The Canadian justice system leaves a lot to be desired, even on its best days. On its worst days, it is a repulsive indictment of our apparent love for a violent serial rapist and murderer and our blatant abhorrence for honouring the memory of a precious young woman, brutally raped and stabbed dozens and dozens of times.
Tara Manning was a beautiful young 15-year-old the night she was brutally raped and murdered in her own home in 1994.
The Haitian-born man who committed this brutal crime decided to game the system, and applied for an Aboriginal Parole Hearing. As bizarre as that sounds, the bureaucrats in charge of making the decision on whether or not to allow this travesty didn’t bat an eye before stamping “APPROVED” on his application.
Now, I must admit that I am very offended, indeed outraged that this sort of stupidity can go on in the Canadian justice system.
But my outrage must be the pathetic mewling of a colicky baby compared to the outrage and sense of betrayal that Tara Manning’s father feels, and rightfully so.
“It’s like sticking another knife into our family — he stabbed Tara 51 times, what kind of crap is this?” Michael Manning asked Tuesday in an interview from his Montreal-area home.
Absolutely!
Can you imagine the absolute horror of walking in to your daughter’s room to turn off her alarm and wake her up, only to discover her brutally murdered body, stabbed 51 times by the psychopath who raped her in her own bed?
I can’t.
For a parent that is a nightmare image that will simply never be erased.
Then to be forced to take part in an Aboriginal Healing Circle for the pond scum who raped and murdered your little girl?
That must be like re-discovering her dead body all over again.
“How would you feel sitting less than 10 feet away from the person that slaughtered your daughter? Not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my baby,” Tara’s father, Michael Manning said.
In the wake of his daughter’s brutal slaying, Michael Manning headlined a campaign that led to a law requiring suspects in major crimes to provide DNA samples to police. It was DNA evidence that ultimately identified Gregory Bromby as the perpetrator and led to his conviction of First Degree Murder.
Gregory Bromby, the man convicted of her murder through DNA evidence, did what murderers do when they’re caught: he lied and lied and lied some more.
For over a decade he claimed he was innocent, that someone else had committed the heinous crime. For years he claimed that he had a relationship with Tara, a lie he eventually confessed to.
It wasn’t until his 2007 parole hearing, a full 13 years after his crimes, that he actually admitted that he had raped and murdered Tara Manning.
“He was called a psychopath during the murder trial in 1998. I don’t expect him ever to be better. I don’t expect him to ever have a life where he can be a good part of society,” said Manning, who flew to Winnipeg to give his victim’s impact statement.
“I wish it’s something that I could just let go, but I think of the people he is going to harm, like Tara, if he gets out,” said Manning.
Naturally, the Justice Minister and Minister of Public Safety have absolutely no comment on this case.
Shocking, isn’t it, when government ministers attempt to hide from the bureaucratic incompetence of their employees?
When reading that 37-year-old Gregory Bromby, a vicious and violent rapist and first-degree murderer and incorrigible psychopath, had been granted an Aboriginal Parole Hearing at the Stony Mountain Institution, a medium-security facility near Winnipeg, Manitoba, I was flummoxed by the lunatic-fringe standards of even our Canadian bureaucrats whose political masters keep beating the drum for “public safety” as their Numero Uno priority.
My first question was how does a sub-species of Haitian origin, albeit a Canadian citizen, qualify as a candidate for aboriginal status, culture and heritage?
Now I don’t pretend to have any knowledge or familiarity with the special privileges the so-called Justice Department of Canada finally allotted aboriginals after their hard-fought lobbying battle against a resistant Canadian government to secure their own culturally-designed circle sentencing-and-hearing processes as a second tier incorporated into the Anglo Americans’ traditional judicial, penal and parole systems.
But, I’ll tell you, this display of a parole board, too lazy to hear Bromby’s case therefore consenting to a parole hearing supposedly reserved for Canadian aboriginals, was, in my not-so-humble opinion, a slap in the face to every Canadian-born Indian, First Nation, Métis and Inuit and to their ancestors.
Then the second question was posed in my mind.
This incurable mental case has no conscience and probably wouldn’t take his medications and has been diagnosed as a high-risk re-offender. Should he have been approved for an escorted or unescorted day parole, which, thank God he wasn’t, he would go to a halfway house where his presence would terrify and traumatize the community residents.
The escort and/or police cannot constantly track him if he decides he wants to wander from one halfway house to another or go out and rape and kill again. After all, he claimed to have notched his knife with three rapes for which I can find no mention of charges, trial or convictions except for the brutal strangulation-rape-stabbing murder of 15-year-old Tara Manning.
Bromby seems to live in a fantasy land, believing his victims were his lovers who dumped him therefore providing rationalization for his violence against them. He still has a hate on for women and is in revenge mode; his excuse is that his mother and adoptive mother betrayed him by abandoning him at an early age.
One of his requests for a halfway house refuge was in the idyllic setting of Blainville, Quebec, a suburb near Montreal, where he had done some community work in the past.
My understanding is that no halfway house he contacted wanted anything to do with him. So where was this homeless waif going to land if he were granted parole? He didn’t know how to look after himself and would possibly commit sin again in order to be returned to permanent custody where his shelter and food would be provided.
Ross Romaniuk has reported some placatory words from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in his Winnipeg Sun article “Murder Victim’s Dad Glad Feds Are Listening”.
Talk is cheap.
But Toews has given notice through an assistant that he is willing to put a stop to the Parole Board of Canada’s abusive practice of allowing non-aboriginal prison inmates to seek parole by encroaching on culturally-sensitive hearings intended for First Nations, Metis and Inuit offenders.
Perhaps the board members feel it is a discriminatory practice and felt non-aboriginals should be allowed into the aboriginals’ private sanctum. “In 452 such parole hearings conducted during the board’s last fiscal year, 52 of the offenders were of non-aboriginal descent,” noted Romaniuk.
Amazing numbers. I wonder if the aboriginal communities have made any complaints about the discretionary parole board members adjusting the laws to suit themselves?
Following the elder-led Aboriginal Parole Hearing where the Haiti-born Bromby was unsuccessful in his bid for day parole, an e-mail came to the Winnipeg Sun on Thursday, January 19, from Julie Carmichael, Ottawa-based press secretary to Toews.
It said that “the Conservative minister is ‘concerned by this’ and intends to make changes,” wrote Romaniuk.
“Our government takes aboriginal rights seriously, which is why we continue to support aboriginal sentencing circles and elder-assisted parole hearings,” the story quoted press secretary Carmichael.
Although these aboriginal hearings are open to inmates of First Nations, Inuit and Metis heritage, the national parole officials have for several years for unknown reasons started allowing non-aboriginals to apply to use the alleged closed circuit system if the “ineligible” inmate showed a commitment to accepting and learning about the aboriginal culture.
Bromby submitted to the board that he was following the Red Road–or similar type program–inspired by American natives’ spiritual teachings that guides one to the right path of life.
Not in my wildest imagination can I picture Bromby “spiritual” unless he’s feeling tough strung out on street drugs, wielding a shiny, long-bladed weapon.
It’s back behind bars, Bromby, where you belong forever, because you are a knuckle-dragging deadhead who cannot be reformed.