We don’t need any more cops, says Don Clairmont, the man who literally wrote the book on violence in Halifax. Clairmont, a criminologist and head of the Atlantic Institute of Criminology at Dalhousie University, was hired by mayor Peter Kelly to study violence in Halifax and to make suggestions for addressing violence. The resulting report […]
Justice
Posted inNews + Opinion
Can we tame Halifax’s mean streets?
The Coast – CBC TV Violence Task Force in studio. Photos by Aaron Fraser. The Violence Task Force is the first of a series of joint productions of The Coast and CBC TV leading up to the October 18 municipal election in Halifax. The joint productions will examine a series of local issues, including violence, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Taming Halifax: the full discussion
The Coast – CBC TV Violence Task Force in studio. All photos by Aaron Fraser. The Violence Task Force is the first of a series of joint productions of The Coast and CBC TV leading up to the October 18 municipal election in Halifax. The joint productions will examine a series of local issues, including […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Youth crime and you
Think of every high-profile crime involving a young offender in the last three years. The Common table-leg attack, the shooting above the One World Cafe, the Dartmouth stabbing death of cab driver Ken Purcell, the quadruple stabbing outside the Halifax Forum, the north Dartmouth torture and beating of Kathie-Lee Bennet, the fatal stabbing on Gottingen […]
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Adam’s fall
Editor’s note This story was honoured with two journalism awards in 2009: The Canadian Association of Journalists gave a CAJ award for best investigative piece by a community newspaper, and it won a gold Atlantic Journalism Award for enterprise reporting. More importantly, the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission has decided to install suicide barriers along the entire […]
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City of Angels
Reportedly, Halifax mayor Peter Kelly first met Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa in the studios of radio station WABC in New York City, where Sliwa hosts a talk show. Neither Kelly nor Sliwa returned repeated calls for comment, so there’s no telling what the mayor thought of the radio show. But if shows broadcast live […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A history of violence
These stories represent a small sample of the submissions we received via email, messageboards and thecoast.ca. Some have been edited for publication. The Coast will submit these stories as part of the mayor’s roundtable on violence, now underway. My 24-year-old nephew was confronted by a group of youths on the Common in September, going home […]
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Violent Halifax Map 2007
Violent crimes which were reported to police are represented with blue push-pin icons. The unreported crimes we’ve learned about are represented in red. Click on the markers for a detailed description of the crime. Click here for a larger map. Share your personal experiences of violence on the streets of Halifax – where and when, […]
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Attacked in Halifax
Share your personal experiences of violence on the streets of Halifax – where and when, who and how. We all know friends who have been been jumped downtown, or we’ve been through it ourselves. Help The Coast give the city an accurate picture of what’s actually going on. And while we’re on the subject, check […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The prophet in Clayton Park
On the morning of September 11, 2001, a family doctor named Bill Deagle was driving his two older sons—Matthew, 16, and Stephen, 14—to Chatfield, their charter high school in Littleton, Colorado, a couple of miles from their home, when he heard the first confused, confusing, stuttering reports on the radio. A plane has crashed into […]
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Banned in NS
The list of movies that have been banned in Nova Scotia over the years ranges from the gory (Rabid Grannies, 1988) to the pornographic (Beverly Hills Copulator, 1986) and even includes a few cult classics (Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, 1971—the tagline for Sweetback? “The Film that THE MAN doesn’t want you to see!” Apparently not). […]
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The young and the restless
Teens call it the “Darkside.” The name may call to mind visions of Star Wars, but no imperial storm troopers patrol this area of Dartmouth North, bounded by Halifax Harbour, the Albro Lakes, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge and Highfield Park. In their place, groups of young people wander the streets wearing hoodies and blue […]