I just wanted to say that I really appreciated the "word for word" nature of the quotes in the G&M piece. A US paper would never have gone to that much trouble; it would have been cut and paraphrased (and still in quotation marks).

AP style says that quotes should not be altered to correct grammar nor should they use abnormal spellings to conveny regiouanl dialects.

It depends on what the point of it is. If I'm talking to a CEO about last quarter's results and he gives you incomplete sentences because he's speaking extemporaneously, I try to clean it up a bit so that he doesn't look inarticulate in print.

But a story like this is trying to capture as much detail as possible to create a vivid (althouth hopefully not lurid) picture of the scene. Since its such a unique and bizarre incident, at this point there's no way to know what details are important or not, so the writers are just throwing in everything they can learn.

I think that's why they mentioned the ethnicity. However, in the picture that kid doesn't look especially aboriginal. He looks like every single NHL draft pick from the WHL.

The part of the story that is very fuzzy is the stand-off between the police - Mounties, I guess, although they probably weren't wearing their red uniforms - and the suspect. They say he moved around the bus taunting the cops before they managed to apprehend him.

I don't know how it is in Canada, but I know from watching TV that in the U.S., brandishing a knife at somebody may be considered tantamount to pointing a gun at them, in which case the cops may shoot to kill.

The Mounties carry guns, don't they?

I agree that the ethnicity and clothing details are there for that reason (and perhaps in a misguided attempt to humanize the victim), but know from experience that the AP style guide is ignored in the breach (I wrote some stuff for AP 25 years ago, when they were much better than they are now).

My reading of the timeline is that the RCMP got there after the guy was very much dead.

The victim was dead, but if the guy was waving the knife at bystanders or threating to charge at one of the cops, they could drop him. At least, that's how it is on COPS.

If they thought their lives were being threatened then they could fire. But it would be a tough call as he was inside the bus and they were outside, at least until he gave himself up and was apprehended. A knife, however large, couldn't penetrate the bus and harm anyone outside I don't think. Besides the RCMP only shoot people when there's no one looking, the rest of the time they use tasers.

I've read it again and it says that he was moving "around" the bus taunting the cops. I now see that this means he was moving around inside the bus, and then tried to go out a window. A guy trying to move through a bus window isn't in a position to threaten anyone. So now I understand.

I thought he was circumambulating the bus waving the knife around.

Aboriginal facial features aren't homogeneous. Some look "white". Some look almost chinese (hence some confusion initially about the ethnicity of the killer, I think). Although with the name "Tim McLean", which is not at all Aboriginal, I suspect he was adopted.

Technically, Li did not give himself up. Police tried to talk him out for about four hours, at which point he kicked out a window, jumped out and tried to escape on foot. He only got about fifty feet before he was tackled and wrestled to the ground.

I've noticed that most indigenous people don't look particularly "Indian" and lots of them have names like Chris Simon, not Dakota Running Bear or whatever.

They didn't chase him down on horseback did they? Cos' that would be sort of cool.

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

QUOTE:
Technically, Li did not give himself up. Police tried to talk him out for about four hours, at which point he kicked out a window, jumped out and tried to escape on foot. He only got about fifty feet before he was tackled and wrestled to the ground.

Only got fifty feet? The police presumably are all around the bus, the guy kicks out a window, jumps out, and still managed to get fifty feet before being caught. I know he had a knife and was obviously a threat to everyone, but that seems like a far way to get in that situation.

Also seems like one situation where Tasering a guy seems completely within reason.

Reed, you really need to visit Canada one day. We have running water and flush toilets too.

I know, but I'm disappointed about that each time I cross the Appalachians.

That poor bear.

And bloody hell.

From the first linked-to article on the bus murder:

QUOTE:
Questioned about whether weapons regulations should be put into place for buses, Day said it would be premature to look at such precautionary measures

Isolated though the incident was, surely a simple rule saying 'no weapons to be carried on as hand luggage' would have gone some way to avoiding this happening? And surely wouldn't be that hard to introduce?

Yes it would. Then you'd have to do airline-style security checks for coach buses and that would be time-consuming and expensive. It's already completely out of control at airports.

Greyhound do have hand-baggage checks in the US though. I'd expect them to be introduced here as well following this incident.

Really? Is that a post 9/11 thing?

It's been a while since I rode a coach bus like that and last time I did it was on Peter Pan lines, which is a bit nicer than Greyhound.


Legal question. In Canadian criminal courts, the prosecution is traditionally referred to as "The Crown." Do they work for the province or the Federal government?