To Correct an Error of Fact

I offer my sincerest apologies for the misinformation noted below in the post entitled Courting Disaster.

On February 16, 2009 I wrote a post about the false alarms that are driving us a tad crazy at 2100 Russell Road. One of my big complaints was the about the fine. I said $80.00. I based that on a letter I had received from the Police. I misinterpreted the information in the letter. Mr. Adami from The Citizen wrote me and pointed out that pulling false alarms is covered by the Criminal Code of Canada and, if caught, the culprit gets a good deal more than an $80.00 fine.

So I did what I should have done in the first place. I researched it. and Mr. Adami is so right!
Pulling a false alarm is considered Mischief under the Criminal Code. Mischief is addressed in Section 430.

Specifically, false fire alarms is addressed under Section 437 and is copied here:

PART XI: WILFUL AND FORBIDDEN ACTS IN RESPECT OF CERTAIN PROPERTY

Other Interference with Property

False alarm of fire

437. Every one who wilfully, without reasonable cause, by outcry, ringing bells, using a fire alarm, telephone or telegraph, or in any other manner, makes or circulates or causes to be made or circulated an alarm of fire is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.

R.S., c. C-34, s. 393; 1972, c. 13, s. 31.

So what is the difference between a summary and an indictable offence? Well it is a tad complicated but one of the things the Crown looks at among others is the type, the quantity and quality of the evidence. If one person has evidence and shares it, that's good. If 20 people have evidence and share it - that's better. If you see the back of the culprit, that has some value. If you catch him pulling the alarm on your Blackberry, that's better. And there are so many possible "ifs" that the Crown has to look at in deciding which way to go. But the police have to catch the guy or gal in the first place.

Unfortunately, we have all watched TV shows, both fiction and true stories, where the bad guy gets away because people were afraid to come forward when they knew something. The trouble with that is that if a bad guy gets away with something once, he will do it again, and again and again. Maybe the last 20 false alarms here have been pulled by 20 different guys but I don't think so. If we really have 20 sickos in the building who pull false fire alarms, then, man oh man! are we ever in trouble in this building!

If you know something and don't tell the police or the firemen who respond, then you are making it easier for this dude to pull that alarm again. Right now, when that fire alarm goes off, no one moves. Why should we? It's just that jerk playing games again. Right? What if there is a real fire and none of us move? If we, you and me, are nothing but a hunk of char, it's a wee bit too late for us, isn't it? Or what if the Fire Department is busy checking out our false alarm instead of racing off to a real fire? The difference between living through a fire and dying in one can be just a few minutes - the few minutes they are here instead of there. I guess the questions we all have to ask ourselves is,

1. if we know something are we brave enough to report it?
   
2. If we don't and someone dies in a real fire somewhere else because the Fire Department were here instead of there, could we sleep well knowing we could have prevented it?
   
3. If you cannot work up any empathy for others, from a purely selfish point of view, are you not sick of hearing that darned alarm going off all the time?
   

My answers:

1. I am pretty sure I am brave enough;
   
2. I would never get a decent night's sleep and
   
3. I am really and truly fed up with alarms going off all the time.
   

The description of 'Mischief' is covered by The Criminal Code of Canada, Section 430.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/text.html

A description of a Summary and an Indictable offence can be read at one of these sites.

http://www.defencelaw.com/classification.html

or

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002023

The bottom line - let's get this dude out of circulation!

Courting Disaster!

Last month I told you about the fire alarms and our problems with false alarms. Well tonight we had another. At 9pm. I did what I always do when the alarm goes off. I turned on the TV to the closed circuit TV of the doors. I checked to see if there was anything remotely like smoke or fire in the court yard. I checked out in the hall. No one even bothered opening their door this time.

On the TV, I could see a couple of the gals who had been playing beanbags in the lounge but other than that, nothing. The Fire Department never came - the alarm was turned off from here eventually. There was no fire!

The paragraph below contains facts which are incorrect Those have be struck out. See http://toslayadragon.blogspot.com/2009/02/to-correct-error-of-fact.html

That brings to mind two issues that no one seems to want to talk about or do anything about. The first of these is the false alarms themselves. How do we stop them? Digital cameras were suggested by Mr.Loveridge. With today's technology, it is possible that they are there already and are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to anyone but the technicians, but who knows? If they are, I certainly hope whoever gets the tapes, caught tonight's little prankster. And I hope they throw the proverbial book at him! Just in case you are unaware, these days 'the book' is $80.00 - a real deterrent! And if you read sarcasm into that, that's ok. I wrote it with sarcasm. $80.00 will not even slow them down.

$80.00 for bringing the Fire Department out probably barely covers the cost of running those fire trucks from the Fire Station to here. If those men and women are here chasing a false alarm when a real call comes in and someone dies because they did not get there fast enough, do we tell the victim's family, "Oh well, we're sorry. The Fire Department was chasing a false alarm at 2100 Russell Road but we caught the guy who pulled it and fined him." $80.00! Is that what a charred body is worth these days?

Maybe if you try putting yourself in the place of the victim's family or even think of yourself as the victim who just loses his home and all his possessions but keeps his life, you would start lobbying to have that fine made into something that is more of a deterrent. But this is all academic as we never catch them anyway. Maybe less discussing those cameras and more speedy installation is called for. And maybe a fine that really hurts the jerk who pulls those false alarms wouldn't hurt either.

The other thing about fire alarms in this building is that they go off so often, both false alarms and those way too frequent monthly tests - so frequent that no one pays them any mind. No one moved when this one went off. The Fire Department wrote me to tell me that it is the law that the alarms are tested monthly. Well I say that familiarity breeds contempt. This is true of more than personal relationships. It is true of way too many fire alarms. And at 2100 Russell Road, between the false alarms and the frequent checks, we hear so many fire alarms that no one moves further than the off box on their wall when they hear one. It might have sounded like a good idea - monthly checks - but no one used any psychology in making that decision or they would have known that too much of a good thing is NOT a good thing.

I do not know who made these rules but they really do need to be reworked, fine tuned, hell, any kind of logical tuning would work better than this. If there ever is a real fire in this building, there is going to be a lot of dead bodies. Are the Provincial and City governments going to wait until that happens? And they look so bad no one in their right mind would vote them in again? Or the possible law suits put them farther behind the *8* ball than they are now? Maybe your next stop should be at the Education System’s door - bring Logic back as a subject. It seems to be missing in a lot of people's thinking. Change the law to make it useful, not the useless legislation we have now.

Law that does not work is not good law.

This is not good law!

Update

I thought I would give you a bit of an update. I do not seem to be getting a lot of on site comments but I am getting emails and phone calls. The Citizen did both those things and they even came out to see our building. They did an article on it in today's paper - that is the January 28th edition.

We heard from The Fire Department to point us in the direction of the legislation regarding checks on alarms. Still waiting for a costing of chasing False Alarms.

We heard from Acorn. It appears that we are not the first to have the alarm check that lasts all day - the Acorn members at one of Transglobal's units reported that they were given the same routine. So far they are the only other place I know of where this inhuman way of testing the Alarm System has happened. Am I the only one to notice that this method of checking alarms is only used on low income buildings??? Also, this is the first year in the four I have been here where checking the alarms was handled this way. Does that mean that the alarms checkers have broken the law and not checked for the other three years?? Well, we might be poor but we were not hatched yesterday!!

We have also heard from Family Services. I sure hope they continue following this blog. I am sure they will be interested in the drug needles left lying around here where we have little children - you know at the age when they pick up any old thing and stick it in their mouths? Yup folks! Little children can pick up cigarette butts last hanging out of the mouth of people with HIV/AIDS. Or maybe a needle used by one of them? Doesn't any one out there have a care for these wee ones?

Well I promised to tell you about Mr. S. He is another WWII Vet. He lives below two drug addicts. For the past several years he has had to listen to their loud music, their fighting, their making out on the floor. Some of us hear the loud music at 3 a.m. in the summer when the doors are open. These apartments are pretty well sound proof from one apartment to another when they are side by side, but noise passes very readily from apartment to apartment when they are one above the other. So Mr. S. has spent years listening to all this. He has complained. He has been ignored. Others who have heard it have complained. We have all been ignored. Our drug addict couple are still among us. Our Mr.S. throws his arms in the air in disgust and resignation. Probably a smart move. This is his home. His friends are here. And I am just guessing but leaving here is a form of capitulation. He did not capitulate to the Nazis in the 1940s and he sure is not about to capitulate to two losers who have fried their own brains.

On top of all that, he also was subjected to the fire alarm fiasco this week. Somehow I expect Canadians to treat their war vets better than that. Somehow I expect Canadians to treat all their law abiding citizens better than that. Somehow I expect the nation's capital, Ottawa to be a leader and show the rest of the country how to behave. If this is the example being set for the country, are we ever in trouble!

One of the lessons you would get in a criminology course is that when criminals are allowed to get away with their petty crimes, they continue to commit them and they escalate. I think that is in Criminology 101.

We have a lease we are all required to sign. It clearly states this kind of behaviour is against the lease. Why is the lease, a legal and binding contract, not used as a remedy? If you know the answer, click on the 'comment' link and share the answer with us.

I take it you all know how to find this blog by now. So this will be my last email to notify you. But the blog goes on. So do check it out.

Shame on you Ottawa! Shame on you, Ontario!

Enough Already!

I had planned to tell you about another senior and war vet, Mr. S. who has been also been tormented and abused. But I am tired and upset - some one rang the alarm again tonight - another false alarm! I have no idea what this costs in cold hard cash but I am sending this to the Fire Department and asking them to comment on the cost so we all know. It cannot be peanuts. It must cost a bundle to get those big trucks up and running after shadows. And there is, as someone commented on the last post, the issue of what if someone else who really needs the Fire Department is left to burn to death while they are over here chasing shadows?

My question is, "Does anyone even try to find out who is pulling the alarm all the time?" Surely there is something they could put on the handle that will stay on the perpetrator for days - like that stuff they put in money bags to catch bank robbers. Does anyone even try to get finger prints off the handle? I have never seen the police technicians here trying.

And if he/she is ever caught, what is the penalty? A slap on the wrist? I sure hope it works better than the slap on the wrists these thieving addicts get when they shop lift - "I Pronounce you barred from entering Loblaws for the next 12 months!" Some deterrent! They simply find another store to steal from.

And who pays for all the theft and destruction? The Consumer at Loblaws and The Taxpayer for the Fire Department costs! Perhaps you should start looking at who the taxpayer is. It's you and your neighbour and your boss and even me. And since I am on a pension, I will wager you, you are paying more than I am. So why are you not all a good deal angrier than I am? Ok! Livid may be something you are not capable of, so how about just angry.

When are the taxpaying, voting citizens of this province going to start saying, 'Enough is Enough!'? Time to stop molly coddling drug addicts. Time to tell the various Governments to stop enabling them. It's time to start protecting the law abiding and punishing the criminals instead of punishing the law abiding and protecting the crooks. And the crooks around here are all active drug addicts or drug pushers.

Thanks for the encouraging emails. But it would be better if you put your comments right here on the blog. At the bottom of each post is a little link called 'comment' Click it and type away. :o)
Mr. S. I'll tell your story tomorrow, ok?

Shame on you Ottawa! Shame on you, Ontario!