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Thursday, June 10, 2004
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IN MEMORIAM: HOLLY JONES, 1993-2003
I wrote about a little incident that I had to deal with over the weekend. The story, while funny, grew out of something that is decidedly not funny at all. The City of Toronto, often touted as one of the safest major cities in the world, has seemingly turned into a killing ground for very young girls. First Holly Jones, then Celia Zhang. Why what happened and why it turned out the way it did was the fear of parents that their daughter will be the next Holly or Celia.
This probably doesn't mean anything to anybody but the three people in Toronto who actually read this thing, but it does raise some important questions. Those questions I'll address later. First, I'll describe the facts.
Last May 12, Holly, described as a bright, pretty and well liked girl, disappeared from her West Toronto neighborhood. The city automatically went into panic mode. Five weeks later, Michael Briere -a 36 year old software programmer- was charged with her murder. It has been reported that Briere gave a four hour videotaped confession and lead police to Holly's remains.
Those remains had been dismembered and left in two gym bags in different areas around Lake Ontario. The reports surrounding the case suggest that Holly was sexually assaulted. Holly Jones was all of 10 years old.
The Toronto papers are reporting that Briere is planning on pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of Holly Jones. I hope to God that Michael Briere burns in hell for what he did to that poor girl.
But this case is disturbing for other reasons. Following Holly's disappearance, Toronto police canvassed the neighborhood where she lived. It turns out that that neighborhood houses hundreds of men on Ontario's sex offender registry. I'm against such registries, for reasons that I'll elaborate on in another post. The police then went on a door to door canvas, asking for DNA samples of every male over the age of 16.
Briere was one of two men who refused to give a sample. There has been nothing to suggest that Briere was a convicted sex offender.
I should note that if the police came to my door and demanded a DNA sample, there is a better than even chance that I would tell them to come back with s warrant. I'm not absolutely certain that I would do that, particularly if it occurred in the circumstances of the Holly Jones case. But every instinct in my body tells me that I should tell the cops to get lost. That is what Michael Briere did. The difference between me an that animal is that I have noting to hide. He did.
Following Briere's refusal to give a saliva sample, police put him under 24 hour surveillance and "surreptitiously" obtained a DNA sample. It is entirely possible that surreptitious means that police broke into his home. With Briere pleading guilty, we'll never know how it was obtained.
It is cases like that of poor Holly Jones that should force us to ask very tough questions about the kind of society we want to live in. Not in regards to people like Michael Briere, I'm afraid that animals like that will always be with us. But we should ask serious questions about the powers of police in what is advertised as a democratic society.
Society claims to cherish concepts like "probable cause" and the presumption of innocence. That is until a case like Holly Jones confronts it. Then it seems like those ideas go out the window in the very name of justice. The police got lucky with Michael Briere. They got very, very lucky. Without probable cause, which, Briere's refusal to give a DNA sample aside, they did not have, they could just as easily have been wasting time as the killer of Holly Jones remained free to kill again. And again. And again.
Most people, when confronted with circumstances such as those surrounding Holly Jones, will say things like "her killer deserves none of the rights the rest of us get." But so far as any of us know, before next Thursday, Michael Briere has never been convicted of any crime. Until next Thursday, Michael Briere is "the rest of us." The only thing that brought Briere under suspicion in the first place was his refusal to give police his body fluids and no one has argued otherwise.
As someone who is supposed to place people under arrest for a living, I can tell you that there are very strict standards for doing so. If I were to effect an arrest under the circumstances that the Toronto police may very have in the Jones case, not only would I lose my job, I would very probably go to jail. And in very few cases in which I deal do the suspects go to trial, let alone face life in prison. In a roundabout way this is what I'm asking; should the standards of the investigation of the brutal murder of an innocent 10 year old girl be higher or lower than the standards placed on me in the theft of a fucking CD player?
It sickens me that I should have to ask these questions on the behalf of an animal like Michael Briere. It sickens me further that I live under a legal system where I cannot support the death penalty for people like him. Society should demand better.
The memory of Holly Jones deserves better.
If anybody would like to leave a few words of support or condolence to the Jones family, they can do so here
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