Former RCMP member and Foothills Municipal District community peace officer Rod Lazenby was [allegedly] murdered by Trevor Kloschinsky, 46, in the town of Priddis, Alberta, on Friday, August 10, 2012. Priddis is a 15-minute drive southwest of Calgary.
It’s horrifying to learn that a man like Rod Lazenby can survive his entire 35 year RCMP career unscathed, only to be murdered over something as stupid as a bylaw ticket.
It just seems so senseless.
"As far as we know this was around a dog complaint, and now this has occurred so it's an emotional time for everyone in the police community," said RCMP Insp. Garrett Woolsey of the RCMP’s Major Crimes Unit.
Actually, it’s an emotional time for the entire community, police included, Inspector Woolsey. I’m just saying…
Sun News is reporting the following:
Sun sources said Lazenby was “ambushed by the suspect, handcuffed and severely beaten.”
“He was lying in wait,” sources also said.
The suspect then threw Lazenby in back of a bylaw SUV and drove him to the district office in Calgary.
When he arrived, the suspect entered the police station to make a report that someone was trying to steal his dogs.
He was told by CPS that it was an RCMP matter.
“Then, he took officers outside to show them who was trying to steal his dogs,” said a Sun source.
Law Enforcement Today says the following on their website:
The incident occurred at the Tangled Spur Ranch near Priddis. This encounter was the culmination of a three-year ongoing investigation regarding an eviction and the illegal housing of over 30 dogs at the ranch. Authorities issued repetitive violation notices to Kloschinsky. As a result of the altercation, Officer Lazenby sustained critical injuries.
Trevor Kloschinsky has been charged with first degree murder.
Rod Lazenby is survived by his wife Lolita Lazenby and their five children. All are grieving the loss of husband and father in such a senseless way.
Now, instead of plotting their next adventure, Lolita faces the prospects of planning a funeral. Although emotional, she refrained from speaking about her husband’s accused killer.
“Something will happen, I just leave it up to God,” she said. “I am nobody to judge anyone in the world.”
An autopsy is scheduled for Monday and then Rod Lazenby’s body will be released to allow for proper burial arrangements. Lolita said the past three days have felt like an eternity.
“I want to see my husband so badly,” she said. “He was my life.”
As in every case where a law enforcement person is murdered in the line of duty, my heart and prayers go out to the family of Rod Lazenby at this time of terrible grief and loss.
This murdering P.O.S is the reason we need to bring back capital punishment. He should be given a fair trial and then promptly hung.
Condolences to Officer Lazenbys family and friends
Will the crown be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was first degree murder?
I would suspect that they will. Here’s why… from the Criminal Code of Canada:
231. (1) Murder is first degree murder or second degree murder.
Marginal note:Planned and deliberate murder
(2) Murder is first degree murder when it is planned and deliberate.
Marginal note:Contracted murder
(3) Without limiting the generality of subsection (2), murder is planned and deliberate when it is committed pursuant to an arrangement under which money or anything of value passes or is intended to pass from one person to another, or is promised by one person to another, as consideration for that other’s causing or assisting in causing the death of anyone or counselling another person to do any act causing or assisting in causing that death.
Marginal note:Murder of peace officer, etc.
(4) Irrespective of whether a murder is planned and deliberate on the part of any person, murder is first degree murder when the victim is
(a) a police officer, police constable, constable, sheriff, deputy sheriff, sheriff’s officer or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace, acting in the course of his duties;
(b) a warden, deputy warden, instructor, keeper, jailer, guard or other officer or a permanent employee of a prison, acting in the course of his duties; or
(c) a person working in a prison with the permission of the prison authorities and acting in the course of his work therein.
We normally thing of first degree murder as premeditated, but the criminal code removes that requirement if the victim was a peace officer. That means they really only need to prove that he killed Rod Lazenby in order to convict him of first degree murder. Hopefully this will be a slam-dunk trial and conviction and we’ll never see this piece of garbage on the street again. The downside is that we do not have the death penalty in Canada. If ever there was a candidate for capital punishment, this appears to be it.
I hope you are right. The criminal code is all well and good, however I do not put much faith in it. Was there anyone that is a witness as to what took place?
Once a defence lawyer enters the picture, it changes quickly, regardless of the fact he was a peace officer.
I suspect this will end up as manslaughter, my opinion.
Trevor, has the mind of a ten year old, and the brains of NEWTON yet, to know him he looks like he doesn,t know how to care for himself, if you or I, pushed him for no good reason, he would clobber you, yet the man has a heart of gold, he could not bear to let go a single pup form each litter, Trevor has been watched by the RCMP for 25 years, I hold the RCMP responsible for this horrible event.I hope the screw up by the police, will see that Trevor gets the help he needs.
The mind of a 10-year-old or not, he intentionally beat a man to death. That hardly qualifies as a heart of gold. I fail to see how the RCMP are at fault for his brutal and senseless crime.
My guess is the only way this goes as a manslaughter charge is if he makes some sort of plea deal for admitting he’s guilty. This is one of those times where, I would hope, everyone in the system wants to make an example of this guy.
Kill a cop, go to jail for the rest of your life.
It’s the right message to send to morons like this guy and any others that are out there like him.
The 46-year-old Trevor Kloschinsky has not yet entered a plea, as far as I know, and the case certainly hasn’t gone to trial.
Therefore, I find it premature for the continental court of public opinion to be canvassed to find the accused guilty of first-degree murder simply because that is the criminal charge the RCMP laid against him.
In my opinion, that negates “due process of the law” or a “fair trial”, which is how politically-correct, activist judges within the Canadian court process have managed to bypass the Canadian Constitution and are incrementally moving our so-called justice system down the road toward a tyrannical machination of “guilty as charged, shoot him at dawn”.
As is pointed out in the excerpts from the Criminal Code of Canada, first-degree murder means to be premeditated. And, also as pointed out, there is a Catch 22 to every rule. Premeditated doesn’t mean what it says under all circumstances.
While I do not know any details behind this specific case that might have resulted before Friday, August 10th, I see nothing in the news reports indicating that Kloschinsky’s (alleged) murder of Foothills Municipal District peace officer Rod Lazenby was planned or indeed if he is guilty as charged.
I do acknowledge the exception to the Criminal Code ruling under provision (4)(a)(b)(c) but conviction is complicated if the plea bargaining process is still allowed to be brought in under these circumstances. If plea bargaining still rings true, then how does provision (4)(a)(b)(c) enter into the equation?
The attitude “Kill a cop, go to jail for the rest of your life” is, In my estimation, a two-way street.
Anybody acting in the capacity of peace officers or badge-bearing bullies who uses excessive force on a defenseless cuffed/shackled prisoner causing permanent physical injury or death with repeated ham-fisted beatings, jackboot kickings or repeated pepper sprayings and taserings, should go to jail for the rest of their lives, too.
Instead, they are suspended with paid vacations from work and if they ever come to court they are exonerated with kid-glove conditional sentences. Police officers don’t go to jail, much less for life. So, why should that be a “given” when going in the other direction?
No, there should be a law that dictates that any government agent who has the authority to apprehend citizens should be required to deliver the prisoner to a cell, hospital or other appropriate place in the same physical condition as when the officer arrested him–not smashed to pulp by some frenzied cop or guard who has a penchant for irrationally assaulting helpless victims.
Regardless, premeditation is difficult to prove. Many times, a first-degree charge has to be reduced to second-degree murder to get a conviction, or, for reasons discussed in exchanges herein, a plea bargain may reduce the charge to unintentional death caused by manslaughter. Peace officer Lazenby evidently did not die while under attack but is alleged to have died while under transport to hospital from a local constabulary.
As an example of how difficult first-degree murder charges are to prove, Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer was charged with first-degree murder for the planned killing of his severely-handicapped daughter.
He even admitted to looking at alternative methods for painlessly euthanizing his daughter, but settled on asphyxiation by piping exhaust fumes to the inside of his running pick-up truck.
This emotionally-charged “mercy killing” qualified unequivocally as premeditated murder but he was not convicted on the first degree. He was convicted on second-degree by a jury, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 10 years.
As is customary, Kloschinsky’s lawyer will have his criminally-charged client undergo a psychiatric examination. Until we hear the results of the mental exam, the victim’s autopsy report, the accused enters a plea and a trial is underway, we will just have to cool our jets and hope that “due process of law” is still at least halfway intact in Canada.
If not, we’re all doomed.