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Man burned items in home: couple

2010-10-28T09:17:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

More than 16 hours after Amey's Taxi driver, David Wayne Krick was stabbed to death and his taxi stolen, jurors heard yesterday that a couple on Carruthers Avenue saw a man in Richard Smith's apartment next door burning what they believed were torn strips of cloth in the bathroom.

Smith is on trial in Kingston's Superior Court, charged with second-degree murder in Krick's death and has pleaded not guilty.

Christopher Pike and his wife, Dawn Pike, both testified separately that they didn't know any of their neighbours at 117 Carruthers on June 17, 2007, the day Krick died. They also didn't recall noticing Krick or his girlfriend, who also lived in the apartment, before that night.

The Pikes had lived on the top floor of the small apartment building next door to 117 Carruthers about six years at the time and were engaged to be married. They also told jurors they'd been out of town that Sunday at a bridal shower in Dawn Pike's honour in Cornwall and hadn't heard about the murder in Kingston, which had occurred between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m. that morning.

Christopher Pike testified that they drove back that afternoon, arriving home some time between 2 and 5 p.m., and recalled that his then fiance spent some time putting away all of the gifts she'd received.

He also recalled finding police on his street outside the apartments next door when they pulled in and that one of the officers asked if he'd seen his neighbour and that he told them "no."

Pike, under questioning by Smith's lawyer, Gregory Leslie, said the officer didn't use his client's name when he asked the question or identify the person he was interested in as the neighbour in apartment No. 1 at 117 Carruthers: He simply asked if he'd seen his neighbour.

Christopher Pike agreed with Leslie that the query was intriguing in that it was out of the ordinary.

But he testified he had no inkling of what was actually going on when his wife called him to their kitchen window around 11 p.m., alarmed at seeing flames in a window across the driveway at 117 Carruthers.

At first, he said, she thought it was a house fire and so did he: "Then I observed the fire wasn't out of control."

Pike said he saw a man standing in the apartment's bathroom setting long strips of what he took to be fabric on fire and dropping them out of view.

Once he ascertained that the apartment wasn't on fire, however, "I felt it was nothing to be alarmed about," he testified, "and none of our business."

He then returned to watching TV, but he said "Dawn watched the whole time," and intermittently called him back to observe the activity in their neighbour's bathroom.

Dawn Pike told jurors she'd gone to the kitchen for chocolate when she first saw the flames.

The lights in her kitchen were off at the time, she told jurors, and she was just reaching up to a glass shelf across the window above the sink when she saw the flame flicker in the corner of her eye.

"I thought our neighbour's house was on fire and I thought we should call the fire department," she testified, but her husband "told me I should mind my own business."

She kept watching, however, and observed that "the flames were floating" in the small bathroom window, which she estimated was about 30 feet away, down and to the right of her own vantage point. It looked like strips of fabric burning, she told jurors, "just by the way (the flames) moved." She also observed that the burning material was in different lengths and said she could hear faint sounds of fabric tearing from the open bathroom window.

She didn't smell any smoke, she testified. But her husband told jurors he did.

Dawn Pike also told jurors she could see it was a man doing the burning, although the light in the bathroom wasn't on. Both she and her husband testified there appeared to be light coming into the room from outside the room, possibly through an open door.

Dawn Pike also testified that she saw a woman with long hair enter the bathroom at one point and the pair seemed to her to have a conversation, although she couldn't hear anything that was said.

She told jurors she was able to see that the man doing the burning was thin, had short hair and tattoos on his forearms and that initially he was wearing a tank top, although later when he came into view he was bare chested and wearing only boxer shorts.

She said she got a good look at him because "at certain points he'd go right up to the window and he'd look left and right and then he backed away."

She estimated that she sat in her darkened kitchen and watched him lighting the fires for "an hour or more," and only left the window a couple of times "to argue with my husband because he was telling me to get out of the window and mind my own business."

Around midnight, however, the police returned: Just two plain clothes officers at first on the lawn and walking down the side of 117 Carruthers Avenue. Both Pikes recalled that there was no doubt about their identities, because one of them was wearing a bullet-proof vest with Police lettered across the back. Dawn Pike said she left the window to get her husband from the living room where he was still watching TV and insisted he go down and talk to them.

And Christopher Pike told jurors he did as she demanded and "once I waved one of the officers over, I told him what my wife and I had observed through the window," essentially that they'd seen a neighbour in 117 Carruthers burning what appeared to be fabric, and "the officer thanked me, looked perturbed" and went to talk on his radio.

Christopher Pike then returned to his apartment, stopping once, he said, to look through the stairway window, where he observed the man in the neighbouring apartment stop what he was doing to look outside toward the driveway.

At about the same time, Dawn Pike testified she was going back and forth between her kitchen window and the windows in her living room, which faced toward Carruthers Avenue.

When she looked out the kitchen window, the burning had stopped, she recalled, and when her husband returned to their apartment, they both stood and watched out the front windows as more police officers pulled up outside.

Christopher Pike estimated there were about seven of them on the property when he heard them ask loudly for someone to come to the door, which was followed, he said, by a loud bang.

After that, both Pikes saw police inside the apartment next door, in the kitchen and bathroom. Then, some time later that night, an officer came to their apartment and took statements from them.

The jury heard that was when the couple first learned that police were investigating a homicide. They've also been told, in earlier testimony, that Smith wasn't arrested that night.

The trial continues this morning at the Frontenac County Court House.

suey@thewhig.com

Officer testifies he saw accused on day of murder

2010-10-26T08:03:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A former Kingston Police officer was grilled Monday at the second-degree murder trial of Richard Smith.

Though he never identified him before, Const. Lester Tang testified that he saw Smith crouching near the taxi of slain cab driver David Wayne Krick the morning of the murder.

Jurors have already been told that before he succumbed to his wounds Krick, 50, was able to call police around 6:45 a.m. on the morning of June 17, 2007.

They've also heard that soon after dispatchers for the police and Amey's Taxi gave out Krick's last known location his taxi was reported on the move again. It ended up on MacPherson Avenue off the west side of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard.

Tang testified that he was the second officer -- right behind now retired Const. Mike Campbell -- to arrive at the parking lot of Queen's University's An Clachan apartments off MacPherson, where Krick's taxi was abandoned.

As he turned his cruiser down MacPherson, Tang told the jury, his attention was drawn to a man he could see through a gap in the hedges, crouching between two vehicles.

"I was travelling quite slowly, I'd estimate between 10 and 20 km/h," Tang said, and by his estimate the crouching man was about 20 metres away, within about five vehicles of Krick's abandoned taxi.

"When I saw him, our eyes met," he told jurors. "He saw me as well and just took off running."

Tang, who transferred to the Guelph Police Department in February, said he was "very surprised by the quickness of his reaction and his speed when he took off." He estimated he had about one second to study the man's face.

His cruiser was also behind Campbell's at that point and Tang estimated it took another 30 seconds for the two vehicles to get into the parking lot.

He testified that he radioed he'd seen a suspect first from his cruiser and then from his mobile radio as he gave chase. Campbell also jumped out of his cruiser, he recalled, and started running after the man, as well, signalling to Tang to take another path through the centre of the complex.

Campbell previously testified that he was never able to catch up to the runner and lost him when he rounded a building. Tang said the man never crossed his path again that morning.

That evening, he told the jury, he looked through 925 mug shots without success. He selected photos of "three people I thought would resemble the guy I saw," he said, largely based on what he felt was a similar rounded face shape, but he never suggested any of those three might be the man he chased.

"My purpose," he said, "was just to start the process."

Assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada asked Tang if he ever saw the runner from that morning again and Tang said "not until the day of the preliminary hearing that was held last year." He then identified Smith in the prisoner's dock.

Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Lester, was quick to point out that Tang was asked that exact question during the preliminary hearing, however, and his answer then was a simple "no."

Tang said he'd put too narrow an interpretation on the question when it was asked on that earlier occasion and claimed he didn't appreciate the significance of his being able to identify Smith as the runner.

"The investigation had already made an arrest of the correct person without my assistance," Tang explained. "I felt I was peripheral to the investigation."

He also agreed with Leslie that the first time he disclosed that he recognized Smith as the person he'd seen running from the parking lot that morning was during a conversation with assistant Crown attorney Skoropada just before the trial began two weeks ago.

His revelation, Tang con-firmed, came about after he noticed a photograph of Smith on a binder and made a remark to Skoropada to the effect that Smith looked different in the flesh.

The trial continues this morning at the Frontenac County Court House.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Police officer describes what he saw the day of cabbie's murder

2010-10-19T08:13:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Jurors at the trial of the man accused of murdering Amey's Taxi driver David Wayne Krick resumed hearing evidence Monday afternoon, only to be told they'll be in recess again until next Monday.

Justice Douglas Belch told the 12 citizens charged with weighing the Crown's case against Richard Edmund Smith that he's dealt with the points of law that paused witness testimony last week, on the third day of trial.

However, he also advised them they won't be required for the rest of this week, but will resume hearing testimony on Oct. 25. In the interim, he said, he and the lawyers involved will be working.

Smith, 34, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Krick, who was 50 at the time of his death on June 17, 2007.

The jury has already heard how the Kingston cab driver was found around 7 a.m. that Father's Day Sunday, blood-soaked on the sidewalk in front of a white bungalow on Durham Street. He'd been stabbed 31 times, had no detectable pulse and CPR initiated by a fellow driver and a police constable was unsuccessful in restoring any spark of life.

Yesterday, retired Kingston Police Const. Mike Campbell told jurors he was in a patrol cruiser that morning, parked up around Princess and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard at about 6:45 a.m. when his dispatcher advised that a cab driver had been stabbed in the area of Park Street.

Campbell put his cruiser in gear and was heading for Park Street, Campbell testified, when he received new information seven minutes later that led him to believe the injured cabby might instead be on Macpherson Avenue, west, off Sir John A. Macdonald. He told the jurors he immediately changed direction and drove for the new destination.

The former constable said there's a complex of Queen's University graduate student residences off Macpherson -- which have previously been identified as the An Clachan Complex. When he initally turned west onto the avenue from Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, Campbell said he could see a white car in the northeast corner of the complex parking lot. But didn't see any sign of people and said he hadn't noticed a fellow officer driving up behind him.

At that point, Campbell said "I wasn't in full possession of all the details about the cab" and so even after he'd identified the white car as an Amey's Taxi, he didn't know if it was the specific cab police were seeking.

He testified he was approaching in his cruiser -- slowly -- when he suddenly heard a voice over his radio announcing "I am in pursuit," or "I am in foot pursuit" and glanced in his rearview mirror to see a cruiser pulling in behind him. He recognized the voice on the radio as that of fellow officer Lester Tang, a relatively new addition to the force at the time, he said, and when he shifted his eyes forward again he saw another man running.

Campbell told jurors it all happened virtually simultaneously and, in response, he got out of his cruiser, ran around the front, climbed over a 2 1/2-foot guide rail and joined the pursuit. He admitted, however, that the suspect already had enough of a lead, "I knew I would not catch him."

He agreed with defence lawyer Gregory Leslie that Tang, being considerably younger, had a better chance of running down the fleeing man. After his initial head start, Campbell estimated 40 yards was the closest he ever came to catching the suspect.

But he testified that he stayed in the chase until he lost sight of the runner around the corner of a building, concentrating the entire time on observing as much as he could in order to provide the best description possible for his fellow patrol officers.

"At that point," he noted, "the taxi driver had not been found. We knew he was wounded from the information we had and I thought he might still be in the taxi."

So he returned to Amey's Taxi Number 71, abandoned in the An Clachan parking lot. Campbell testified that it was on his return that he observed red smears on the paint around the rear passenger door.

He told jurors he looked inside and, seeing no sign of the driver, spotted what looked like a GM key on the floor underneath the steering column.

Campbell said he carefully opened the door, using only his index finger and retrieved the key "very gingerly".

He wasn't wearing gloves, he said. But he needed to make sure Krick hadn't been stuffed in the trunk, so he fit the key into the trunk lock holding it carefully by its edges.

When he discovered Krick wasn't anywhere in the cab, Campbell said he relayed that information back to police dispatch, together with a description of the man who had run from the cab's vicinity and ultimately eluded both him and Const. Tang.

He then sealed off the area around the abandoned taxi with yellow police tape and later accompanied the cab as it was towed to an impound lot where he personally affixed police seals to all four doors to preserve evidence.

suey@thewhig.com

Witnesses give details of how victim was found

2010-10-14T07:50:00.003-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Jurors on the second-degree murder trial of Richard E. Smith heard on Wednesday that a call for help was sent from the taxi of the man he's accused of killing, taxi driver David Wayne Krick, approximately 10 minutes after Krick was sent to pick up a fare from the YMCA parking lot on Wright Crescent.

Kenneth J. Osborn, who was dispatching for Amey's Taxi early that Sunday morning, June 17, 2007, testified that the initial call was assigned around 6:30 a.m. And as soon as he saw the flashing "Emergency" indicator on his computer screen, he switched to voice frequency and called for "car 71, car 71," the cab Krick was driving. But he received no response. He said he also asked: "what's your emergency?" which could have been heard by anyone else in the cab if Krick's radio was switched to voice frequency. But there was no indication that message was heard, either.

Osborn said there have been false alarms in the past when a panic button was hit by mistake. But he told jurors he'd always been able to reach the drivers involved. They discover their error, he said, when the system won't let them book into a zone or answer any calls. When that happens, Osborn testified, Amey's drivers are supposed to immediately switch to voice frequency because an emergency alert, once activated, requires the driver of the involved taxi and the dispatch office to work together to deactivate it.

This time, there was only silence from the 50-year-old driver involved, so Osborn said he contacted another driver and asked him to check the Victoria and Durham street area where the panic button on car 71 was activated.

"I was sending other cars in to help," he added, "and I got a phone call from Kingston Police asking about car 71 and Dave Krick."

Osborn told jurors he didn't know how the police dispatcher got Krick's name and taxi number. But the call came in about two minutes after the panic button in his taxi was hit. Consequently, Osborn said he responded by calling up that morning's driving history for car 71 -- only to discover it was on the move again, travelling down Victoria Street.

As Osborn monitored the taxi's progress, relaying updates on its position to police, his recollection was that Amey's Taxi 71 cut over to College Street, drove down toward the water almost to Union Street, and then reversed itself, travelling back up College and over to Brock Street, before finally coming to a stop off Macpherson Avenue.

Amey's Taxi driver Michael J. Hartson had just started his shift around 6:30 a.m. that day. He testified that he picked up his only call that Father's Day around 6:40 a.m., dropping his fare off on the other side of the LaSalle Causeway in Point St. Mark.

It stopped being a routine day for him, however, as he was driving back across the bridge into Kingston's downtown, around 6:50 or 6:55 a.m. by his estimation. It was then, he testified, that a text message appeared on his meter indicating a driver needed help in the Victoria and Park street area.

Hartson testified it took him less than five minutes to drive from LaSalle Causeway to Victoria Street, where he joined two other Amey's cabs in a search of the area.

He recalls following car 34 up Durham Street, observing that, at the time, "we weren't looking for someone on the ground. We were looking for Dave (Krick) walking, or his cab." He suggested that was the reason the driver of car 34 initially missed seeing him.

Hartson, however, spotted someone lying on the south sidewalk on Durham Street, partly on the sidewalk and partly on the lawn of a white bungalow, his head toward a no parking sign. He also recalled that his immediate impression was that "there was a lot of blood."

He told jurors that he radioed Osborn in the taxi company's dispatch office and told him that he was going closer to have a look and then, "I saw it was Dave."

Hartson said he checked for a pulse at Krick's wrist and throat, couldn't feel one and relayed that information to Osborn before returning to see if there was anything he could do

He told jurors Krick was lying on his right side "in a fetal position," with one arm flung out and a closed cellphone in his hand when he first saw him. His eyes were open, and while Hartson was standing there, he said the phone began to ring, so he answered it. The voice on the other end identified itself as police dispatch, he said, and asked for his name and position. Then, almost immediately, he remembers a police cruiser coming around the corner.

Hartson told jurors he helped the police officer, who they later learned was Const. John Stanistreet, to roll Krick onto his back so the officer could begin CPR.

Shelley L. Scott, was driving back from Norman Rogers Airport after dropping off a fare around 6:40 a.m. that same morning.

She testified that she swung down Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, heading downtown, and noticed an unusually heavy police presence around Van Order Drive. She remembers thinking they were after somebody at just about the same instant she received a text message directing all drivers to Victoria and Park streets.

She remembers going to voice and asking which car they were looking for and being told they weren't looking for a car, just its driver.

Scott testified she'd just started to search on Durham Street when the message came over that Krick had been found and she drove back to assist.

She'd only been part of the Amey's fleet a short time, she testified, and "knew of " Krick more than she knew him. She was upset when she saw the scene, however, and recalled that as she approached, the officer on the scene told her to go back to her car.

Scott said she actually started to walk away and then "I said, 'wait a minute, I know CPR', " and she returned to assist Stanistreet, forcing air into her fellow driver's lungs while the police officer performed chest compressions.

Stanistreet told the jury he'd been dispatched at 6:53 a.m. that morning to help find a cab driver who'd been stabbed in the Park and Victoria streets area.

He remembered that it was only a short time after receiving that message that a second one came through indicating the missing driver had been found in front of 14 Durham St.

Stanistreet's recollection was that he was the third person to arrive on the scene rather than the second, however. He testified that he checked Krick for a pulse, found none, and the woman who was already there initiated CPR. He said he joined her, performing chest compressions until an ambulance arrived. He didn't know anything about the woman and man who remained to help, however, not even their names. He recalled that the man told him David Krick's name, "but I don't know how they knew each other," he said.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Trial into cabbie's murder begins

2010-10-13T07:45:00.003-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Almost three and a half years after it happened, jurors on the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of killing Kingston cab driver David Wayne Krick heard their first evidence in the case yesterday in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice.

Richard Edmund Smith, 34, has pleaded not guilty to the homicide charge and it's anticipated his trial will continue over the next five weeks.

In his opening statement to the seven women and five men of the jury, assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada briefly described the events of that fatal June 17, 2007 morning.

It was Father's Day, a Sunday, and Krick, who was 50 at the time, was working the day shift when, according to Skoropada, he was dispatched to pick up a fare on Wright Crescent.

The call was assigned to him just after 6 a.m., the prosecutor told the jurors, and at 6:44 a.m. the emergency button in Krick's cab was depressed on Durham Street, alerting staff at Amey's Taxi that he was in some kind of trouble.

Skoropada said the cab company was able to use GPS to begin tracking the cab as it doubled back west again, ending up in a parking lot off Macpherson Avenue behind Queen's University's An Clachan apartments, on the opposite side of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard from Wright Crescent.

He told jurors that police officers saw someone crouched down beside the taxi as they pulled onto the lot, but he ran and disappeared among the buildings that make up the complex.

By then, the cab's fatally injured driver had also been located by fellow Amey's drivers and police on Durham Street. Skoropada told the jury and Justice Douglas Belch that there will be evidence from a pathologist, later in the trial, concerning the 31 wounds inflicted on him.

He also told jurors that a short time after Kingston Police issued their officers with a description of the man seen earlier crouched by the abandoned taxi, Smith was found walking in the general vicinity and was stopped and questioned by an officer. Physically, he matched the description, according to the prosecutor, "but his clothing did not."

Skoropada said Smith told the officer who questioned him that he'd been out in the neighbourhood seeing about a job. The jury was told that Smith was allowed to go about his business but later that night, officers went to the apartment where he was staying to follow up.

Skoropada told them police knocked on the door, but Smith didn't answer and later, after they gained admittance, he told them some fibrous and charred material was recovered from the apartment's bathroom.

Smith wasn't arrested at that time but the following day, Skoropada told the jurors, a female friend of Smith's was released from Quinte Detention and she subsequently claimed to have met with him to do drugs. She additionally claimed that Smith had talked to her about the taxi driver's stabbing. She later left the province, but ultimately gave a statement to police.

Yesterday, Skoropada opened the Crown's case with two witnesses who both testified to events prior to murder.

Dianne Osborn recalled seeing a white Amey's taxi pull up on Wright Crescent around 6 a.m. that June 17 morning as she was watering her plants. She didn't see the driver of the cab, however, and couldn't really describe the solitary white male she saw get into the taxi.

Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, 28, told jurors that she'd spent the Saturday evening into the early morning hours of June 17 with Smith. Martin-Chatterton said she first met him some time in the previous year at the XXX Sports Bar attached to the Rest Inn on upper Princess Street. "We were acquaintances, we would meet up at the bar the odd time," she recalled.

She agreed with defence lawyer Gregory Leslie of Toronto, however, that she was attracted to his client, who she'd earlier described as "quite scrawny" at the time compared to his current physique.

She told the jury she saw him three or four times and then, on that Saturday evening, June 16, 2007, she phoned Smith and asked if he wanted to go out for drinks.

He did and Martin-Chatterton said he arrived at her place on South Bartlett Street, about a block from the bar, between 6 and 7 p.m. They had a beer there together before heading out, she recalled.

She testified that they drank all night at the XXX Sports Bar and left at closing time, which she estimated would have been about 2 a.m. By then, they'd been joined another man she identified only as 'Chris'.

The three of them took a cab to Chris' apartment on Guy Street, she testified, where they "hung out and had a drink."

She disclosed, with some prompting from Skoropada, that she also had sex with both men in the Guy Street apartment, "me and Chris and Rich."

She was drunk, she admits, and eventually decided to go home to her own place. She said Smith called a cab for her and came outside to wait with her on the street but "he wanted me to stay there because he wanted to party some more."

"I said I was too tired," she told the court, and remained firm about going home.

She remembered Smith telling her that he'd come by her place later and testified that when she woke up "noonish" on Father's Day she found a message from him on her answering machine recorded at 4 a.m.

"It was along the lines of, 'I'm outside your house; you're not answering your phone; you're not answering your door. Where are you?' "

She told the jury she'd slept right through and never heard her phone ringing or her doorbell and it was a month or two before she saw Smith again.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

October 2010

2010-09-22T05:17:00.002-04:00

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August 2010

2010-08-05T07:03:00.003-04:00

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Wheelchair taxi owners seek funding help

2010-07-28T15:02:00.001-04:00

From the CBC News Online:

The drivers of Halifax's two wheelchair-accessible taxis say a provincial subsidy to buy new vehicles won't get them far.

The Nova Scotia government has offered the two drivers $22,500 each to replace their aging vehicles.

Mark Weston said he's grateful, but retrofitting a van properly costs anywhere from $45,000 to $65,000.

"I've been mulling it over in my mind and I like to provide the service and I like to help people out, but from a financial perspective and a business perspective, it doesn't really make a lot of sense," he said.

Weston's vehicle needs a lot of work. It has more than 400,000 kilometres on it.

"I've got to stuff this rag in here and make sure that it's just so, so it doesn't rattle around. And that's not working," he said.

Weston said he's not willing to spend more than he would on a regular vehicle since the fares are the same.

Both he and fellow Casino driver Ben Bella plan to seek out tens of thousands of dollars in corporate or private donations to bridge the funding gap.

Erin MacPhee hopes someone comes through with the money. She uses the accessible taxis for recreational trips and to get to medical appointments in her electric wheelchair.

"It's extremely important for my life. It's my only way to get downtown to my doctor's appointments when I need to go," she said.

"My chair itself weighs close to 400 pounds and it's not collapsible. So there's a lot of us who do have the power chairs and we need this service to keep our independence."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/07/26/ns-halifax-accessible-taxi.html

June and July 2010

2010-07-02T11:07:00.002-04:00

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Taxi driver beaten

2010-06-21T07:32:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online

A Kingston man has been charged after an Amey's taxi driver was beaten early Sunday morning.

Kingston Police say they got an emergency call about a cab driver being assaulted just after 2 a.m. on Sunday.

When they responded to the location near the waterfront, the suspect, who was in his mid-20s, ran from them and ended the foot pursuit by diving fully clothed into Lake Ontario off Crawford Pier at the foot of Brock Street.

The two officers couldn't see him, so they both dived into the water to try and find the man.

When they couldn't locate him, a full-scale search was initiated, involving the Coast Guard, the OPP dive team and, because a police pursuit led up to the man disappearing and possibly drowning, the provincial Special Investigations Unit.

Three hours later, the man, still dripping wet, was picked up by military police on the grounds of CFB Kingston where he had apparently managed to swim.

The other agencies were called off and the man, whose name was not released, was charged with assault and released.

Police say the cab driver suffered broken teeth in the assault.

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

May 2010

2010-05-27T20:05:00.002-04:00

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Man gets 45 days in jail for drunk attack on cabbie

2010-04-12T07:54:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard online:

COURT: Lawyer says his client has changed his ways

A Kingston man who teed off on an Amherst Taxi driver under the influence of alcohol 14 months ago has been sentenced to 45 days in jail.

Kenneth Fellows will be subject to 12 months of probation after that, notwithstanding his lawyer's claims that he's a changed man.

Fellows, 44, pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice to assaulting the cabby on Feb. 7, 2009.

Crown attorney Bruce Griffith told Justice Rommel Masse that Fellows caught the cab at 4 a.m. that day on Leroy Grant Drive and that he and the driver talked amicably during the trip to his destination on Rosemund Crescent.

When they arrived, Fellows handed the cab driver a $10 bill to pay his $7.50 fare and, according to the Crown, that's when the trouble began.

Griffith said the driver, with Fellows' bill in hand, was reaching for his change purse when Fellows suddenly became enraged and demanded to know if the driver was trying to take advantage of him because he was drunk.

"I ought to punch you out," Fellows snarled at the cabby, according to Griffith, before slugging the driver in the side of the face with his fist.

Griffith said Fellows rant at the driver and then, just as suddenly, snatched his keys from the ignition and threw them out the open driver's side window into a snow bank.

The cab driver got out to retrieve his keys and Masse was told Fellows got out, as well, and renewed his attack until two women emerged from one of the nearby houses and pulled him off.

Fellows followed them into the house, Griffin said, and the cab driver, who had already contacted his dispatcher about his problem fare, returned to his vehicle to wait for police.

He still hadn't found his keys by the time officers arrived. Griffith said Fellows insisted to the officers that the taxi driver had picked a fight with him and that he'd merely defended himself.

Fellows' defence lawyer, Stephen Zap, told the judge his client sees things differently now and is "not the same individual who was involved in this fight."

Since then, he explained, Fellows underwent "a life-altering event," in the form of a heart attack. Zap said it convinced him to assess his lifestyle and stop drinking.

He urged Masse to place his client on probation and to forego jail, noting that the taxi driver appears to have suffered little injury and seems to bear his client no ill will. Zap said the man specifically told the probation officer who wrote his client's presentence report that he has no fear of Fellows.

Griffith, however, urged the judge to impose a 30-to 60-day jail sentence because, regardless of the outcome of this particular attack, people working the late night shift like taxi drivers and convenience store clerks are uniquely vulnerable to violence.

"This was four o'clock in the morning, with a taxi driver who was wearing a seat belt," the prosecutor said. "He couldn't defend himself."

In the end Masse agreed. "The court has to send a strong message to the public, to the community, that we can't tolerate this kind of behaviour."

He told Zap the cabby's absence of fear speaks more to his character than the circumstances of the crime or to Fellows' capacity to provoke a fearful reaction. He also noted that Fellows already had the benefit of 18 months of probation following an assault conviction in 2005.

To assist him in pursuing his new lifestyle, however, Masse ordered that after Fellows must abstain completely from alcohol while on probation. He's also required to co-operate with any assessment, treatment or counselling directed by his probation supervisor, including but not limited to treatment or counselling for alcohol abuse. He's forbidden by court order from possessing certain weapons, such as firearms, for five years and he is also barred from using the services of Amherst Taxi while subject to probation.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

April 2010

2010-04-03T08:49:00.002-04:00

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Murder trial dates set

2010-03-17T07:51:00.002-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

By Sue Yanagisawa

Trial dates have been set for a man charged with second-degree murder in the June 16, 2007, stabbing death of 50-year-old Amey's cab driver David Wayne Krick.

Richard Edmund Smith, 33, is scheduled to stand trial in late September in Kingston's Superior Court. Four weeks have been reserved for the presentation of evidence.

Krick was stabbed to death early in the morning on Father's Day three years ago, shortly after picking up a fare in the general vicinity of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and Princess Street.

He managed to send out a distress call before collapsing and was found by fellow drivers before 7 a.m., unconscious and dying on the sidewalk on Durham Street.

His cab -- No. 71, a top sign number that has since been retired from the Amey's fleet -- had been stolen, it's believed by his assailant.

The taxi was tracked by GPS as it was driven back to the Van Order Drive area that morning and it was found not long after it stopped moving. It had been abandoned in the parking lot of Queen's University's An Clachan apartment complex on MacPherson Avenue.

Police later disclosed that a man had been seen running in the area, but he eluded pursuit and disappeared into the surrounding neighbourhood.

Smith wasn't arrested and charged with the murder until four months later, in October. He's been in custody since his arrest.

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Cab rides may cost more by the summer

2010-03-16T07:53:00.002-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

Taxi fares in Kingston could rise this year at the same time the new harmonized sales tax comes into effect.

On July 1, a new sales tax of 13% will be levied on a wide array of products and services in Ontario. The tax, which is bitterly opposed by many consumers and business groups, merges the federal GST and provincial PST and while goods and services already taxed won't be affected, the harmonized tax covers a vast range of services currently not taxed.

One of the areas the double-digit tax would be applied is taxi fares, and as the Kingston Area Taxi Commission will have to recalibrate all the meters in the city's taxis to reflect the new tariff, long-time cab driver Roy Ambury is suggesting the city's taxi commission takes the opportunity to increase fares at the same time.

Driving cab is a financially precarious business, he said in an interview this weekend, and the city's cabbies haven't seen a rise in rates in 2008.

"The economy in general is not performing the way it should be, and taxi drivers need some help," he said.

"This new tax is coming in and there's a lot of concern about that, and we're suggesting that the taxi commission take a look at the rates at the same time they have to adjust the (fares) for the HST."

Taxi rates currently stand at a $2.85 drop rate, which is the charge to get into a cab, then 10 cents for each 77 metres, with added tariffs for waiting time, baggage and extra passengers.

There are some 600 drivers working for three companies in the city, and Ambury said at times it is difficult for drivers just to break even.

"We think there has to be a price point that is both good for the consumers and good for the drivers," he said.

"If the driver is a good businessman, he will make it, if he is not a good businessman he won't, but in a lot of cases right now with the price of fuel and everything else, it's a matter of breaking even versus not breaking even."

The taxi commission will consider the request to in-crease rates, as well as continue its discussion the mounting of cameras in city cabs for the protection of drivers, at its regular meeting tomorrow afternoon.

Ken Matthews, chair of the commission, said he doubts the majority of drivers will support a fare increase.

"Every time fares go up ridership goes down, at least for a while," he said. "It comes back gradually."

Fare increases are reviewed every year.

"I don't think there's any chance (of a fare increase), but it's up to the committee (to review it)," Matthews said.

"If there's a lot of support for an increase, there will be a review."

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

March 2010

2010-03-03T06:11:00.002-05:00

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February 2010

2010-02-01T15:15:00.002-05:00

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Man gets 90 days in jail

2010-01-22T08:15:00.002-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

A 24-year-old man who behaved outrageously toward a Kingston taxi driver after a night in Kingston's entertainment district more than a year ago has been sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Kushwinder S. Brar spent 16 days in pretrial custody after he threatened to "poke" the cabby with a small knife on his key-chain when ordered out of the car.

He has also been given 12 months of probation and ordered to abstain from alcohol during that time. He's prohibited from frequenting bars, taverns and other places where alcohol is dispensed, except licensed dining rooms between noon and 2 p.m. or 6 and 8 p.m., for the purpose of consuming meals.

Brar pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice in November to threatening an Amey's Taxi driver a year earlier and possession of a weapon -- his pocket knife -- for a purpose dangerous to the public peace. He also pleaded guilty to a subsequent violation last June of the alcohol abstention condition attached to his bail while the first two charges remained outstanding.

His sentencing was put over to this week to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentence report.

At the time of Brar's pleas, assistant Crown attorney Ross Drummond told the court that his victim, on the night of Nov. 16, 2008, had been working the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift when he picked up Brar and a male companion at Princess and Division streets.

The two passengers initially asked to be taken to Bayridge Drive and Front Road, but Drummond told Justice Rommel Masse they began to debate en route about a possible change in destination to Denny's restaurant.

The taxi driver kept driving while they were trying to work it out, which apparently enraged Brar, who, according to Drummond, grew increasingly belligerent with the cab driver.

Ultimately, he said, Brar's insults expanded to include the driver's mother, who he called a whore.

By then, Drummond said, the taxi was near Palace Road and the driver pulled over around Wright Crescent and ordered both men out of his cab.

Brar wasn't inclined to co-operate, however, and, according to the prosecutor, instead of getting out of the taxi, he pulled out a small pocket knife attached to his key chain and brandished it at the driver, asking: "You don't want to get poked, do you?"

Drummond said the cabby immediately raised his hands in a gesture of surrender but managed to also hit his panic button, which summoned fellow drivers.

Masse was told that Brar was arrested but subsequently released on bail.

Seven months later, on June 9, 2009, he was charged with violating the terms of his release.

According to Drummond, Kingston Police investigating a complaint about a possible impaired driver that night pulled over a small silver car traveling north on Princess Street. Brar was a passenger in the car and appeared to have been drinking, which a quick computer check revealed was a contravention of his bail conditions.

The prosecutor told Masse that Brar disclosed to police following that second arrest that he'd had five beer because he was scheduled to make a court appearance the following day to "figure out if I go to jail."

After hearing the facts of the matter, which Brar didn't dispute, Masse demanded to know why he'd treated the cab driver so shabbily.

Brar told him that the man had refused to pull his cab to the side of the road and wait while he and his friend settled on their destination, which led to an argument.

"So, you were willing to waste his time?" Masse snapped at him. "He's a busy man."

Brar's defence lawyer, John Ecclestone, requested a pre-sentence report, telling Masse that he expected it to support his contention that "this ugly incident is not who my client is, or, more importantly, who he's going to be."

By the time that assessment was completed and in the hands of the judge, however, Ecclestone had to admit the report was less positive than he'd hoped.

Masse observed that it was, in fact, "not favourable," and Crown attorney Bruce Griffith, who handled the sentencing, recommended 90 days of jail and probation for a year, based in part on its findings.

Still, Ecclestone told Masse that his client is basically, "a decent young man who's turned things around." He advised the judge, for example, that Brar assists his family by taking on tasks like the household cooking. His mother, according to the defence lawyer, has rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, health problems that forced her to retire and severely limit the scope of her activities.

Ecclestone further suggested that "alcohol was a key factor in this negative behaviour" and he told the Masse that Brar's father intends to relocate with his wife and son on the West Coast.

Both of Brar's older sisters are psychiatrists, he disclosed, and the family's plan is to have their son enroll in university in Seattle, where one of his sisters lives.

Masse, in passing sentence, told Brar simply: "You have to go to jail," and made a point of stressing to him, "your behaviour toward this man was completely unjustified."

suey@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Cameras in cabs ineffective, expert says

2010-01-18T07:51:00.001-05:00

From the Whig-Standard Online:

When Aaron Doyle arrived in Kingston last week for a conference on closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance in Kingston, he was immediately presented with a tough audience for his argument that taxi cameras don't protect drivers: a Kingston cabbie.

Doyle is a Carleton University criminologist who has been part of a team evaluating how such cameras are being used in Ottawa, their privacy implications and their effectiveness.

On his way downtown, he told the driver briefly about his research, and the next thing he knew the cabbie was taking him slowly down the street where driver David Krick was murdered last year and hotly arguing in favour of the tiny in-car cameras that some city cabs carry.

"We drove past where it happened, on a street not far from here, and the driver pointed out where it happened and he was asking me, 'How could you argue against these cameras?' " Doyle recalled.

"It was a very interesting conversation, to say the least."

But like other experts at the Camera Surveillance In Canada workshop, held by the university's Surveillance Studies Centre and partially underwritten by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, he argued such cameras are a knee-jerk response to crime that people think should be effective, and which divert money and attention from more effective strategies.

In the case of cab cameras, Doyle noted that there has been no study out of any city that uses them showing that crime against cabbies falls when they are installed or that they act as a deterrent when passengers know they are being watched.

Taxi drivers -- whose working conditions involve working alone with their backs to often-intoxicated strangers and who regularly travel to isolated areas while carrying cash after dark -- face 20 times the amount of violence that an ordinary citizen does and are four times as likely to be murdered on the job as a police officer.

While it seems logical that no one in their right mind would attack a cab driver in front of a camera, Doyle noted the problem is that no one in their right mind would attack a taxi driver, period.

He noted the argument for cameras assumes potential criminals have thought things though first and are not desperate for cash, mentally ill or drunk or stoned -- all big ifs when it comes to the kind of people who think armed robbery of taxi drivers is a good idea.

"You would have to be a fool to assault a driver in front of a camera, but put bluntly, you'd have to be acting pretty foolishly to attack a driver in the first place."

The cameras are often aggressively marketed to cities and cab companies by the companies who sell them. Often they are marketed with little consultation with drivers, who face a four-figure bill for installing them and who fear they could be used by their supervisors to spy on them and discipline them for minor infractions, all issues in Ottawa.

And Doyle noted the public, on whom the cameras are trained, are not consulted at all, even though a legitimate fear is that videotaped drunken escapades in the back seat could wind up on the Internet in the manner of shows likeTaxi Cab Confessions.

Doyle's experience with the cabbie cam is not unusual as people generally believe that surveillance cameras are more effective than they are and record everything, even though in a typical multi-cam array, only a few seconds of data are saved each minute in order to conserve storage space.

Danielle Dawson, a master's candidate in sociology at Queen's University, presented the findings of a multi-national survey that found the majority of people believe the cameras are effective.

And although people don't know much about how they are actually used, most also believe they have a sophisticated understanding of such cameras' use and capabilities.

"People feel that they are experts in it because of what they have seen on the media," she said, pointing to CCTV crime footage aired on the news and shows likeCopsorBig Brother.

"[These shows] hype up the capability of CCTV and contribute to why people think CCTV is so effective."

Dawson also noted that while the overwhelming majority of people believe cameras deter crime even though there is no evidence to support that belief, people also don't want that supposed crime-fighting capability looking at where they live, according to the survey.

"Even the people who believe that CCTV is effective don't want it being used in their neighbourghoods," she said.

ielliot@thewhig.com

Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard

Accessible Taxi Report

2010-01-14T06:04:00.003-05:00

In early October, a draft of the Accessible Taxi Report was posted here. The report has been prepared by BMA Management Consultants. A final version of the report is now available. Click the link below to read the updated report.

Accessible Taxi Report - Kingston

January 2010

2010-01-02T19:01:00.002-05:00

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December 2009

2009-12-02T07:39:00.002-05:00

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Amey's to install cameras

2009-11-10T08:00:00.001-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:

The operator of Kingston's biggest taxi company says he will install surveillance cameras to protect drivers.

Mark Greenwood, owner of Amey's Taxi, owns 15 cars that operate with Amey's signs on the roof. There are roughly 90 cars in Kingston that carry the Amey's sign, but the bulk of them are owned and operated by independent businesspeople.

Greenwood said other owners also are installing cameras.

"I would say they're in about 25% of our cars right now or are going to be," he said.

Last week, an Amey's driver was stabbed by a passenger in the front seat who jabbed him in the chest with an X-Acto knife and then stole the cab. The driver was not seriously hurt, Greenwood said.

That taxi did not yet have any safety equipment.

Last August, the body that regulates and governs the local cab industry ordered car owners to install one of three safety options in each car: an external flashing emergency light, a shield separating driver and rear seat passengers or a camera.

The safety measures were ordered after an outcry by taxi drivers in the wake of the murder in 2007 of Amey's driver David Krick.

The lights cost $300. Barriers cost $700 and cameras cost $1,400 per car. The safety equipment must be installed within three years, or when the car is replaced, whichever comes first.

"I'm going to do what I feel would protect them best," Greenwood said. "Obviously I care about my drivers and if I do everything in my power to make sure they're safe, then I can sleep easy at night."

Greenwood said most owners have chosen to install the lights, which can be operated from inside the car by the driver. They are only useful if someone outside the taxi sees the flashing light and calls 911.

Greenwood said he's sold on the cameras. He cites recent statistics from Windsor, where there were seven violent incidents in taxis in 2007 and 11 incidents last year.

In February this year, the installation of cameras was completed in Windsor cabs. There have not been any violent incidents since.

Violent incidents, including robberies and assaults on drivers, have declined in most cities where cameras were widely installed.

"They're proven to work," Greenwood said. "I know people say it's not a shield, it just takes pictures and it helps the police catch them after the fact, but really it prevents them from doing it in the first place."

Greenwood said shields are problematic because they don't protect drivers from front-seat passengers.

In the incident last week, the fare got into the front seat, beside the driver, and stabbed him by leaning over and pushing the driver up against the door.

A 23-year-old man was charged in the assault.

A 31-year-old man was charged in the 2007 murder of Krick. The case is still before the court.

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

Fellow driver calls for action

2009-11-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

From the Whig-Standard online

Posted By ROB TRIPP

More than two years after Shelley Scott desperately tried to breathe life into a dying fellow cab driver, she laments that cabbies continue to face the same hazards.

"The same stuff, over and over again," she said morosely yesterday.

"Something has to be done." Early Wednesday morning, a

veteran Amey's taxi driver was stabbed in the chest by a passenger wielding an X-Acto knife.

According to Amey's owner Mark Greenwood, the passenger reached around from the rear seat and jabbed the 60-year-old driver.

The wounded driver got out of the car and the assailant drove off in the taxi. He ditched the vehicle and was arrested a short time later as police swarmed the area. The cabbie escaped with minor injuries.

The incident is reminiscent, though with a different outcome, of another attack on a cabbie in 2007.

Early on Father's Day morning that year, Amey's driver David Krick picked up a passenger near the YMCA. Minutes later, Krick pressed a silent panic alarm that notified his dispatcher of trouble.

Soon after, he was found lying on a sidewalk on Durham Street, bleeding profusely from stab wounds to the chest. The killer had taken his taxi.

Scott, who was driving a taxi that morning, was one of the first drivers to find Krick after a call for help. Though horrified at the sight of the unconscious, bloody victim, she performed mouth to mouth while a police officer at the scene did chest compressions until paramedics arrived.

Krick, 50, died in hospital. A 31-year-old man was later charged with murder. A preliminary hearing in the case is still underway.

The incident mobilized Scott, among many other drivers, to lobby for safety measures for cabs.

In a decision made in August last year, the body that regulates the area taxi industry ordered all cab owners to install one of three safety devices in every car, within three years, or when the car is replaced, whichever comes first.

The cab owners must install a surveillance camera, a partition between driver and passenger compartment or an external emergency flashing light that can be activated by the cab driver.

Only partitions and cameras have been shown in other cities to improve driver safety. The external flashing light is considered by many experts to be a waste of time, since it is only useful if someone outside the taxi sees the light and calls 911.

"(Safety) needs to be revisited," said Scott.

She notes that the taxi business is stringently regulated to ensure customers are well served. Drivers, for instance, cannot smoke in their cars.

"It's about protecting drivers as much as it is about setting standards for the customers," Scott said.

Taxi driving is the most dangerous legal occupation in Canada, according to Statistics Canada figures.

Between 1995 and 2005, 25 cab drivers were murdered. In that period, 18 police officers were killed on duty.

Thirty-one year veteran driver Roy Ambury, who also writes a weekly magazine about the local taxi business, was robbed five years ago by a backseat passenger who held a knife to his neck.

Ambury escaped with minor injuries.

"The uptake on these (safety measures) has been slow because people don't see it as a problem," said Ambury.

Very few taxis are now equipped with cameras. No one in Kingston has installed a partition, Ambury said.

Only Amey's taxis are equipped with GPS tracking systems tied to the central dispatch. The system allowed police to find David Krick quickly in 2007.

"I'm really thankful that Amey's has the tracking system," said Ambury, who drives for Modern Taxi.

People who work in the business accept that there is a "background level" of problems for drivers, Ambury said.

"That background level is tolerated, dealt with, because otherwise, if everybody reacted to everything in an exaggerated way, then there wouldn't be any cabs on the road," he said.

After Krick's murder, many taxi drivers complained that the people who own cabs aren't concerned about the safety of drivers, but are worried that if they have to raise fares to pay for new gear, it will drive away business.

Timothy McGonegal, 23, is charged with attempted murder, robbery, and dangerous driving in connection to the stabbing Wednesday.

He remains behind bars.

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

November 2009

2009-11-05T08:22:00.002-05:00

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Man charged after taxi driver stabbed

2009-11-05T08:16:00.001-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online

A 23-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after an Amey's Taxi driver was stabbed in the chest with an X-Acto knife around 3:15 a. m. yesterday.

The 60-year-old driver's injuries were not serious. He was treated and released from hospital.

"I talked to him (yesterday) morning and he's fine," said Mark Greenwood, president of Amey's Taxi.

"He wanted to drive (Wednesday night). I told him to take a couple of days off, but he wants to drive (tonight)."

According to Greenwood, the accused approached the driver, who was parked at the Canadian Tire gas bar at Princess Street and Bath Road, and asked for a drive to Napanee.

Moments later, the accused asked to use an Interac machine, so the driver pulled over at Princess and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard.

At that point, Greenwood said, the fare reached around, hit the driver in the chest with his fist and ordered him out of the car.

"The driver said the guy didn't appear drunk or on drugs," said Greenwood.

After the driver complied, the accused drove the cab north along the boulevard before losing control of the vehicle, which ended up in a ditch near Hwy. 401.

By that time, police and canine units were on the lookout for the suspect.

He was arrested without incident, police say.

The man has been charged with attempted murder, robbery, dangerous driving and several other lesser charges. He appeared in bail court yesterday.

Coincidentally, this week marked the resumption of a preliminary hearing for a man accused of murdering an Amey's driver two years ago.

David Krick was stabbed to death while on duty June 16, 2007. Richard Edmund Smith is charged with first-degree murder.

"When a driver is assaulted, it's like an attack on your family," said Greenwood. "We are a family.

"Fortunately, (Wednesday's attack) turned out to be minor. I'm happy that it wasn't worse."

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

News in Brief

2009-10-09T06:04:00.001-04:00

From The Queen's Journal Online

Thanksgiving shuttle assesses student demand

This weekend, the AMS (Queen's University Alma Mater Society) will provide a shuttle bus between campus and the Via Rail train station to assess student demand for a bus travelling that route.

The shuttle is part of the executive’s campaign pledge for a new Kingston Transit route, AMS Vice-President (Operations) Leslie Yun said.

The bus will be paid for by the Bus-It program, a mandatory fee that gives students unlimited access to city buses during the school year.

It will run Friday and Monday and will be scheduled around incoming trains from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.

In order to ride the shuttle, students have to pick up a free ticket at Tricolour Outfitters starting today, Yun said, adding that it’s now unclear whether the executive will fulfill its promise of a new route.

“This is a good opportunity to see what kind of demand it gets,” she said. “It will give us more concrete details to work with.”

—Rachel Kuper

Accessible Taxis in Kingston

2009-10-02T14:36:00.003-04:00

In the most recent issue of News From Behind the Wheel, Roy reported on the September 16 meeting to discuss Accessible Taxis in Kingston. More information about this meeting can be found by clicking the following links:

Draft report on Accessible Taxis from BMA Management Consultants

Questions and Comments from the meeting

October 2009

2009-09-30T12:20:00.002-04:00

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Cab fares may be on the rise

2009-09-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online

Taxi fares in Kingston could increase slightly in order to provide new wheelchair-accessible cabs for the handicapped under a draft report issued by the city this week.

The consultant's report suggests raising the "drop rate" - the fee charged to people getting into a cab - by five cents per trip to $2.85.

The money would be used to offset the costs of putting three vans equipped with wheelchair lifts and other specialized equipment on the road to serve the handicapped.

The vehicles would be operated by the city's private taxi firms and would supplement the Kingston Access Services bus, which is not available 24 hours a day and does not have the capacity to serve everyone who wants to use it.

The access service already uses taxis to supplement its coverage for people who are handicapped but still able to use ordinary cabs. A number of city buses also offer wheelchair access, but those also do not operate 24 hours a day and do not provide door-to-door service.

"We looked at a lot of different options, but we wanted to choose one that would not put the cost of these accessible taxis onto the tax base," said city commissioner Cynthia Beach, whose department commissioned the report.

The report notes that the city does not have dedicated handicapped taxis because they are a money-loser for companies under the current billing regime.

Outfitting them with lifts and other equipment costs $30,000 or more, they are more expensive to insure and use more fuel, adding $1,200 a month to the cost of putting them on the road.

Drivers don't like them because they run many fewer trips in a shift and take longer to load and unload passengers, resulting in fewer trips and lower earnings and tips for the drivers.

The report suggests by adding a nickel to each taxi fare in the city, the resulting revenue could be used to offset the costs of buying and running the specialized taxis, supplement the wages of the drivers who operate them and make accessible cabs economically viable.

"This approach offers the advantage of spreading the cost over a large customer base with limited [or] no impact on customers," the report concludes about the five-cent rate hike.

"It fully offsets the additional capital and operating costs of accessible on-demand taxi service which improves the economic viability and the sustainability of the service."

The consultants suggest issuing three accessible plates, one to each of the largest firms in the city, which would be enough to provide 24-hour service, seven days a week.

People can have their say on the proposal and read the draft report by following the links on the city's website.

The report will also be the subject of two public meetings next Wednesday, Sept. 9, at the downtown branch of the library between 2 p. m. to 4 p. m. and 7 p. m. to 9 p. m.

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

July 2009

2009-07-08T09:34:00.001-04:00

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Cab driver stabbed by passenger in Montreal

2009-06-22T13:20:00.001-04:00

From the CBC Online:

A cab driver was in stable condition in hospital after he was stabbed by a passenger early Monday in Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district.

The driver picked up a woman on Marcil Street about 1 a.m. ET. Once she was in the cab, she stabbed him twice in the upper body.

Raphael Bergeron, a Montreal police spokesman, said the driver lost control of his car and struck a few parked cars before coming to a stop.

"The cab driver ran away from his car and the person that attacked him. So he went to the intersection of Sherbrooke and Marcil. That's where he found help and emergency services responded to the call very quickly, and located also the suspect that fled on foot."

Police said a 49-year-old woman could face charges of robbery, assault and attempted murder.

June 2009

2009-06-02T06:15:00.002-04:00

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May 2009

2009-05-09T09:06:00.002-04:00

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April 2009

2009-04-01T13:39:00.001-04:00

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March 2009

2009-03-03T07:03:00.002-05:00

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Teens get probation for failing to pay taxi fare

2009-02-26T08:54:00.002-05:00

From the Whig-Standard Website

Cab driver's collaring of suspects ignites argument

Posted By SUE YANAGISAWA, WHIG-STANDARD COURT REPORTER

Two teenage girls who tried to rip off a taxi driver for a $13 fare, then fought with him and got snarly with police after the cabby chased them down and caught them, finally had their day in court.

The teens, now 18 and 17 1 /2 years old, have both been placed on probation, the older one for nine months and the younger one - who was charged in addition to violating probation - for 12 months. Each of them has also been ordered to perform 30 hours of community service and to pay $6.50 apiece in restitution to the court for the taxi fare they tried to avoid paying.

The teens were set to go to trial this week but pleaded guilty just before noon on the day of their trial to committing transportation fraud. Their pleas were made after a deal was struck between assistant Crown attorney Janet O'Brien and the father-and-son defence team of John and Chris Ecclestone.

O'Brien noted that she was agreeing to the deal partly because the case had already been set for trial on three previous occasions and Each time the victim had taken time off work to attend court.

Still, O'Brien said she wanted other young people to get the message that they can't assault someone who's making a citizen's arrest in defence of their rights.

Her comment struck a nerve with Chris Ecclestone, who represented the younger of the two girls.

He reacted as though his client was the victim.

"I would have serious concerns about taxi drivers getting the message that they can't chase people into houses and drag them out," he told the judge.

John Ecclestone went even further, suggesting that the cab driver's apprehension of the pair "had all the earmarks of a kidnapping." He also argued that the man needed a warrant before he followed his fleeing passengers into the apartment building and then held them for police.

O'Brien had told Justice Judith Beaman that the crime was committed after the cab driver was dispatched to pick up a call in the Cherry and Pine streets area.

It was 12:30 in the afternoon on June 27, 2007, and the girls at first told the driver to take them to Food Basics on Barrack Street. Then they said they wanted to go to the liquor store across the street.

When they reached their destination, however, the person they were expecting to meet wasn't there and the girls belatedly disclosed that they had no money to pay for their ride.

O'Brien said they convinced the cab driver to return them to an apartment building on Cherry Street, where he was promised they would get him his cash.

Beaman was told the cab driver insisted that one of the girls remain with the cab while the other went inside for the money. The older of the two stayed behind.

After only a few minutes, O'Brien said, the older girl suddenly bolted from the cab and ran into the building, the cab driver in pursuit.

She told the judge that he caught up with the pair at the end of a hallway, heading for an exit, and grabbed them to return them to his cab while he called police.

Beaman was told that the girls didn't go quietly, however. They kicked and screamed, scratched the taxi driver and one of them tried to bite him.

They were later described by police as abusive and unco-operative with the officers who arrested them as well.

The Ecclestones both maintained that their clients hadn't initially set out to shortchange the cab driver, even though they didn't have any money to pay for a cab when they first called Modern Taxi.

John Ecclestone said his client went to the LCBO that day expecting to be met by a woman she referred to as her "street mother." The lawyer told Beaman she thought she had an arrangement with the woman to meet at that spot and expected to be given some cash.

The problem arose, he said, when her "street mother" was "a complete no-show."

He also observed that the assault charges originally laid against his client and her friend had not gone ahead, causing him to bristle at the suggestion that any delay in bringing the case to trial was attributable to the defence.

In fact, he said, had there been no resolution and the case hadn't gone ahead this time, he would have brought a motion to have the charges shelved because of unreasonable delay in its prosecution.

Beaman finally stepped in to referee, telling the lawyers "we double-book all the time." She suggested the delay that caused wasn't anyone's fault.

She appeared to agree with the younger Ecclestone that the cab driver should not have chased the girls into the apartment building, but she told the girls,"you should not have got into the cab without the money to pay for it."

Cab owner defends driver

2009-02-11T07:46:00.003-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website

Posted By ROB TRIPP, WHIG-STANDARD POLICE REPORTER

The owner of Kingston's biggest cab company says one of his drivers has been unfairly criticized after passengers he was ferrying savagely beat a man on Bath Road.

"I think what he did was appropriate," Mark Greenwood, owner of Amey's Taxi, said yesterday.

Greenwood said the driver did what was necessary to protect himself in a volatile situation.

He said the company has received calls and complaints from people who wrongly want to blame the driver.

"He is shaken up," Greenwood said. "He's also a little concerned that one of these guys is going to be looking for him."

The driver was heading east on Bath Road about 1 a. m. Sunday after picking up six men in his van at a west-end bar.

They appeared agitated and were looking for a friend, but left the bar before finding him.

As the taxi approached Tanner Drive, the cabbie heard one of his passengers say, "There he is," and the sliding door of the van began to open.

The driver pulled over and watched two of his passengers stumble across the road to where two men were fighting. Four men remained in the taxi, Greenwood said.

The cab driver was frightened by what he saw, as the three assailants pummelled a victim for about a minute.

"He just witnessed a really brutal assault," Greenwood said. "He wants to get them out of the van as soon as possible."

The three men who had participated in the assault got back in the taxi and the cab driver pulled away. He could see that other cars had stopped, including another taxi, to help the victim of the attack.

The cabbie assumed that one of those other people who had stopped was calling police.

The driver feared he'd be assaulted if he called 911 or if he tried to eject the drunken passengers from the taxi.

"He didn't want to agitate anyone in the vehicle by trying to contact the police himself [or put] his own life in jeopardy when he knew the guy was going to be looked after and that someone had probably called the police," Greenwood said.

Before the cab reached its destination, police pulled it over on Concession Street, where they arrested the three men who participated in the assault.

Greenwood said police had called the Amey's dispatch office and the taxi was quickly located because it is GPS equipped.

The victim of the attack, a 28-year-old St. Lawrence College student, suffered a host of injuries, including a possible broken nose.

His assailants were charged with assault causing bodily harm.

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

Two men beaten in brutal attacks

2009-02-09T07:26:00.003-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website

Student, cabbie victims of assaults

A St. Lawrence College student was sent to hospital early yesterday morning following a brutal beating in the city's west end.

It was the second violent attack police investigated on the weekend. A 43-year-old Kingston man is facing assault charges after a attacking a cab driver early Saturday morning.

The college student wasn't robbed, but his attackers left him lying bleeding and beaten in a snowbank along Bath Road, police said.

The three men arrested and charged in the assault were drunk at the time, police said, and had never met the victim.

"Nobody knew him. These guys just picked him out," said Sgt. Alex Forsyth of the Kingston Police.

Forsyth said one of the attackers didn't even recall the attack after sobering up overnight in a police cell.

Police said the victim had gone to Ottawa with some friends for a stag party and returned to a home on Days Road before deciding to call it a night. He told his friends that he was going to walk home.

The 28-year-old man, who is from Kingston, was walking along Bath Road near Tanner when the attack took place.

Police said the victim heard someone run up from behind him before he felt a blow to the back of his head. The attacker then punch him in the face.

An Amey's taxi pulled up near the attack and let out two men. Police said the two men grabbed the victim and held him to the ground while the original attacker punch the victim in the face and body.

The beating r about a minute, police said, before the men hopped back into the taxi and drove off.

T he victim was left in the snowbank

with a deep cut on his lip, severe bruising to his temples, a possible broken nose and burns from being rubbed against the roadway, police said.

A witness at the scene called police. Officers were able to stop the cab carrying the three assailants. Forsyth said officers noticed blood on the men's hands, clothes and footwear.

Two of the men are 24 years old, the other 36. All are from Kingston.

They were taken for a bail hearing yesterday. The three men have been charged with assault causing bodily harm.

Police said the taxi driver was not involved in the attack.

*

Police said the attack on the cabbie early Saturday morning stemmed from a dispute over the fare for the ride, which amounted to less than $8.

Police said a Kingston and Amherst Taxi driver picked up a fare around 3:50 a. m. Saturday at Concession Street and Leroy Grant Drive. The passenger told the driver to take him to a home on Rosemund Crescent near Sir John A. Macdonald and John Counter boulevards.

When the taxi arrived at the home, the male passenger started a dispute over the cost of the ride -$7.50. Police said the passenger then confronted the driver and became violent.

Police said the man threatened to harm the driver, even shouting at one point that he would "punch [the driver] out."

Police said the passenger then grabbed the driver and hit him several times in the side of the head with a closed fist.

The attacker then grabbed the keys out of the ignition of the car and threw them into a nearby snowbank. He then grabbed the victim by his hair and started punching the driver in the head again as the attack tside the vehicle.

The driver was able to push the man into the snowbank, which slowed the attacker down for only a moment, police said. The attacker stood back up, police said, and ating on the taxi driver.

Police said two females in the area pulled the attacker off the driver before officers arrived.

Police said the driver had a bloody lip and marks from punches visible on his temple.

Police said the 43-year-old accused was drunk. He was held in a police cell overnight and released with conditions, with a date to appear in court in March.

Copyright © 2009 The Whig Standard

February 2009

2009-02-02T12:58:00.001-05:00

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January 2009

2009-01-09T09:21:00.001-05:00

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December 2008

2008-12-04T13:05:00.002-05:00

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Update from Roy Ambury

2008-11-20T12:49:00.000-05:00

At the November 19, 2008 Commission meeting, which could not happen because too few Commissioners were present, we discussed charges for failing to wear a seat belt.
I haven’t covered this for a while, and some changes have occurred, so here goes.
What may taxi owners and drivers do that most car owners and drivers may not do?

* Taxi owners may remove the shoulder-belt portion of the seat belt and the middle seat belt in the front seat of the vehicle. [Reg. 613, s. 7(1), paras. A and b.]

* The driver of taxi may choose not to wear the seat belt at all if he has a paying passenger in the taxi. [Reg. 613, s. 7(3)]

* The driver of taxi is not responsible for assuring that a child up to grade school age is wearing appropriate seat belts or is in a child seat EXCEPT when carrying a child to and from school under contract with a school board or other authority in charge of a school for the transportation of children. [Reg. 613, s. 8(1) and (2)]

For the exact words of the law of Ontario, I have extracted the following from Highway Traffic Act, Revised Statutes of Ontario 1990, CHAPTER H.8 and Highway Traffic Act Revised Regulations of Ontario 1990, Regulation 613, Amended to O. Reg. 522/06. Click here to view the entire document.

In the interests of brevity, I have deleted portions which are not germane to this topic. For clarity, I have added underline to section headings.
My source is: http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90h08_e.htm#BK162.

Steer toward taxi safety

2008-11-18T12:25:00.003-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website

OUR VIEW

Members of Kingston's taxi commission should browse the Internet and log on to www.taxi-library.org. It's worth their time and trouble, especially after last weekend's close encounter between a cab driver and a pocket knife.

Just hours after the Bob Dylan concert let out at the downtown K-Rock Centre, an intoxicated passenger riding in a Kingston cab pulled out a knife and threatened repeatedly to "poke" the driver. He also made insulting remarks about the driver's mother, but verbal abuse is considered part and parcel of a cabbie's lot.

Nevertheless, the driver was lucky and escaped without injury. So was another cab driver who had a knife pulled on him in the Bath Road and Queen Mary Road area two weeks ago. That incident erupted over a cigarette.

These were two very close calls - and the excuse the commission needs to revisit the issue of taxi safety in Kingston.

The website is a good place to start. Founded in 1999 by a former industry regulator from Winnipeg, the website serves as an information resource for the taxi industry and an online memorial to the 1,821 cab drivers who have been murdered on the job since 1917.

The site is reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C. Like that famous stone wall, the website lists every victim of senseless cabbie violence by name. There's also a special section devoted to the Canadian slaughter: 170 cab driver homicides and counting.

A glance at the listings tells us right away that Kingston is better off than many Canadian cities. Miraculously, we have only one entry, but it's still fresh in the hearts and minds of many Kingston residents. David Krick, a 50-year-old Amey's driver, was stabbed to death by a fare he picked up on Father's Day in 2007.

Following Krick's cold-blooded killing, the Kingston taxi commission was under public pressure to review its safety protocols. At the time, Kingston cabs were not required to carry any equipment to protect the drivers; more than a year later they still aren't.

Some cabs have panic buttons that allow drivers to quickly signal an emergency to a dispatcher (the driver involved in Sunday's "poking" activated his emergency button but only after the passenger jumped out of the car). Most cabs are also equipped with GPS systems, which track a car's movement and speed.

After a six-month study, the commission concluded the installation of safety equipment in cabs - such as shields and cameras - should be voluntary. It found little support for mandatory safety equipment in cabs.

But commission chairman Ken Matthews left the door open to revisit taxi safety in six months' time.

That was 11 months ago.

Driving a cab in Canada is no safer than it was when Krick was killed. It's still a risky occupation and more dangerous than policing.

In the wake of Krick's death, the only tangible change made by Kingston's taxi regulators was to make driver education mandatory. That means drivers have to watch a safety video and review a booklet before their license is renewed.

There have been several violent attacks on Kingston cabbies since Krick died. Last weekend's attack was not unusual. The local taxi commission should be doing everything it can to ensure that Kingston continues to occupy only one line on www.taxi-library.org.

- - -

Taxi commission must do more to protect cab drivers

CRIME

Man charged after city cab driver threatened

2008-11-17T07:58:00.001-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website

A 23-year-old Kingston man faces charges after he pulled a knife on a cab driver early yesterday morning.

Kingston Police said the cab driver was not injured in the incident.

Police said the driver, a 20-year veteran, picked up two men in the Hub around 1:20 a. m. yesterday. The men directed the cab driver to take them to a home in the west end near Bayridge Drive and Front Road.

Along the way, the two men, who were intoxicated, police said, began to argue with one another about whether they should head home or head to Denny's restaurant for a bite to eat.

They also argued with the cab driver about the route he was taking to the west end, police said.

Finally, the two men decided to go to Denny's in the RioCan Centre on Gardiners Road.

The restaurant is open 24 hours a day. The cab driver changed directions and started heading to the new destination, and, again, the 23-year-old was rude to the driver, police said.

It was at this point in the ride that the passenger made a derogatory remark about the driver's mother. Police said the man called the cab driver's mother "a filthy wh---."

The cab driver had had enough. He pulled the car over at Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and MacPherson Avenue and ordered the men out of the car.

The location is the same one where police recovered the car of driver David Krick, who was killed on Father's Day in 2007.

The driver told the men there was no charge for the ride, but they had to get out of the vehicle.

Police said one of the passengers pulled a knife on the cab driver and made a jabbing motion toward him.

"You don't want to get poked, do you?" the man allegedly told the cab driver as he held the knife, which police later seized and described as a key-chain- sized jackknife.

The cab driver put up his hands, replied that he didn't want to "get poked." The man made the jabbing motion one more time, police said, and then exited the vehicle.

The cab driver, police said, pushed the emergency button in his car and locked the doors to his vehicle.

Another driver came by, responding to the emergency signal. The two drivers watched the two men and waited for police to arrive.

Officers arrived a short time later and arrested the men. Only one faces charges.

The 23-year-old faces one charge each of having a weapon dangerous to the public peace, uttering threats to cause death and assault with a weapon. Police said the man has no criminal record.

Police wouldn't release the company the taxi driver was with.

The incident was the second one this month. On Nov. 5, a man pulled a knife on a cab driver over a cigarette.

The driver was not injured in the incident near Bath and Queen Mary roads.

November 2008

2008-11-10T12:19:00.002-05:00

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October 2008

2008-10-18T17:23:00.001-04:00

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Paper or plastic?

2008-10-13T08:31:00.003-04:00

You could use that credit card in the cab, but the drivers may not like you for it

From the Chicago Tribune online:

By Azam Ahmed | Chicago Tribune reporter
October 13, 2008

You've been there before: The cabbie mutters something about a broken machine or simply shakes his head and drives off.

Chicago requires its roughly 5,500 cabbies to accept credit cards, but many don't. Anyone who's been stranded—say, someone who has been booted from three cabs in a row for trying to pay with plastic—has to wonder why. It turns out there's a serious disincentive for accepting credit, and it's only gotten worse as it's become more expensive for drivers to keep their cabs on the road.

For starters, cabdrivers pay up to a 5 percent fee for accepting credit cards, and they can't pass it on. Your $20 cab ride may only cost the driver a dollar, but 10 of those fees a day can add up to more than $200 a month in losses.

"You know the price of gas is going up and has been going up," said Ron Flores, a cabdriver in Chicago. "And as for those [riders] who don't give you a tip, you're losing money by transporting them."

Another sticky point: Often an approved transaction later will be declined or disputed.

"Even when they do get that money, a lot of times it takes a number of days to receive the cash," said Jonathan Bullington, managing editor of Chicago Dispatcher, a monthly newspaper geared toward taxi drivers, chauffeurs and the riding public. "These guys need cash to pay for stuff [like] gas and food."

Also, the companies for which drivers work may make them wait a week or more to cash in their receipts. Passengers who want to play hardball can threaten to report a driver to the city's Department of Consumer Services.

Cabbies make another suggestion: Offer a bigger tip to the driver before he can pretend his machine is broken.

aahmed@tribune.com

Taxi brokers ready to strike

2008-09-15T11:52:00.001-04:00

Fares not covering rising cost of gas

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

A group of taxi brokers say they are willing to go on strike - thereby eliminating a majority of cabs on city streets - if the taxi commission doesn't find a way to help them deal with the rising price of gasoline.

First the car owners would have to unionize, something that has been brewing for some time. Broker Joe Boucher said there is enough support to do it.

The union wouldn't include drivers. It would represent the middle-men in the local taxi business - the people who own cars and then sell their services to the local taxi companies.

Boucher said he hopes for good news this week when the taxi commission meets.

"There's a war brewing. We're trying to avert it, but we don't know if we can," he said.

The brokers are expected to be at the commission meeting Wednesday afternoon at City Hall.

"We don't want to strike, but they may make us," said broker Dennis Robinson.

"We're basically sick of being the Rodney Dangerfields of the small business world."

In August, fares across the city went up, the first increase in almost two years. A large number of brokers say it didn't match the reality of doing business in the industry these days.

The brokers have argued that drivers should be allowed to use the "extra" button on the meter to add to the cost of riding in a taxi when the price of gas goes up. When pump prices fall, the extra charges would be dropped as well, the brokers say

"What we want is a contingency plan if [gas prices] go up," said taxi broker Bram Fisher.

He said that his cars lose up to $50 a day because fares haven't kept up with costs. A contingency plan, he said, would go a long way to easing the minds of taxi owners.

"That's the problem right now. There's no peace of mind," Fisher said.

Brokers, or plateholders, pay the city a yearly fee for the right to operate a taxi in Kingston. The brokers then pay the taxi companies for the right to use the company's signs on cars. The deal allows the brokers' cars to access travel contracts the company has in place.

Brokers also pay the drivers. Whatever is left from fares after covering those costs -along with gas, insurance and maintenance -is profit.

The brokers are likely to argue this week that the raise in rates, while a good start, needs to go farther to help the drivers and brokers, some of whom feel excluded from the decision-making process.

"We don't have a voice and we're sick and tired of getting crapped on," Boucher said. "The profit margin is being squeezed out."

The plateholders' union, if formed, would negotiate for rate increases with city hall and the taxi commission, Boucher said.

September 2008

2008-09-07T08:34:00.001-04:00

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From the Globe and Mail website

2008-09-02T12:38:00.001-04:00

Taxis needed, but who will drive?

Vancouver officials seek more licences, but industry says few are willing to do the job

FRANCES BULA
Special to The Globe and Mail
September 2, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Vancouver is facing a shortage of cab drivers that will hamper efforts to improve taxi service in time for the 2010 Olympics.

That's the latest twist in this city's dismal taxi situation, as Vancouver tourism and city officials launch a new push to get more cab licences in preparation for the Games.

Letters are being sent to the province's Passenger Transportation Board from Mayor Sam Sullivan, Tourism Vancouver chairman Geoffrey Howes and Port Metro Vancouver president Gordon Houston urging the issuing of more licences.

The city's top bureaucrat in charge of Olympic planning adds the city needs better taxi service, something that was driven home to Dave Rudberg during his week in Beijing.

"Virtually every second vehicle there was a taxi," noted Mr. Rudberg, general manager of Olympic preparations. And it still wasn't enough.

Taxi companies say city organizations can call for all the new licences they want, but there aren't enough drivers willing and able to service any more additions to the fleet.

"Last year, they added 100 taxis plus vans [in Vancouver] but nobody wants to drive it," said Manjit Mander, the owner of Black Top, the second-largest of the four cab companies in Vancouver.

He said all kinds of factors are discouraging people from taking up cab driving. Drivers are required to go through a three-week training course that costs $600. Gas prices are up and business is down because American tourism is down. And, since the economy is booming in other sectors, people who might have turned to taxi driving before are getting jobs in construction and elsewhere.

"Our company got 33 new licences but I don't have enough drivers for them," Mr. Mander said. And it costs him $60 a day to pay the overhead for each car sitting in the lot.

The taxi issue is a conundrum for Vancouver, as it faces not only the Olympics but a growing tourism industry and a city-planning philosophy that encourages people to adapt to a more urban European lifestyle of compact neighbourhoods and no cars.

"We've actually got a double whammy when it comes to need," Councillor Suzanne Anton said. "We do not have enough for our traditional tourism business, like cruises. And now so many more people don't have cars."

The city, which is one of 21 municipalities in the region that each regulate cabs individually, had only 477 taxis licensed to operate until last June, when the transportation board authorized another 111. There are about another 650 licensed cabs in other municipalities in the region, but they are not authorized to pick up in the city.

Vancouver council set a goal of trying to have 720 cab licences in time for the Winter Olympics.

"More taxis in Vancouver are needed as part of our preparations for 2010," Mr. Sullivan wrote in a letter going to the board this week. "In addition to supporting transportation requirements during the Games, the months leading up to February, 2010, will feature a record number of special events all across Vancouver and an increased demand for transportation services downtown."

Port Metro Vancouver sent a letter last week, noting that cruise passengers waited up to two hours for a taxi the previous weekend.

The port's cruise marketing director, Greg Wirtz, said the waiting times have improved over the past year - but largely because the city had 100,000 fewer cruise-ship passengers.

A newcomer did apply for 57 new licenses this May, the same number the city had been hoping to add in 2008. But the company, which was going to call itself Pink Taxi, was turned down in July.

Board member David McLean, in a decision on the application by Rinat Miftakhutdinov of Larix Pacific Transit, said the company's business plan seemed to be incomplete.

August 2008

2008-08-06T15:29:00.001-04:00

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June 2008

2008-06-30T09:44:00.000-04:00

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Cabbies still fear for their safety

2008-06-17T07:56:00.002-04:00

Driver David Krick murdered a year ago

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

Amey's taxi driver mike thompson has parked car No. 14 in a shady spot on a quiet sidestreet just south of Princess Street for a noon time break.

This is a place of reverence for Kingston cabbies. Thompson laments the lack of safety measures in

cabs, a year after colleague David Krick was murdered.

"We think about it all the time," said Thompson, standing next to his car, yesterday, just a few steps from the Durham Street sidewalk where Krick, bleeding profusely from stab wounds, was left to die early on the morning of June 17, 2007.

A few steps east of Thompson's car, a shrine to Krick has appeared around a utility pole.

There are two tin cans of wilted pink and purple flowers, two candles and a small white ceramic cherub. Fastened to the pole with black electrical tape is a complete copy of the front page of the Whig-Standard from that dreadful morning, June 18, 2007, when fellow cabbies awoke to the news of the murder.

Thompson had shared the driving duties of car No. 71 with Krick a few years earlier.

"When I saw the paper Monday morning ... I damn near dropped," Thompson said. "I wasn't angry; I was upset because we didn't know the details."

Police quickly determined what they believe had happened. Krick, working an early-morning shift, picked up a lone male passenger on Wright Crescent and drove east. The passenger robbed Krick, stabbed him and left him on Durham Street before speeding away in his taxi.

The taxi was abandoned at an apartment complex just off Van Order Drive. The killer escaped.

Four months after the slaying -the first murder of a Kingston cab driver - police charged a 31-year-old convict who had been on parole with first-degree murder.

The passage of a year has barely dulled a mother's pain. Shirley Krick calls June 17 "the lonely day."

"It's the worst day of my life," she said in an interview yesterday.

"I'm still hurting," Krick said. "I don't think that lonely feeling of missing David -I don't think it's ever going to go away."

She cannot bring herself to visit the spot on Durham Street where rescuers found her mortally wounded son.

"I'll never go out there," she said. "I accidentally made a wrong turn off Princess Street one time and I saw the sign that said Durham and I said to my daughter, 'We gotta get off here.' "

Despite Krick's murder, the agency that regulates Kingston cabs chose not to make any safety equipment mandatory.

The taxi commission created a safety committee to consult drivers and taxi cab owners. A survey was distributed. Of 133 responses, 64 per cent said they wanted to see cameras installed in all cabs.

The commission decided "there was no clear mandate" and decreed that the installation of any safety devices was at the discretion of cab owners.

There have been several violent attacks on cab drivers since Krick's murder.

"I'd like to see a shield [installed] of some sort," Thompson said.

He said that, fearful of confrontations, many cabbies ignore the law requiring them to be seatbelted in at all times.

"That belt becomes a real hindrance if you have to fight with someone," he noted.

- - -

The case

WHAT:The murder of Amey's taxi driver David Krick, 50. WHEN:June 17, 2007, just before 7 a. m.

EVENTS:Police say Krick picked up a lone male passenger on Wright Crescent at 6:36 a. m. and was stabbed by that passenger and left bleeding on a sidewalk on Durham Street.

ACCUSED:On Oct. 11, police charged Richard Edmund Smith, 31, a federal prisoner, with first-degree murder; his common-law wife, Laura Jean Clow, 39, was charged Oct. 9 as an accessory after the fact. Smith, who was on parole at the time, has a 10-year record of violent crimes, including sexual assault.

SAFETY:Kingston's taxi commission studied safety measures for all cabs, including barriers and cameras, and decided not to make any safety equipment mandatory. Education for all drivers was made mandatory.

Copyright © 2008 The Whig Standard

May 2008

2008-05-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

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Sisters' charges withdrawn; Women were suspected of robbing taxi driver at knife-point

2008-04-24T07:45:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

Sisters charged in the summer of 2007 with the knife-point robbery of a Modern Taxi driver have had the charges against them withdrawn by the Crown.

The turnaround happened after defence lawyer Lawrence Silver convinced a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice that Jennifer Deano's constitutional right to legal counsel was violated when she was interviewed in July 2007, by Kingston Police Det. Brian J. Pete. Justice Judith Beaman ordered the exclusion of a statement Deano made during that interview which connected her to the locale where the cabby picked up his assailants.

Beaman was told that the Modern cab driver was dispatched to a call at Gordon Grocery, a store on the corner of Macauley and Montreal streets, around 5 a.m. on Dec. 22. There, he picked up two women bundled in parkas and drove them to the rear of 87 Compton St., where one of them pulled a knife, held it to his throat and demanded his cash.

The cab driver, in the statement he gave to police immediately afterwards, said he handed over about $70 from his pocket and the other female then reached across the front seat and helped herself to his loonies and toonies before they both fled.

A neighbour in the area, who owned a scanner and happened to be looking out a window at the time, saw two people in parkas run to the front of 87 Compton, where they appeared to try to buzz someone in the building. When they weren't successful, they took off running. At the same time, the man learned from his scanner that a taxi driver had run into trouble in the area.

Beaman was told that the neighbourhood man later gave a statement to police in which he described the two individuals, but thought the taller one might have been a male. The smaller one, he told police, was wearing a tighter jacket and he thought it might have been fur trimmed.

Pete testified that Kingston Police received an anonymous tip in January 2007, that the robbers were Jennifer Deano, 28, and her younger sister, Jessica Deano, 26.

He also testified that he put together photo lineups containing images of the sisters, but the witness didn't pick either woman out of the lineups. The detective didn't show the photo arrays to the taxi driver, he said, because the man never actually saw the faces of his assailants.

Pete said he wasn't able to secure any security footage from 87 Compton, which might have disclosed the identities of the robbers.

The detective admitted that he had no grounds to arrest either woman, based only on an anonymous tip. However, "it would have been neglectful to not follow that up," he testified and consequently, he was interested in talking to them. He just wasn't able to locate them, he told the judge.

In July 2007, however, he learned there was a warrant out for the elder sister on an unrelated matter and told the court he put a note on her file, directing that when she was picked up, he wanted to speak to her before she attended court.

Beaman learned that his opportunity had arrived after Deano was arrested July 16, 2007, not in relation to the warrant but as a result of concerns about her mental health. The warrant was subsequently brought into play, but, through a misunderstanding, Deano was taken for her bail hearing first and then brought back to the police station to be interviewed by Pete.

The judge was shown a video tape of their conversation, which captured Jennifer Deano asking Pete, "Shouldn't I have a lawyer or something?" almost immediately after he broached the subject of the robbery,

Pete told her, "You can speak to a lawyer whenever you want," but didn't immediately describe her legal options. Instead, he went on to tell her that he intended to talk to her about the robbery, which he believed she and her sister had committed. He told her that she didn't have to speak to him and cautioned her that if she did, anything she said could be used as evidence.

Eventually, Deano responded to one of his questions and spoke of a call for a taxi made from a pay phone near Gordon Grocery.

Immediately after that, Pete told her, "Jennifer, right now I'm going to arrest you for robbery," and explained her lawyer options. She told him she didn't have a lawyer of her own, but wanted to speak to duty counsel.

The video shows that she left the room after that and when she returned, Pete attempted to revisit her earlier comment about calling a cab from Gordon Grocery.

"I'm not supposed to say anything until I talk to my duty counsel tomorrow," she responded.

The video shows that Pete tried a couple of additional approaches, but Deano rebuffed his attempts to draw her into conversation. "I think I'll want to talk to duty counsel tomorrow," she told him. "I don't really understand all of this."

Silver argued that Pete should have stopped questioning his client and provided her with the means to exercise her right to talk to a lawyer immediately after she asked. He told Beaman "it's a hollow offer," when police tell someone they can talk to a lawyer and then delay providing the opportunity until some incriminating statement has been elicited.

Beaman found that Deano's rights were violated when the officer delayed facilitating her request for legal counsel. At the point where Pete began to question her, "it's my opinion her status had gone beyond that of a person of interest to that of a suspect," the judge said and, consequently, Deano should have been cautioned about her liability and afforded an opportunity to seek legal advice.

"I find Ms. Deano did assert her right to counsel," the judge said, adding that she wasn't afforded a timely opportunity to exercise that right.

She then excluded Deano's statement about calling a cab, leaving the Crown with no evidence to connect her - and by extension her sister - to the robbery that night.

suey@thewhig.com

March 2008

2008-03-31T09:38:00.000-04:00

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Taxi drivers' bill of rights makes courtesy the best policy B.C. rolls out safety regulations and fines for badly behaved cabbies and passengers

2008-01-31T06:30:00.000-05:00

From the Globe and Mail Website:

IAN BAILEY
January 31, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Taxi drivers reluctant to take passengers on long rides to the suburbs could face fines of $288 as part of a new Taxi Bill of Rights for Metro Vancouver that also guarantees passengers a "courteous driver" and "quiet atmosphere."

The code, announced yesterday, was saluted by some in the industry for the rights it gives to drivers, who will be able to refuse service to unruly passengers and demand deposits for long trips.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon framed the plan as a bid to improve service in the Vancouver region as the 2010 Winter Olympics raise the prospect of a flood of visitors in the region needing prompt cab service. "We are inviting the world here in 2010, and we want to make sure we have got a world-class taxi industry we can be proud of in British Columbia," Mr. Falcon told a news conference. "The taxi drivers' bill of rights will go a long way to ensuring we get there."

Mr. Falcon said he is talking to the industry about options and ideas for ensuring a healthy supply of cabs during the 17-day Games, but said he needs time before disclosing them.

"There are some ideas that can help deal with that surge during the Olympics," he said, noting that 111 new taxi licences have been issued for Vancouver in the past six months.

The code of conduct includes provisions for passengers to be guaranteed the right to a clean taxi, to direct the route or expect the most economical route, and to travel with an assistance dog or portable mobility aid. Taxi drivers can refuse fares for their own health and safety or that of a passenger, if the person is acting in an offensive manner or won't provide a deposit.

The rules deal with issues that have arisen recently in the taxi industry. Some cabbies have refused to take passengers on long trips out to the suburbs. Drivers have been assaulted, and some have been cheated by customers who dash out of the vehicle after long trips without paying.

Last year, Mr. Falcon was himself denied a trip to Surrey one evening from the Vancouver entertainment district.

"This is really a balanced approach, because this is for passengers and drivers," said Gurvinder Mahil, president of Black Top, one of the region's largest taxi services.

Mr. Falcon is promising "undercover sting operations" to find drivers violating the rules on taking passengers to the suburbs.

Mr. Mahil welcomed the stings.

"If we want to protect our industry, it's good. If the driver is doing something wrong, why protect them?"

Mr. Falcon acknowledged his own troubles with cabs.

"I've had, actually, lots of experiences," Mr. Falcon said. "And I think the issue was there was some, probably, legitimate confusion on the part of taxi drivers not understanding their obligations that come with a taxi licence, and one of the things I think the taxi bill of rights does is really clarify what the obligations of drivers are, and what the expectations of drivers are," he said.

"I think we will see an improvement, but it will not happen overnight."

New Democrat Raj Chouhan, who has been dealing with the issue for the opposition, called the code a "step in the right direction," but hoped that the government would provide resources to police to protect cabbies by promptly responding to reports of assault.

A spokesman for the minister was unable to clarify what cash penalties might be imposed on cabbies who violate the other measures of the conduct code, such as not providing a clean cab.

January 2008

2008-01-21T19:09:00.000-05:00

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'It was an isolated incident'; Cabbie's murder won't result in new safety measures for drivers

2007-12-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

People who work in the most dangerous occupation in Kingston won't get the protection of any mandatory safety measures. The area's taxi commission, the independent body that oversees the industry, has decided not to order the installation of any safety equipment in Kingston cabs, despite the murder of a veteran cab driver.

"Taxi drivers thought it was an isolated case and I don't think they wanted us to take any action," said Ken Matthews, chairman of the commission.

Kingston cabs are not required to be equipped with any gear to protect drivers. Some cabs have panic buttons that allow drivers to quickly signal an emergency to a dispatcher.

Matthews said the commission might revisit the idea of mandatory equipment within six months.

"There's still a possibility, but right now there wasn't too much interest," he said.

The decision this month follows roughly six months of study by a 12-member committee formed by the commission. The committee included nine people who own and drive taxis. Among the nine were the three owners of the area's largest taxi companies.

The commission endorsed the recommendation of the committee that the installation of safety gear, such as cameras or partitions, should be voluntary.

"We decided that they could put in whatever they wanted to put in," said Matthews.

He said the safety committee concluded that there is little support in the industry for mandatory equipment for all cabs.

Doug Cox, who owns Kingston Amherst Taxi company and chaired the committee, said only 49 of roughly 300 drivers responded to a survey asking what equipment should be installed.

The best response came from owners, who did not believe the Krick murder was a sign of widespread problems, he said.

"That's what a lot of the [owners] felt, it was an isolated incident," Cox said.

Matthews said he was surprised that there wasn't stronger support for mandatory safety measures.

"I think it may be wise to have cameras," he said.

Safety was reviewed after the June 17 murder of cabbie David Krick. Krick was stabbed to death by a passenger he picked up early on Father's Day morning. A federal parolee was later charged with murder.

Matthews acknowledged there was a "hue and cry" immediately after Krick's murder but he said concern waned.

Cab driver Shelley Scott doesn't agree.

"I'm more than disappointed," said Scott. "I don't know what more it will take to make something happen.

"We lost one driver; how many more will it take to make something mandatory?"

Scott was driving the morning Krick was killed and she was one of the first cabbies to respond to his distress call. She found Krick lying on a sidewalk on Durham Street, bleeding profusely.

Scott helped a police officer administer first aid, but Krick was pronounced dead at hospital.

She believes all cabs should have safety equipment.

"I don't know any other job where something like this would happen and something wasn't done," she said.

Between 1995 and 2005, 25 cab drivers were murdered on the job in Canada, making it the deadliest legal occupation, according to Statistics Canada. In the same period, 18 police officers were killed on duty.

Amherst taxi driver Jim Moriarty believes all cabs should have cameras. He calculated that a fivecent fare hike would collect enough in three years to pay for cameras in every taxi.

"It just proves that my life isn't worth a nickel," Moriarty said. "We're going to need another dead body."

He said profit margins for taxi owners are slim and they don't have to make the job safe since drivers are disposable.

"You can be hired and fired in this industry in a heartbeat," he said.

A veteran taxi driver and owner in Toronto who spearheaded a campaign for safety equipment said Kingston drivers deserve mandatory safety measures.

"I think it's absolutely atrocious that they could come back and recommend it be on a voluntary basis," said Gerry Manley, who lobbied Toronto regulators for 13 years before cameras were made mandatory.

Violence against Toronto cabbies has declined substantially since cameras were introduced.

Voluntary safety measures in Kingston won't work, Manley said.

"That's ridiculous because it'll never get done," he said. "There's no taxi owner or operator ... 99.99 per cent of them will never put out five cents for safety equipment to protect their drivers unless they're mandated to do it."

Manley rejects economic arguments, noting that safety equipment is a business expense that can be written off.

Kingston's commission ordered that all cab drivers watch a safety video and review a booklet before renewing their taxi licences.

"The video is a wonderful reminder, but it doesn't address what happens when someone is hell bent on stabbing you," Scott said.

Assaults on Kingston cabbies are not unusual although Krick's murder is believed to be the first slaying of a taxi driver.

Drivers more often face belligerent, drunken and foul-mouthed passengers, including many who try to skip out on their fares.

Moriarty said there have been at least three violent attacks on Kingston cabbies since Krick's murder.

rtripp@thewhig.com

December 2007

2007-12-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

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Alleged accessory makes bail; Woman charged in connection to cabbie's murder

2007-11-23T07:08:00.002-05:00

From the Whig-Standard Website:

By Sue Yanagisawa

A Kingston woman charged last month with being an accessory after the fact to the brutal killing in June of veteran taxi driver David Krick has been released from custody to await her trial.

Laura Jean Clow, 39, was given bail without a hearing yesterday by Superior Court Justice Cheryl Robertson. The decision followed a short pretrial discussion in the judge's chambers with assistant Crown attorney Ross Drummond and Clow's lawyer, Mike Mandelcorn.

Drummond consented to Clow being released with one surety, a female friend who has agreed to guarantee that Clow abides by all of her conditions. The court also required a $5,000 bond as a hedge against her compliance, but without any cash being deposited with the court. Under the conditions of her bail, Clow must: continue to live at her Carruthers Avenue apartment; report weekly to Det.-Sgt. Bill Kennedy, who's in charge of the homicide case; and maintain daily contact with her surety, either in person or by telephone.

She's barred from having any weapons and forbidden from communicating with anyone in the slain cab driver's family or with the man accused of killing Krick, 31-year-old Richard Edmund Smith, or with members of his family - with one exception.

Clow has been in custody since her arrest Oct. 9 and has previously been identified by police as Smith's common-law wife.

Police have said she has no criminal record.

Smith, conversely, is a violent federal parolee, originally from Hamilton, who was sent to Kingston following convictions in 2003 for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, robbery and other charges. He was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison at the time. He was paroled in May 2005, had his parole suspended briefly the same year, then put back on the street.

He was free on June 17, when Krick was stabbed to death. Police believe the attacker was a passenger the 50-year-old cabbie picked up around 6:30 a.m. on Wright Crescent.

Kingston Police also believe Krick's killer robbed him of a small amount of cash before abandoning him, bleeding, on the sidewalk of Durham Street, and stealing his cab.

The taxi was tracked with a Global Positioning System and determined to have taken a meandering route after Krick was stabbed, ending up at an apartment complex on MacPherson Avenue, about three blocks from Clow's apartment.

The killer abandoned the cab at the apartment complex and fled, eluding police.

Smith's parole was suspended again and he was returned to prison in August to complete his original sentence. His warrant of committal is due to expire on the Milton charges at the end of this month.

He wasn't charged with Krick's murder until mid-October, several days after Clow's arrest, and he remains in Collins Bay Penitentiary.

suey@thewhig.com

Committee considers accessible taxis; Pilot project would involve three cabs

2007-11-19T16:24:00.000-05:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

When Mary Margaret Dauphinee needs to get across town, she has to book her ride two weeks in advance.

Dauphinee uses an accessible scooter to get around. The Kingston Access Bus can get her from her apartment by the Kingston Centre to the west end or downtown, but she has to make her plans ahead of time.

Unfortunately, Kingston doesn't have any accessible taxis.

"A lot of people would use the taxis. A lot of people can afford them and would be willing to use them for the convenience," Dauphinee said.

As vice chair of the city's accessibility committee, Dauphinee has heard enough from those who face accessibility issues that it has become one of the main goals of the committee for 2008.

City hall licenses all taxis in Kingston and can hand out permits for companies to have accessible vehicles.

Work is underway to launch a pilot project that would see three accessible taxis in the city. Unlike the Access Bus, they would be available throughout the day and not require booking weeks in advance.

"Certainly taxis would be very good," said Glenn Outhwaite, who joined the committee last year shortly after he started using a wheelchair.

"It will happen. It's just a process we have to go through, but it's just a matter of time."

The committee identified the creation of an accessible taxi program as a priority in its 2008 report, that was released last week and will be the focus of a public meeting Wednesday night. Based on the input from the meeting, the committee and city staff will make additions or revisions to the document before council accepts it next month.

The accessibility committee writes in a report that it will outline options for the city to "motivate, and/or penalize local taxi companies, to put accessible vehicle(s) in their fleet."

The accessibility report is an evaluation of how far the city has come, and how far is still has to go to become completely accessible.

"... the widely held opinion of the longest-serving [committee] members is that there has been more proactivity regarding planning for accessibility in more City of Kingston departments than has been seen in previous years," the report says.

The report also includes a plan for 2008 that lays out what the accessibility committee plans to do and what projects it believes are important issues for the city.

Among those issues is that of accessible taxis, vans or cars that would be able to accommodate someone in a wheelchair inside the vehicle without the person having to leave their chair.

"Despite demand, Kingston-based private taxicab operators, have found that they can no longer economically justify offering accessible taxi vehicles for people using wheelchairs [or] scooters," the report says. "Without accessible taxicabs, Kingston has a void in transportation services available."

The accessible taxis would give residents in wheelchairs an alternative from the Access Bus, the report says. Not everyone qualifies for the Access Bus and the service cannot always meet demand, the report notes.

"A private taxicab company can offer a more flexible service than publicly operated accessible buses," the committee writes.

The issue right now is cost, Dauphinee said. The committee will look at options about how to license vehicles, possibly providing a financial incentive to purchase vehicles or setting a minimum fare for accessible taxis, she said.

Outhwaite said demand for the service would only increase if it becomes a reality.

"Our population is getting older," he said. "You're going to have more demand in the system."

jpress@thewhig.com

What, where

The 2008 accessibility plan can be downloaded online at http://www.cityofkingston.ca/cityhall/committees/accessibility/theplan.asp. A public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday night at 5 p.m. in the Loyalist Room of City Hall.

October 2007

2007-11-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

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Parolee charged with murder; Cabbie David Krick died on Father's Day

2007-10-13T08:54:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

Police believe a Kingston taxi driver was robbed and stabbed to death by a 31-year-old federal parolee with a 10-year history of violent crimes including sexual assault.

On Thursday night, Richard Edmund Smith was arrested at Collins Bay penitentiary and charged with first-degree murder in the Father's Day slaying of Amey's taxi driver David Krick.

The robbery likely netted less than $100.

Krick's brother Raymond, one of four family members who attended a news conference yesterday at police headquarters, thanked detectives.

"I do appreciate all the work you guys have done," Raymond Krick said, speaking to six investigators. "It does give you some closure knowing this guy's not out there now."

Krick's sister-in-law, Robyn Lawlor, said the arrest brings some peace of mind.

"It's been a long wait, a long four months," she said. "It goes from being very upset because of the death to anger."

Smith was free from prison on full parole, although police say he was a high risk to reoffend, at the time Krick was murdered on June 17.

Smith is serving a four-year, eight-month sentence for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, robbery and other minor offences.

He was convicted in Milton in April 2003 after he forced a woman to perform oral sex on him by threatening her with a knife, according to National Parole Board records.

Smith approached a woman randomly in a doughnut shop parking lot and ordered her into her car, where the attack took place. At one point, he ran the tip of the knife down her back.

"He's been in and out of institutions for a number of years," Det. Sgt. Bill Kennedy said at the news conference yesterday.

Smith has a criminal record dating to 1993 that includes convictions for domestic violence, impaired driving and property crimes, according to the parole records.

They document a pattern of "dysfunctional relationships with vulnerable women."

Smith has admitted being addicted to drugs and pornography.

When he was paroled in May 2005, he was barred from consuming alcohol or drugs or visiting strip clubs. At the time, he was considered a "moderate risk for sexual recidivism and domestic violence."

Two months later, a woman with whom he was having a relationship called his parole officer to report that Smith was abusive, drinking to excess and driving while drunk.

Smith's parole was suspended, but he was released again after the board concluded "it is difficult to see reliable and persuasive information to conclude without any doubt that you had been engaged in the activities that were alleged to have occurred."

Kennedy, who is in charge of the murder probe, would not discuss the evidence that police believe links Smith to the crime.

"I'm not going to comment at all on any of the evidence," he said.

Police have received forensic reports but Kennedy would not discuss the results.

Kennedy said Smith has not made a statement.

"Right now, I believe he's being somewhat quiet," he said.

Smith, dressed in a white shirt and dark wind pants, did not speak at his court appearance yesterday afternoon. He'll be back in court Oct. 30.

On Tuesday, police arrested Smith's common-law wife, Laura Jean Clow, 39, and charged her as an accessory after the fact. She appeared in court Wednesday and will be back in court Monday.

"I'm not going to disclose exactly what her role is in this," Kennedy said. He said Clow does not have a criminal record.

She lives at 117 Carruthers Ave., according to court records, about three blocks east of the spot where Krick's taxi was abandoned the day he was killed.

Smith, who is originally from Hamilton, was arrested by Kingston Police and returned to prison on Aug. 1 for breaching conditions of his parole. At the time, police were investigating him.

Police Chief Bill Closs said there is no reason for Smith to be living in Kingston, except for the presence of eight federal penitentiaries in the area.

"I believe that David Krick would be alive today if Kingston were not the prison capital of Canada, if Corrections Canada could do a better job of rehabilitating people, if Canada did not have a revolving door in and out of the justice system and frankly if the Kingston Police had the ability to monitor what we consider to be violent offenders, sex offenders, 24/7, seven days a week," Closs said.

He said he is often asked what it costs Kingston to host so many prisons.

"It cost David Krick his life," he said. "It cost his family a son, a brother, a nephew."

Closs said the murder investigation has cost taxpayers 4,500 hours in police staff time at a cost of roughly $200,000 and mounting.

"The David Krick homicide demonstrates to the citizens of Kingston that violent offenders walk our streets, they live in our city and ride in our taxis," Closs said.

Long-term studies of crime statistics demonstrate that Kingston has higher rates of violent crime than many large urban centres in Canada.

The city typically has an annual homicide rate that is among the highest in the province.

Investigators do not believe Krick was personally targeted.

"He was just the victim of what we believe to be a robbery," Kennedy said.

A small quantity of cash was taken from the 50-year-old cabbie before he was left bleeding on a sidewalk on Durham Street, about eights blocks from the spot where he picked up a passenger on Wright Crescent just after 6:30 a.m. on June 17.

Krick was stabbed in the chest several times. He was pronounced dead at hospital.

His attacker stole the taxi and drove a meandering route that ended at the An Clachan apartment complex on MacPherson Avenue, just off Van Order Drive.

The killer fled on foot and evaded police who arrived soon after he parked the blood-smeared car.

Kennedy said the investigation is ongoing.

"There could be other people arrested," he said.

Police would not say if they have the murder weapon, although two knives were recovered.

One knife was found in the grass of the apartment complex where Krick's taxi was abandoned.

Children playing outside made the discovery three days after the killing.

The knife was found near a main entrance to the apartment complex, roughly 100 metres from the spot where the cab was left.

Another knife was found on the front lawn of a house several doors away from the spot on Durham Street where Krick was found on Father's Day morning.

Smith is expected to serve remainder of his sentence in federal prison, until it expires Nov. 30, and then will be handed over to Kingston Police. .

rtripp@thewhig.com

In brief

What: Murder of Amey's taxi driver David Krick, 50.

When: June 17, 2007, just before 7 a.m.

Where: Krick was stabbed and left to die on a sidewalk on Durham Street in Kingston, just south of Princess Street.

Developments: On Oct. 11, police charge Richard Edmund Smith, 31, a federal prisoner, with first-degree murder; his common-law wife, Laura Jean Clow, 39, was charged Oct. 9 as an accessory after the fact.

Next: Smith is back in court Oct. 30; Clow returns to court Monday.

Cab stickers a fitting tribute

2007-10-06T07:05:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

The small, black-and-yellow sticker appearing on the bumpers of Kingston taxi cabs is a fitting tribute to David Krick.

Mr. Krick was stabbed to death nearly four months ago while driving his cab - the victim of a murderer who has continued to elude city police.

Such memorials and tributes have become commonplace in our troubled and violent world, moreso since Canada joined the war in Afghanistan and soldiers started returning home in coffins - more than 70 to date.

Mr. Krick was not a war hero. But he performed a public service that most of us who have day jobs in comfortable, air-conditioned offices will never understand or appreciate.

Driving taxi - especially overnight in a city the size of Kingston - can be dangerous business.

The epitaph at the bottom of the sticker, which was designed by Mr. Krick's family, reads: "Let his spirit ride with you."

Mr. Krick was 50 years old, loved by his family and popular at work. Yet he was left bleeding and dying on a city sidewalk the morning of June 17, the victim of a cowardly and despicable act.

Since then, Kingston Police have had four officers assigned full-time to the case. Tips from the public have dried up. Yet their resolve remains strong.

They suspect the killer had at least one accomplice that morning who helped him elude the police chase - someone who is now withholding information that would see justice done.

We hope that person or persons takes note of the memorial sticker that bears David Krick's name and his car number - No. 71.

We hope it moves them to do the right thing and report Mr. Krick's killer to Kingston Police.

September 2007

2007-09-30T07:28:00.000-04:00

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August 2007

2007-08-28T16:51:00.001-04:00

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Cabs to test security cameras; Technology used in other Ontario cities

2007-08-16T07:35:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard Website:

Jordan Press
Thursday, August 16, 2007

Local News - Three Kingston cabs, one each from Modern, Amey's and Kingston and Amherst Taxi, will be equipped with security cameras as part of a test to see how the devices work with drivers and passengers.

The cameras, in use in municipalities such as Toronto, take photographs of passengers inside the vehicles.

The move comes after the killing in June of a Kingston cab driver.

Doug Cox, who chairs the committee looking into the potential safety measures, said the local industry wants to see if the cameras would be cost effective for Kingston.

Also, he said, the committee wants to see how passengers react when they find out they may have their photo taken while in a cab.

"That's why we're taking our time with the cameras and with the rest of the stuff," said Cox, owner of Kingston and Amherst Taxi.

Some passengers may feel uncomfortable, he said. "This is why we've got to be cautious. We've got to take this one step at a time."

The committee gave its recommendations yesterday to the taxi commission, which regulates the local industry. The seven-member commission will have the final say on any measures to be implemented.

Cox said a safety course and any other mandatory safety features will be accepted by the taxi commission in time for license renewal on Oct. 1.

Keeping taxi drivers safe on the job has been a priority for the commission since the killing of David Krick.

The 50-year-old Amey's driver was stabbed to death and left to die on Durham Street in the early hours of June 17. He had picked up a passenger on Wright Crescent shortly before the stabbing.

Fellow drivers and emergency personnel found Krick bleeding to death on the sidewalk. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Krick was the first homicide in Kingston this year and the first cab driver to be killed on the job.

His killer fled in the cab, parked it at an apartment complex on Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and evaded police. Kingston Police are still searching for the killer.

Before yesterday, the only recommendation that was publicly announced was an educational program designed to teach drivers how to be safe on the job.

A 12-member committee, made up of taxi company owners, drivers and members of the taxi commission, has been reviewing what safety measures may be necessary in Kingston. At the moment, Kingston cabs don't have cameras, although Amey's has installed global positioning systems in its cabs.

Results from an industry survey found that drivers were most interested in a safety course, Cox said. Second on the list were cameras in cars, followed by emergency lights on the rear of the vehicle and, finally, protective shields that separate driver from passenger.

The committee received 120 completed surveys.

"The safety awareness is the big issue," Cox said. He said others in the taxi industry across the country told committee members that the majority of the time, staying safe depends on how the driver handles themselves in a dangerous situation.

The cameras were seen largely as a measure to deter dangerous advances on drivers, he said.

"Everybody feels that if something does happen, there will be a picture to show the person in the car," Cox said. That picture would go to police to aid in their investigation.

jpress@thewhig.com

Man who confronted cabbies in court; Twenty-one-year-old accused of threatening to kill two taxi drivers

2007-08-03T07:46:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard website:

Rob Tripp
Friday, August 03, 2007

Local news - A man accused of threatening to kill two Kingston taxi drivers was to appear in court today to face charges of uttering death threats.

The incident comes six-and-a-half weeks after a Kingston cabbie was killed by a passenger.

The confrontation happened around 8 a.m. yesterday after an Amey's taxi delivered a woman to a house on Elm Street, where an argument began between the woman and a man.

When the female taxi driver intervened, the man threatened to kill the cabbie. The driver activated a silent panic alarm that alerted other cabbies and they rushed to her aid.

"I was about the third car there," said driver Shelley Scott, who was also one of the first cabbies to arrive after mortally wounded driver David Krick called for help.

"It certainly brought my heart into my throat," Scott said. "It was very reminiscent of June 17."

At least half a dozen taxi drivers arrived at Elm Street within minutes and confronted the agitated man. At one point, he retrieved something from the home and began threatening to stab the cabbies with a sharp object covered by a bandanna.

"It turned out to be a ballpoint pen and he was wielding it like a knife," said Const. Mike Menor of Kingston Police.

The swarm of cabbies contained the man until police officers arrived and arrested him.

The 21-year-old man, whose name was not released, also is charged with breach of probation. He was held in custody until a bail hearing set for this afternoon.

During the confrontation, police say the man threatened to kill another driver.

None of the cabbies was injured.

The 39-year-old driver first threatened yesterday, a veteran Amey's driver, did not want to be identified by name out of fear of retribution.

The assailant also threatened to hunt down and kill her family.

Menor said the man was acting strangely and appeared to be very angry and extremely agitated.

He said police rushing to the scene yesterday had difficulty getting there because the streets were clogged by taxis that had responded to the distress call.

Scott said the incident is a reminder that taxi drivers need action quickly to improve their safety.

"It just seems like we're not being taken seriously," she said.

Most Kingston taxis do not have any safety measures for drivers, save for the panic buttons in Amey's cars, which are equipped with global positioning systems.

After Krick's slaying, the local taxi commission struck a committee to study safety ideas. It will report on Aug. 15.

Kingston Police are still hunting Krick's killer.

The 50-year-old veteran driver was stabbed and left on the sidewalk to die by a male passenger he picked up early on Father's Day morning.

Kingston Police have said they believe the killer has had help in eluding capture.

rtripp@thewhig.com

Man charged for threatening to kill cabbies

2007-08-02T19:44:00.000-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard website:

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Local News - A 21-year-old Kingston man has been charged with uttering death threats after a man threatened to kill two Amey's taxi drivers.

The man was arrested shortly after 8 a.m. on Chatham Street and is being held in custody. He has a bail hearing Friday.

Police say a female cabbie drove a woman to an address on Elm Street, where a confrontation began involving the man. When the cab driver intervened, the man threatened to kill her. The cabbie activated a silent panic button that brought at least half a dozen other cabbies rushing to her aid. At one point, the agitated man wielded a pointed objected that was covered by a bandana, threatening to stab people. It turned out to be a ballpoint pen. He threatened to kill another driver who had arrived to help. Police arrived within minutes and the man was taken into custody. He also is charged with breach of probation.

Cabbies must receive safety training:group; Proposal to be pitched to taxi commission

2007-08-01T05:50:00.001-04:00

From the Kingston Whig-Standard website:

Rob Tripp
Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Local news - Kingston's taxi industry is poised to introduce mandatory safety training for drivers and other measures following the first murder of a city cabbie.

A committee of 12 people comprised of taxi company owners, drivers, and members of the taxi commission has agreed that education should be compulsory.

"Safety education is going to happen," Doug Cox, owner of Kingston and Amherst Taxi and the chair of the committee, said in an interview Monday.

There are no current mandatory safety measures for Kingston cabs and drivers.

The safety committee was established by the commission in late June. The commission is the independent body that regulates the industry. Committee members have been meeting behind closed doors for the past two weeks and have decided on measures to be proposed, Cox said. The seven-member board of the commission will have final say.

Cox expects the education portion will be approved by the commission without problems, since the idea was widely endorsed by the industry. The committee surveyed taxi drivers and owners.

"There's a few other things but I can't really comment right now," he said.

The committee has considered the use of safety shields or partitions, video cameras and other alert systems such as flashing exterior lights.

The education plan is likely to include a safety video and booklet all taxi drivers will be required to review yearly before they are licensed.

Shields and cameras are commonplace in many large cities across North America. Cameras are mandatory in Toronto taxis, where their introduction is credited with dramatically reducing the number of robberies.

The introduction of mandatory partitions in taxis in New York City cut the homicide rate for cabbies from more than 30 per year to almost zero.

Cox would not say which other measures the committee plans to recommend to the commission. The proposals should be made public at the commission's next meeting on Aug. 15.

Commissioner Doug Teeple, who also sits on the safety committee, wants to see all the measures instituted quickly.

"I think it should happen before Christmas," he said.

Teeple, a former cabbie, said the holiday period can be the worst time of the year for drivers who confront drunken and belligerent passengers.

Many taxi operators and drivers have expressed skepticism about the need for partitions or shields in Kingston cabs, even after the killing of Amey's driver David Krick.

The 50-year-old Kingston man died on June 17 after he picked up an early morning passenger on Wright Crescent.

His attacker left him on the sidewalk on Durham Street a few minutes later. He was bleeding profusely from stab wounds to the chest. Krick was pronounced dead in hospital.

Kingston Police are still hunting his killer, who stole his taxi and abandoned it a few blocks away.

rtripp@thewhig.com