In 1997 a young 14 year old girl named Reena Virk was swarmed by 8 teenagers, she was beaten and eventually drowned. This happened in the city where I live. What makes this case so tragic or say even more tragic is that 7 of her attackers were girls. What did this poor girl do to deserve being beaten and killed??
After a police investigation 2 of the main attackers were tried in court and the boy (Warren Glowatski) was convicted along with Kelly Ellard (pictured above) in her death. Some of the others were convicted of lesser offences as they were just involved in the initial beating. Then what happened with Kelly Ellard shows you what is seriously wrong with our justice system. Her first conviction was overturned on appeal and a second trial was held. This trial ended in a hung jury. So a third trial was ordered. This jury convicted her again. So guess what?? Our provincial court of appeal overturned that verdict. Why?? They said the trial judge didn't instruct the jury properly.
This case went to our Supreme Court who finally this morning restored her conviction and Kelly Ellard will stay in jail and serve time for the murder of poor Reena. Finally Some justice!!! My question is that this took 12 years and the family of Reena Virk deserve much better than this. Can you imagine being the parent of this child and having to go through 3 trials, appeals and 12 years of additional hell because a lot of our judges and our judicial system need to be overhauled. We need to make our judges accountable for their decisions. This has happened far too often and some of our judges need to take a long hard look at themselves and question whether they should be sitting as judges in my opinion.
Maybe it is time we looked at having our judges elected like they do in the U.S. I know that system isn't perfect but something needs to be done.
Meanwhile my thoughts go out to Reena's family who have lived this hell. Loosing a child this way is something I cannot fathom and I hope they can finally have some peace. A few more details of the case can be found here.
I played my regular Thursday night live game last night and it was a fairly quick exit. I got AK early and I bet it 3x BB and got one caller. Flop came Q,8,6. She bet and knowing her she hit her Queen so I folded. The rest of the short night was pretty uneventful until I got pocket tens. I bet it up preflop (got two callers) and then of course the flop came KKJ. Could it be much worse?? Ha Ha. Needless to say I didn't win that hand. I went out when pretty short stacked and the blinds coming around I pushed with A9h and got 3 callers. Yikes. They checked it down and I totally whiffed on the flop,turn and river and it was home to bed for me.
Man's inhumanity to man. (No, I'm not talking about your bustout.) And the perpetrators were so young.
ReplyDeleteThere is a growing amount of young people being involved in such acts of violence. It is hard to comprehend because we assume that it is only adults who do such things - well at least I do. I know when I was growing up it was always the older people who were violent.
ReplyDeleteToo much exposure to violence on television perhaps makes children insensitive to the suffering of others. Becomes the norm.
Yea Memphis it shocked all of us here when it happened . The girls were all young teens. Hard to believe
ReplyDeleteYea Linda we see it all too often now. When I was young girls never fought and if guys did it would be a couple of punches and its all over. Now guns and knives are involved too in a lot of cases. In this case they actually threw her body in the water and drowned her after beating her. Very sad
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