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B.C. teen's family asks bullies to stop in wake of suicide

The family of a B.C. teenager who took her own life last week is asking online bullies to leave the teenager alone, police say.

Amanda Todd committed suicide in her family home on Wednesday, about a month after posting a video on YouTube saying she had sunk into depression after enduring years of online bullying, blackmail and physical assaults at school.

At a news conference on Saturday, RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen asked anyone disparaging the teen online to stop and think.

"We've spoken directly with the family at length and they are asking that those that are putting out these inappropriate comments, continuing to post pictures of Amanda, to please stop," Thiessen said.

"What if it was their mother, their sister, their daughter, that made this terrible decision that Amanda made? Would they be comfortable with those images and inappropriate comments being put out on social media? I would suggest they probably wouldn't be."

Thiessen said those posting inappropriate comments could face legal action.

"They run the risk of being charged criminally," he said. "If we gain the appropriate evidence, charges will be forwarded for approval where we can."

Remarks called 'sickening'Images and comments making light of Todd’s death and suggesting she deserved to be bullied are flooding a Facebook memorial page dedicated the teen — so many that Facebook can’t remove them fast enough.)Many of the posts come from the U.S., where Todd's mother says the teen had a cyber-stalker who talked her into flashing her breasts — then sent the pictures to her friends and teachers.

Even cyber-bullying expert Wanda Cassidy, an SFU professor, says she’s shocked the bullying is continuing after Todd’s suicide.

"It is really sickening," she said. "Kids aren’t the only people that cyber-bully. Older people do as well so it can be a habit that is engrained in a family or in society at large."

Cassidy says Facebook should release the names of people who commit acts of hate or libel online.

"Police need to be more involved. The courts are starting to get more involved. Parents need to be more involved, schools need to be more involved and we as a society need to say we will not tolerate this behaviour."

Plane crash in northwestern Ontario kills 3

Plane was being transferred from Airdrie, Alta. to Trois-Rivieres, Que. Three people died in a plane crash just south of the community of Pickle Lake in northwestern Ontario last evening.

The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said the crash of the small craft happened Tuesday night nearly three kilometres past the end of the runway during a landing attempt.

The plane ended up in densely wooded area four kilometres south of Pickle Lake.

One of the four people aboard survived. That person has been airlifted to hospital in Winnipeg for treatment of minor injuries.

The identities of the people have yet to be released.

Pickle Lake Mayor Roy Hoffman said he was told at about 8 p.m. that an ELT (emergency locator transmitter) had gone off.

At about 2 a.m. on Wednesday, he received a call from the fire department that searchers were dispatched to look for the plane.

“And at that time, there was a Hercules aircraft circling Pickle Lake, dropping flares a little bit east of Pickle. I got up and went out, and sure enough they had found the plane," Hoffman said.

Guided by information from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) aircraft, Ontario Provincial Police officers and Nishnawbe-Aski officers entered the area on foot and found the plane.

Members with the JRCC parachuted into the site to assist with extrication and medical attention.

"The wreckage is actually in pretty bad shape, so I can't even determine whether it was a single engine or twin engine," Hoffman said.

The TSB said the plane was being transferred to new owners in Trois-Rivières, Que., from Airdrie, Alta.

Pickle Lake is 530 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

Canadian border guard shot near Vancouver
Driver of van with Washington plates shot officer, then killed himself


A Canadian border services officer was shot and seriously wounded by a gunman who then fatally turned his weapon on himself at the Peace Arch crossing south of Vancouver, police say.

The female border officer's condition is not known, but Const. Bert Paquet said at an RCMP news conference that she was breathing and conscious when airlifted to hospital.

Paquet told reporters that a man travelling alone in a white van with Washington licence plates pulled up to a kiosk and shot the border guard.

He said the suspect died from "what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

Video surveillance is being reviewed and witnesses are being interviewed, Paquet said.

Traffic at the Peace Arch border crossing would be closed for several hours, police said late Tuesday afternoon. (Mark Gryski/CBC)LeAnn Dombrosky told CBC News she was at the border crossing when the shooting occurred.

“I was the third car in the Nexus lane as this incident occurred at 1:51 p.m.," Dombrosky said in an email.

"There was a gunshot and sounds of a woman screaming which drew the attention of all the other guards. Then after about 10 seconds, the guards were yelling to a man in a white van in the far left lane (closest to the building) to put his hands up –another shot or two were fired – in which the driver of the white van took his life with a bullet in his head.”

Minister respondsPublic Safety Minister Vic Toews issued a statement saying his thoughts and prayers go out to the officer's family and colleagues.

"I am deeply concerned by the news of the shooting today at the Peace Arch border crossing of a CBSA officer," Toews said. "This event is a sobering reminder of the dangerous conditions faced daily by the men and women of our law enforcement agencies."

Traffic in both directions was halted after the incident occurred and would not be moving "for several hours," Paquet said.

The Peace Arch, officially called the Douglas crossing, about 40 kilometres south of Vancouver, is the third-busiest border point between Canada and the U.S.

An average of 3,500 cars pass through the crossing on a slow day, and during peak periods about 4,800 vehicles will move through the border.

During those peak periods, border delays can reach four hours on either side of the border.

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Coquitlam dad drove kids to church with wife’s body in trunk
A Coquitlam man who killed his wife over a custody dispute drove around for two days with her body in his SUV while he took his two kids to Burnaby Mountain and to church.

Zhongming (James) Mou, 36, was charged with first-degree murder for the strangulation death of Yating (Lancy) Hu, 27, in July 2011 after her body was found by fishermen in the Fraser River near Steveston, where he had dumped it inside a suitcase two days after he killed her.

The couple were embroiled in a nasty custody battle over their two sons, now four and three years old, before she was murdered.

Mou, after first admitting the murder to undercover officers, confessed to police, and the charge was reduced to second degree.

Both first and second degree carry life sentences but the eligibility for 1st degree is a minimum 25 years while second degree it's 10 to 25 years.

Crown asked the judge on Tuesday to keep Mou in jail for 15 to 20 years before he can apply for parole to denounce the crime and deter others.

Mou's lawyer is to argue for his recommended sentence on Friday, after which the judge is likely to reserve his decision.

Parents Distressed

Mou, his hair long and bushy and wearing a sports jacket over a blue shirt and jeans, showed no emotion during his sentencing hearing on Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.

Hu’s parents sat almost directly behind him in the public gallery, separated by Plexiglas, and her mother, Yanyu Xiao, sobbed loudly and uncontrollably during the morning recess.

Her father, Muming Hu, wiped away tears as he addressed the court through a translator, in lieu of a submitting his victim impact statement. He described an agony that hasn’t gone away since they learned of the disappearance and murder of their only child.

“And he (Mou) is not remorseful at all,” he said.

Custody Battle

Through an agreed statement of facts read into the record, court heard that Mou and Hu had married in 2003 but had separated and Hu, who had in May 2011 lived in a women’s shelter, was insisting on sole custody.

He told police he thought she wasn’t a good mother and didn’t have a “mother nature,” and that the older son, then three, “hated” her because she hit him.

He said he couldn’t see his children being properly raised by her and had thought of killing her twice before he did it.

The couple were discussing custody on Skype on July 15, 2011, but getting nowhere because she was too emotional, he said, so he invited her to his Coquitlam house.

Planned to Kill Her

He said she was being “very hard” that night and, at 5 a.m., he decided to kill her.

While she was in the washroom, he removed a metal bar from the Total Home Gym apparatus, closed the windows in the house and invited her into the laundry room to show her something and beat her with the bar, increasing the force when she screamed for help.

He then strangled her using an electrical cord and stuffed her body in a suitcase and put it in the back of the SUV.

He worked until 10 a.m. cleaning the house, sending the children back to bed when they woke.

Body Disposal

He told police he drove around for the next two days with the body in the SUV, with his children and “their mother’s body in the back,” said Crown prosecutor.

He turned up the air conditioner when the body started to decompose and smell.

After checking the tide charts for low tide, he drove to the Fraser River in Richmond at 3 a.m. Monday and weighted the suitcase down with two rocks and tried to tow it away from shore. But he struggled as it filled with water and abandoned it as it sank.

He tossed the metal bar into the Fraser River, disposed of other evidence in other locations and buried his wife’s cellphone, keys, wedding ring and wallet — minus its bank cards — in his parents’ backyard, later digging up the wallet to retrieve his son’s B.C. CareCard

Hu’s body in the suitcase was found by two fishermen near Steveston on Aug. 27, 2011, two days after Hu’s parents came from China to make a public appeal for the return of their daughter.

Stories Conflicted

Mou had told police conflicting stories at the time, saying he had dropped Hu off at her apartment at 8 p.m. and later said she had stayed at the Coquitlam home overnight and left on her own in the morning.

Mou was arrested and charged about two weeks later, on Sept. 9, 2011.

Confessed to Reporter

Less than a week later, he granted an hour-long interview to a Ming Pao reporter who showed up unannounced at the jail.

He told her he wasn’t sorry for killing Hu because she threatened to take his children away and that he didn’t feel bad about killing her and that he had lost feelings for her.

He blamed the social workers at the women’s shelter for directing her to seek $6,000 in alimony from him.

He rated her parenting skills at four out of 10 and his own at seven, until the murder, which he admitted dropped that number to zero.

Mou has been in custody since his arrest.

The children are being raised by his parents.

Hu’s father said he and his wife have moved to Canada to help raise them but there’s been friction over custody with the Mous.


Canadian border guard shot at Peace Arch crossing identified; Border remains closed . A male suspect driving a van with Washington State licence plates killed himself at the scene

METRO VANCOUVER - A Canada Border Services Agency officer who was shot in the neck by a man who then killed himself Tuesday at the Peace Arch border crossing is in stable condition, an agency spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday.

Stephanie Wudel said that shooting victim Lori Bowcock, who is in her late 20s, is expected to make a full recovery.

Bowcock had moved to Vancouver less than a ago after working as a civilian dispatcher at the Ontario Provincial Police communications centre in London, Ont.

She worked with the OPP up until the spring, said spokesman Sgt. Peter Leon, although he did not know when she began her employment. She had also worked as a volunteer at the OPP detachment in Middlesex, Ont.

He would not comment further on the investigation.

"As an organization we are very concerned for her and we wish her a speedy recovery," said Leon.

Bowcock was working in the booth at the Douglas border crossing, commonly called the Peace Arch crossing, when a male suspect shot her in the neck Tuesday afternoon. Surrey RCMP spokesman Cpl. Bert Paquet said the lone male then turned the gun on himself and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Bowcock was airlifted to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster around 2:30 p.m. and was severely injured but still breathing and conscious on evacuation, he said. She is listed as in stable condition.

Jean-Pierre Fortin, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, offered Bowcock support on behalf of members.

"The thoughts of our entire membership are with our sister and her family in this terrible time. This incident reminds us all that as law enforcement officers serving Canadians, the personal safety risk we undertake is real every time we go on shift because dealing with the unknown is part of our job," said Fortin, in a statement Wednesday.

He said in the days to come, the union will closely examine the circumstances of what took place.

Meanwhile, the Peace Arch border remained closed on both sides Wednesday. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has taken over the case and is investigating it as an attempted homicide.

The suspect was entering the country in a white Ford Econovan with Washington plates registered to a man from Bremerton. Mounties have not yet confirmed his identity.

Lt. Pete Fisher, a spokesman with the Bremerton police, could not confirm whether the suspect was from Bremerton, saying the detachment had no information on the individual.

"We're still talking to witnesses to confirm exactly what events took place," Paquet said, noting officers will be examining video surveillance and working with U.S. law enforcement agencies.

LeAnn Dombrosky, a resident of south Surrey, said she was about three cars behind the white van in the lineup to cross the border into Canada. She said she had her windows rolled down when she heard a loud gunshot.

Seconds later, she heard a woman screaming.

"Somebody in that area started to yell 'get down on the ground' and other commands," she said, adding that she saw border officials crouched around the van with their guns drawn.

"At that point a second gunshot went off."

Dombrosky echoed what several other witnesses said on Tuesday that she believes no shots were fired by border guards.

"I figured that he opened fire on (Bowcock) and that was her screaming. I'm not an expert, but I believe the second shot was (the suspect) shooting himself."

Dave Noble, who commutes from Washington to White Rock and was in line at the crossing when the incident occurred, said he heard shots fired in quick succession, and then heard some screams.

Two ground ambulances and a helicopter were on scene Tuesday afternoon, said BC Ambulance spokeswoman Kelsie Carwithen.

Traffic into Canada at the Douglas crossing, also known as the Peach Arch crossing, was diverted to the Pacific Highway and Aldergrove crossings Tuesday afternoon and evening, CBSA officials said.

Kevin McAllister, assistant general manager at the Peace Portal Golf Course, which is adjacent to the crossing, said an employee and several guests reported to him that they heard shots fired at around 2 p.m.

"Two shots were fired," he said. "We've heard fire, police, ambulance heading southbound on (Highway) 99, which is probably about a couple hundred yards from the 18th green. So that's what they heard when all hell broke loose."

McAllister said he also heard and saw a police helicopter hovering over the 10th and 11th fairways, which are the closest fairways to the highway and the border crossing.

Customs and Immigration union official Dan Sullivan said the shooting is the first of a border guard in Canadian history. He said other officers have been assaulted or threatened with a gun, but no one has been shot on the job before.

"We are hoping and praying for her," he said. Because he's not sure if her family has yet been located he doesn't want to say how long she has been on the job or other details that might identify her.

Sullivan said the union is always working with the CBSA on security issues affecting employees, but he added there's not much that could have been done to prevent Tuesday's tragedy.

"You have probably been through the border. There is an officer sitting in the booth there. That officer deals with 200 vehicles. Anyone of those vehicles can decide how they are going to interact with the officer," Sullivan said.

After years of lobbying, a program was started four years ago to arm border guards with firearms.

Sullivan said it will take another six years for all officers to be trained and armed. Currently, 40 per cent of officers at Peace Arch have firearms, he said.

He wouldn't comment on whether the injured officer was carrying a gun.

CBSA president Luc Portelance issued a statement expressing his sympathy for the guard's family.

"This is a profound reminder of the risks that border services officers assume every day. I know that the courage and dedication of our officers are second to none," he said.

Vic Toews, federal minister of public safety, said in a statement he was deeply concerned about news of the shooting.


Port Mann and Golden Ears: Two bridges, one bill
There are different tolling systems for the new Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge, but drivers will be invoiced together

Starting in early 2013, drivers who cross the Fraser River will be able to manage their Golden Ears Bridge and Port Mann Bridge tolls together.

"The Golden Ears Bridge transponder will always work on the Port Mann Bridge, and the Port Mann Bridge decal will always work on the Golden Ears Bridge," explained Sany Zein, TransLink's director of roads.

But eventually, it will be more cost effective to just have a TReO decal installed on the windshield.

Tolling on the Port Mann Bridge will begin in December.

Then everyone — regardless of enrolment in either tolling program — will receive a discounted rate of $1.50 when crossing the Port Mann Bridge between December and the end of February.

For those who register for the decals before Feb. 28, the $1.50 Port Mann rate will continue until December 2013.

To qualify for a further bonus, the Transportation Investment Authority is offering a $30 credit (equivalent of 20 free trips in a car) for drivers who have a decal installed and a payment method on file before Nov. 30, 2012.

Each motorcycle, small vehicle, or medium vehicle listed on the account will receive the credit.

But the offer does not apply to large vehicles, and is limited to personal accounts with four or fewer vehicles listed.

The credits expire on May 31.

For drivers who currently use the Golden Ears Bridge and have transponders, Zein explained that, after integrated billing is introduced in spring 2013, travel on both bridges will be tracked, correlated, and automatically billed together.

Drivers may choose to opt out of integrated billing by calling the customer service centres, which will mean motorists will then receive a separate invoice for travel on the Golden Ears Bridge.

"If you have the decal, you will get the best rates on the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridges," Zein said, "but if you have the transponder, you only get the best rate on the Golden Ears Bridge, not the Port Mann."

Golden Ears Bridge was the first electronically tolled bridge in Western Canada when it opened in 2009, and Zein explained that the two bridges are using different systems because the decal technology is new.

"When we were choosing the tolling technology for the Golden Ears Bridge around 2007, this technology wasn't available. It was only in a prototype stage," he said.

If drivers prefer to only have a TReO decal, they can turn in the transponder in December.

As a Quickpass transponder is no longer needed after tolling on the Port Mann Bridge starts, it can be returned after Dec. 1, Mondays to Fridays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., to either of the Golden Ears customer service centres, in Walnut Grove or across the river in Pitt Meadows.

GOLDEN EARS BRIDGE TOLLS

Cars: Most passenger vehicles, vans, SUVs, pick-up trucks, and taxis

Transponder $2.95 Video $3.50 Pay As You Go $4.20

Small truck: Cars towing a trailer, light duty commercial vehicles with fewer than five axles, school buses, motor homes, and intercity buses or coaches

Transponder $5.95 Video $6.50 Pay As You Go $7.10

Large truck: Articulated trucks or tractor trailer combinations

Transponder $8.85 Video $9.50 Pay As You Go $10.05

Motorcycle: Motorized two-wheeled vehicles; does not include electric bicycles

Transponder N/A Video $1.50 Pay As You Go $2.70

• The permanent Port Mann Bridge tolls are not yet finalized, but are expected to be about $3 per car.