[Image-1] UPDATE: This story is about Rehtaeh Parsons. Yesterday a story we all know reached a sort of ending. An ending which no one wanted, but given how sexual assault is prosecuted in Canada, almost seems destined. 20-year-old must write apology to victim's parents, complete a course on sexual harassment, learn to be nicer. No […]
Justice
Posted inNews + Opinion
Delays and frustrations with the always-on stalker
Remember the story of Kim and Nicole? The two women who used pseudonyms to go public with allegations that an ex-boyfriend was harassing them with revenge porn? The women who complained local police mishandled their case? Halifax police confirmed last week they have handed Nicole and Kim’s case to police in Pasco County, Florida, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Murder at the Halifax Club
Recently, I was lucky enough to attend a function at the Halifax Club. The swank Hollis Street space has been where the city’s most distinguished gentlemen (and, since 1986, women) can meet to toast their successes and discuss whatever it is the upper classes discuss behind closed doors. During this event, the assembled crowd was […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A call for representation
Last month at the King’s campus bar, student Meg Shields noticed something was missing. A few pints deep, Shields found herself staring at a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. She was suddenly struck with anger. “I noticed that the wall adjacent to her [the Queen] was totally blank. I was sitting with the King’s Students’ […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Hoping for something better
Jessica Dempsey, a transgender woman, is asking the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia for a judicial review of a recent decision made by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. Dempsey, a Halifax resident and former Dalhousie student, filed a complaint with the NSHRC last year after she was allegedly refused service and humiliated by two […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Not ALL police officers
[Image-1] Quite the couple of weeks for Halifax Police, eh? First, they took the “unprecedented step” of releasing to the public HRP’s full response to Hilary Beaumont’s Coast cover story (a move we had some issues with). Now, another lengthy essay has been penned by the police after the shocking story of a violent home […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Police, province respond to Nicole and Kim
Readers are calling for change and the government is promising it following last week’s cover story investigation by The Coast into how public systems failed to respond to two women who are being relentlessly harassed online and off. The Coast has kept in touch with the two women, known in the story as Nicole and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The always-on stalker
In the middle of the night on a quiet, residential street in Halifax, a 28-year-old man climbed the steps of a white house with a red door. In the apartment upstairs lived a 30-something woman he found on Craigslist a couple hours earlier. The ad said, “I need it.” He replied by email. He was […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
“Not our best effort” deputy police chief says of stalker case
“There’s no way I can put sugar on this,” deputy Halifax police chief Bill Moore said this morning on CBC’s Information Morning. He was responding to The Coast’s “The always-on stalker” investigation, published yesterday, which details how police mishandled the ongoing case of two women—known in the story as Nicole and Kim—who are being harassed […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
“It’s easy to think nothing will change”
Billy Bragg hoisted his guitar as if it were a picket sign, before marching onstage to rally a crowd. The audience was from a southern St. Louis suburb, and they had plenty of reason to protest. In nearby Ferguson, police and citizens were mired in a civil rights standoff. Bragg had no answers to their […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The best self-defence isn’t always a good offence
It’s dark. You’re moving briskly through the north Common. You think you’re alone, but then again…sometimes Halifax doesn’t seem like the safest streets to walk. Having something in your purse or pocket to offer some protection sounds great, but be careful before you go buying any peace of mind. In Canada it’s illegal to carry […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The ultimate crime
The Coast: How close were you ever to charges? Tom Martin: Very close, very close. Probably within 2005 we were very, very close. We had that task force going; Jason’s case is one of the main cases we were looking at. What happened? We weren’t close enough, and then the deputy chief shut it down. […]