Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Victim kicked “like a soccer ball”

COURTS   By JANE SIMS, The London Free Press

Last Updated: February 15, 2012 11:05pm

All he was doing was buying a sausage after a night out with a female friend.

“How did you get a girl?” asked a stranger in an orange polo shirt standing near the man at the vendor’s stand near York and Richmond streets at closing time.

“I’m going to get with her,” the stranger continued.

The man and woman tried to ignore the orange-shirted, dark-skinned man — Marol Angou, 25, of London — but the attack began.

The man was struck to the ground, then kicked in the head “like a soccer ball,” assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Chalykoff told Ontario Court Justice John Getliffe.

The man was kicked at least 17 times as he was on the ground in the fetal position protecting his head and begging the attack stop. His female companion was struck by Angou’s female friend, and punched by Angou twice when she tried to intervene, Chalykoff said.

Then he walked away.

Identification was the main issue in the case, but Getliffe convicted Angou Wednesday, saying he was convinced it was Angou who committed the random act of horrifying violence on a stranger on Aug. 20, 2011.

Angou offered alibis — both soundly rejected by Getliffe.

“I simply do not believe him,” the judge said.

Angou first claimed he was in custody at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre after the victim and his friend saw Angou downtown after the attack and approached to make sure he was the man who assaulted them.

Once sure, they gathered friends, returned to where they found Angou, then called police.

An initial check showed Angou was in custody, but that was a clerical mistake.

He was at the jail the following day after he was picked up by police for causing a disturbance not far from the attack the night before — and wearing the same distinct orange polo shirt he had when he attacked the man.

Angou’s second alibi was he had been with a friend at an east London bar, met some girls and partied at someone’s house.

But a check of the video surveillance at the London Housing complex where Angou’s friend lived didn’t support his story.

The male victim suffered serious physical and psychological injuries, but was able to recall the orange shirt, the dark skin and the man’s accent.

Angou will be sentenced March 9.

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The above article appeared in my local newspaper late last week and was of concern to me because the male in the article was one of the three that had attacked my husband and I in May 2008. He is obviously not too far removed from some savage and untamed animal as his repeated behaviour continually seems to illustrate. He obviously learned next to nothing during the twenty four months he sat in jail as punishment for his horrific actions against us. This much is very clearly apparent.

 If anything he seems to be mocking our Canadian judicial system at every opportunity, and is quite clearly not capable of owning any sort of responsibility for his actions. I’m fairly confident that this next sentence he will be receiving in a couple of weeks time will be as effective as all of the others preceding this one.

 I wish I could believe that this most recent punishment will even go as far as being an actual representation of the crimes committed but I have so very little faith that this could even remotely happen no matter how tough the judges words might appear in this article. No doubt come sentencing day they shall be long forgotten and in their place there will be more rationalizations why we should allow the system just one more chance to attempt rehabilitation. Whatever…

 

Mommy Dearest

Over the years, my Mother and I have had, at best, a somewhat strained relationship, although for the past few years, we somehow were both able to put this to rest and have enjoyed what has very much felt like a normal and healthy one. To say this has been like a breath of fresh air does not even begin to do it any sort of justice. As this was something I had dreamt my entire adult life of having, I was careful to ensure I did nothing to jeopardize it, although I wouldn’t have just accepted it without question had I felt that there might be possible negative consequences. In fact, in order to reach the previously unattainable, I had had to completely severe absolutely all ties with my Mom for near two years. Drastic action begets dramatic results it would seem.

Growing up, there was just Dad, Mom, my slightly younger brother and myself. When I was five, my parents decided it was time to leave the land of our birth, Ireland, to try our luck in another country halfway around the world, Canada. While I have some very vivid memories of this time, I certainly was far too young to fully comprehend the drastic, not to mention dramatic, changes occurring within our little family. Immigrating to a new country is daunting enough when one is young, single with their whole life ahead of them, I can’t even begin to imagine the stress involved for a couple just a few years away from forty with two small children in tow! Not only this, but they had to do it completely on their own as no one else from either one of their families had done this, nor would anyone ever do it.

What this meant was that neither my brother or myself had the luxury of being part of an extended family while we grew up. Although we had a total of nineteen cousins, we rarely ever saw any of them as an ocean separated us and still does. While we were fortunate enough to spend many a summer vacation visiting and getting to know them all, it was never quite the same as if we had been able to share our daily life on a regular basis with them. On occasion, I sometimes found myself filled with envy if one of my friends had the opportunity of being able to get particularly close to one of their cousins simply because they could – location…location…location.

Yet, in reality, as I grew up, this was really nothing more than a minor handicap because all in all, I was darn fortunate enough to have a pretty idyllic childhood. My folks were amazing enough and neither myself nor my brother were ever victims of any sort of abusive treatment. We were treated more than fairly, and certainly didn’t lack for much of anything growing up. I seemed to naturally gravitate towards my Dad, while my brother seemed to be my Mom’s favorite. I most definitely was my Daddy’s Little Girl, and I surely managed to stay this way until he passed away in 2003. We shared similar interests and I always found it much easier to confide in him than I had ever found in my Mother.

While she doted on my brother who could do no wrong in her eyes, I struggled to simply get along with her at times. She could be overly harsh and critical of me if allowed, but as long as my Father was alive, it rarely happened. From time to time over the years, I’d find myself worrying what would end up happening to our relationship once my Father was no longer around to temper our behavior and treatment of the other.

Then in 2002, my father was diagnosed with cancer. After his first month of radiation and chemo, he found himself getting weaker and felt that he could no longer drive himself safely back and forth to the hospital. As my Mother had never learned to drive, he asked me if I would drive him back and forth to his hospital appointments. Of course I agreed without hesitation but this also meant that I would be responsible with having to take him five days a week, every week for approx five to six months.

Although this obviously greatly impacted my life as well as my own immediate family’s, I didn’t mind doing it in the least and would gladly have done it again without hesitation. As some days I was required at the hospital for near eight hours, plus had to be there Monday through Friday, I quickly found it was impossible for me to continue to work full time while I did this. Luckily, I had an amazingly empathetic boss and was able to take a six month leave of absence without pay remarkably easily. Tragically, she found herself in a near identical situation with her own father a mere two months after me so…

I began driving my Father on a regular basis about the second week of July and continued to do this every day until just before Christmas of the same year.  My father managed to finish all of his radiation and chemo treatments a scant six days before Christmas Eve. Christmas that year was nice, although we already knew that my father had ended up not responding well to either one of his treatments and wasn’t going to be really getting any better.

This was confirmed before the third week of January had even started. In the interim from Christmas til this time, I had returned to work and was trying my best to settle back into some sort of routine. I was barely back at work, when my father was admitted to the hospital for what ultimately turned out to be the rest of his life. From the moment he went in, I made sure that I visited each and every day though it became increasingly harder to see him suffering so much as it got closer and closer to the end.

For the first time since I had been told that he had cancer back the previous June, I started to really feel stressed and overwhelmed. I often found it quite challenging trying to juggle a successful return to work while meeting my own immediate family’s needs – Sara was only twelve when all of this started and had yet to lose anyone close to her from death so…

At the same time, I found I was at the beck and call of my mother without the benefit of any safety net. As I knew that this was incredibly hard on her, I tried not to take some of her many and frequent outbursts personally . I got it. She felt powerless to help her life partner, a man that had looked after her now since 1956 and visa versa. All faults aside, they really were a truly magnificent couple who loved each other deeply until the very end.

OK, this entry now seems to have taken on a life of its own, so in the interest of looking towards a bit of a conclusion on the way to wrapping this all up, I’m not going to bore you with all of the specifics of what ultimately caused my Mother and I to have this serious falling out. Instead, the following anecdote should illustrate quite nicely what I was more of less up against.

By the time my father finally passed away the second week of March, I was pretty much overwhelmed with so many different emotions, never mind feeling so very, very tired. Through the last week of his life, I had spent every night at the hospital sleeping beside my father in a bed that his nurses had put together for me. The following day the only thing that I wanted to be excused from was having to take my mother to the funeral home to finalize our earlier arrangements. I was so very shattered that I just didn’t have it in me to do this. As Jim and I had taken Mom there prior to Dad’s passing, I figured now that it could be my brother’s turn, especially as he had only visited him twice the whole time he was in hospital.

At the time, I really didn’t give this request much thought at all, but it soon became quite apparent that perhaps I should have. My Mom was a little bit demanding of my time the first few months after Dad died. After working hard all week, I rarely had a chance to slow down once the weekend arrived as I was required to chauffeur my Mom around so she could get whatever errands she needed to get done. It seemed as if every place that I happened to take my mother, whenever she was offered condolences, she just had to stop so she could also share a particular story with everyone.

All puffed up and proud, she told everyone who would listen what an absolute rock my brother had been to her, and how she wouldn’t have known what to do had he not been there to look after everything the day after my Father’s passing. Canonization for sainthood must surely be around the next corner. Not one mention of what I had done for five months, nor even the last three months that he spent in the hospital. Nothing at all, nary a word, and, to make matters worse, she did all of this right in front of me, and not just on one occasion, but multiple times. I started cracking up in short order let me tell you.

This was barely the tip of the iceberg and now that my Father was no longer around to temper my Mother’s actions and treatment of me, I found our situation intolerable not to mention untenable. The longer it continued, the more I felt poisoned and shattered, and increasingly more and more depressed. Ultimately, for my own self preservation, I ended up having to sever all ties with my Mother. It turned out to be easier than I had ever imagined, and in the end I managed to avoid my mother and her abuse for nearly eighteen months.

P.S. TO BE CONTINUED

Three Years

It has now been exactly three years since we were attacked and Jim stabbed by three completely unknown and random strangers. In that time, our life has changed so very much. Most of the changes have turned out to be for the good, but not all. The changes that we didn’t want or expect are the ones that we continue to struggle with, and do our best to overcome at the very least. Even though this amount of time has passed, there are still so many reminders of what happened that day.

After the first officer arrived on the scene, the paramedics and other support personnel were quick to follow. Everyone was wonderful to both Jim and myself. I would think that all of twenty-five minutes passed in total from the time that we knocked on the tenant’s door to the time that the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot. Once things started happening, they started moving rather quickly. I know that it was just before 6pm when the ambulance left with Jim. I had wanted to be on it with him so very badly, but the police managed to convince me that I would be better served remaining behind for the time being as it was important that I give my statement while everything was fresh in my mind. In the end. they were probably correct. Jim was taken into surgery immediately, and even if I had gone directly to the hospital, I still wouldn’t have been able to see him until he was out of surgery which turned out to be close to 1:30am Tuesday morning, or almost seven and a half hours after he left the apartment building in the ambulance. At least while I was giving my statement to the police, I didn’t have time to dwell on anything else!

It took almost two hours for the officer to take my statement, but then, I was able to remember quite clearly almost everything that had just happened. I’ve always had a pretty great memory and it certainly didn’t disappoint me this time. I don’t know how great my recollection would have been had they waited to take my statement, and now, in hindsight, I am glad that I didn’t have to test it. The officer was utterly fantastic, which was quite surprising considering how old, or young as it would be, he was. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty six, and by the initial look on his face when he had first arrived on the scene, hadn’t been exposed to too many gruesome sights as yet. I am a smoker, and he allowed me to smoke while I gave my statement – I had to sit in the back of his police car so I imagine that allowing anyone to smoke in there was fairly rare. He was patient as he took down all of the details. Midway through, I could hear quite a bit of excited chatter coming through his police radio. Suddenly, he stopped to pick up his radio and rapidly jumped out of the car, calling back to me that it looked like they had managed to get one of the three attackers. Even though he had rolled the window down for me earlier, there was no way for me to leave the car on my own as the back doors automatically lock. I could do nothing but wait for him to return.

About fifteen minutes after he had bounded away from the car, he returned all excited. Apparently, they had managed to capture one of the three not too far from our building. He had been hiding across the street behind another apartment building’s large green generator. The officer said that while he had somehow managed to change his clothing, he had forgotten to change his socks which were completely covered with Jim’s blood. I guess he resisted somewhat as the officer said that in the end he had to be hogtied! Imagine that. Once back, we picked up where we had left off. I managed to finish my statement just prior to 8pm. Even though the police had offered me a ride to the hospital, by then one of my friends had managed to show up so her boyfriend was able to give me a lift. In the meantime, Sara and Katie had gotten to the hospital and were waiting for me to get there. When I arrived, they told me that Jim was in surgery, his second one since he got there!

Initially, they had taken him into repair the two and a half inch gash on the right side of his throat as that had been the most obvious injury. It wasn’t until he was out of that surgery and upstairs getting an MRI – I believe this is what was done next – that they noticed he had an immense amount of internal bleeding. It was discovered that both his liver and spleen had been lacerated badly, plus one of his lungs had been punctured and since collapsed. It was this second surgery that ended up lasting the longest, and from reading his medical report which we had to request for our lawyer, I finally discovered just how very serious and how very touch and go, this had all been.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Condemnation Part Two

The day of our attack and Jim’s stabbing was pretty uneventful. It had been a quiet, lazy day as most middle of the month days can be in apartments. Nobody moving out, nobody moving in. The weather was nice so there was little physical work to do outside. Most of Jim’s current work orders had been completed and any administrative tasks had been dealt with by me earlier in the day. Just before five that afternoon, I stopped into say goodnight to the girls that worked in our Regional Office. While I was in there chatting, the Office Manager asked me to check on one of the units on the sixth floor as they had just received a noise complaint from one of their neighbours. I left the office immediately and jumped on the elevator which took me up to the sixth floor in no time. Even before I got off the elevator, I could clearly hear audible sound coming from down the hall. There seemed to be what appeared like loud crashing noises being made as heavy furniture or items came crashed to the ground after having being thrown into the air.

I knocked fairly loudly on the unit’s door while announcing myself clearly at the same time. After a brief hesitation, the door opened to reveal a young, black male in his early twenties. When I asked to speak to the tenant, he advised me that she wasn’t home at the moment. I asked him if he knew why I might be here, and he answered that he did. He also told me that they were all getting ready to leave as they had just called to request a taxi to collect them. I thanked him for his time, and reminded him that it was the actions of himself and his friends that would reflect positively or negatively on the tenant as she was responsible for any of her guest’s behaviour, whether she was there herself or not. He apologized to me, promising that this would be the end of it. While I was talking to him, I took the time to survey as best I could the state of the unit. I noticed that a book shelf had been overturned, as well as the sofa and coffee table. This would explain the loud thumps I had previously heard to be sure. While I was only able to see two others while I was standing at their front door, I could not help but notice that both were most definitely under the influence of something. Regardless, there wasn’t much more that I could do so I thanked the young man that had answered the door and returned to my own apartment which was located on the main floor at the time of the attack.

By the time I got back to our apartment, it was close to twenty past five which meant for all intents and purposes we were finished work for the day. Jim and I were getting our jackets on when our phone rang. It was John from the sixth floor and all he said as way of introduction was “They’re at it again.” I asked him if he would call the police as they could only receive a complaint of this nature i.e. a noise complaint from another tenant and not the property’s owner or representative. He responded that he “couldn’t be bothered” but he still expected Jim or myself to do something about the situation, and to do this immediately! If it had been any other tenant, I most likely would have ignored the complaint but because it was from this particular tenant, I knew that if neither one of us responded that he would most definitely submit a complaint to our Regional Office regarding us. I also knew that he would be peeking through his own door waiting for one of us to return to the unit in question. With all of this in mind, I grabbed Jim to come upstairs with me figuring that as soon as we’d dealt with the complaint, we could be on our merry way to do some shopping at the mall!

If only we had managed to get that far. We both could hear a bit of noise as we stepped off of the elevator but nothing like I had heard earlier. This time Jim placed himself directly in front of the tenant’s door while I stood slightly off to his left. He knocked a few times with authority, but didn’t have a chance to announce who it was. We both heard the deadbolt and lock just prior to the door opening up. Literally the second that the door opened and without any sort of warning, a fairly large fellow jumped across the door’s threshold and pushed Jim extremely hard across the hall and against the door to the opposite unit. Our building has proper fire doors which are by nature extremely sturdy. When the back of his head hit that door, I could literally hear his skull cracking. It not only seemed like such a loud sound but the only sound. Jim was immediately knocked out and didn’t end up regaining consciuousness until the beating was near its end. In short order, two other pretty big fellows came running out of the apartment.

At one point, one of the three assailants took a moment to push me off to the side, otherwise all three of them were intent on savagely attacking Jim. It was utterly incomprehensible in so many ways. They all seemed to be following the lead of the first fellow to attack, and were mimicing everything that he was doing.  If he was pummeling Jim with his fists then so were the others. If he was jumping in the air and kicking Jim with his heavy boots, then so were the other two. It was deeply upsetting as I felt complete helpless and useless. I didn’t know what to do after my intial attempt at jumping on one of the attacker’s backsides, in the vain hope of distracting him, had been quickly and effortlessly stopped! From a great distance, I could hear my own voice screaming at them to stop, that they were killing my husband and that I didn’t understand why they were even doing this to us. My brain couldn’t seem to remember how to dial for emergency services although my fingers somehow managed to dial 911 all on their own. It wasn’t until I managed to barely hear a distant voice offering assistance that I even realized what I had done. The kept repeating that I needed to tell them where I was in order for them to send any assistance. Eventually I managed to get my cell phone to my mouth, and was coherent enough to obviously offer our address to them.

Probably the entire attack lasted all of two minutes, perhaps a bit longer though I honestly can’t say. Near the end of the attack a fourth fellow came out of the unit and actually attempted to help me and Jim. He tried to pull the others off of my husband in an attempt to get them to stop. When the attack first started, I was absolutely convinced that they were not going to stop until Jim was dead. That’s what it looked like to me. I had never witnessed anything so utterly savage and out of control as these three lads appeared to be to me. Then as suddenly as it all started, it seemed to end. I don’t know at what point the four of them made the decision to stop or even why they made this decision. All of a sudden they seemed to have taken flight, and just as quickly, were gone from my sight. I couldn’t even begin to tell you which direction they took or how they even managed to get off of the sixth floor. The moment that they were gone, the only thing that I could see was Jim, and the state that they had left him in. I couldn’t get over how much blood there was. It seemed to be everywhere. It was soaking through the carpet rapidly and there was so much of it, you could actually see where everyone had stood as footprints had been left behind. There seemed to be an equal amount of blood all over the door and wall behind Jim as well as all over both of us. We were covered.

At that point neither one of us was aware that a weapon had been used. I never say the knife and Jim said that he never felt it. It wasn’t until the first police officer had arrived on the scene that a weapon was even mentioned. He noticed something peculiar about Jim’s jacket and t-shirt – if you can believe it, Jim was actually wearing a red jacket and similarly colored t-shirt at the time of his attack !!! By this time Jim had regained consciousness but was having an extremely difficult time talking and breathing. We would later learn that this was a result of one of his lungs being punctured and subsequently collapsing at the scene of the attack. After closer examination, it looked like he had approx seven decent stab wounds on his left upper arm, five on his upper back, four throughout his head, six on various parts of his chest and one dangerous looking wound near his throat on his right side. They had managed to literally split his forhead in half. There was a constant stream of blood flowing from this wound. All in all, he did not look in very good shape.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

 

Victim Impact Statement

If anyone is interested, the following is my Victim Impact Statement which I read to the court the day that two of the three accused were sentenced. One of the attackers received 8 years while the other received 7 years. Very emotional day to say the least.

 

To completely articulate the impact that this attack and stabbing of Jim has had on us is really most overwhelming and near impossible. You would think that twenty one months would be more than enough time to complete this task, and in my head, I’ve easily written my victim impact statement at least a thousand times now, but when it finally came time to get serious about it, the task felt daunting at best. I wondered how I would be able to adequately convey the physical, emotional and financial traumas we were forced to suffer because of this event. The physical, emotional and financial impact that this attack ended up having on me has forced me to live a life I barely recognize anymore and become a person I don’t know.

In Sept of this year, Jim and I will have known each other thirty years – he was 14 and I was 16. For most of this time, he has been an integral part of my life. Both of our personalities just clicked and in no time, we had forged a strong friendship. Right away I knew he was someone that would always be an important part of my life. He made me laugh and cry and angry like no one had before or since. He was someone I knew I could always trust and depend on him no matter what. He made me feel safe and secure and gave me self-confidence and poise as a result of this. To me he was fearless.

The day of the attack called all of what I believed into question. Everything I thought I knew was ripped away. This fearlessness, boldness, audaciousness that made up a large part of Jim and myself was torn from us that day. We are, and continue to be, in therapy because of the attack. Since the attack, I have had feelings of total loss and disparity. I have not really slept a full night. I require medication to assist my sleeping. I now have panic attacks and flashbacks that causes me to freeze. I have a fear of people in general. I will cross the street, rather than to meet and face people. I now have fears of something terrible happening to another family member, and am fearful for my safety and the safety of my family.

The attack itself was frightening but them to have to wait for hours to hear how Jim was doing was doubly so. He was so severely injured that he required over six hours of emergency surgery. I didn’t get to see him until close to 1am the next day. He was unrecognizable hooked up to all of the hospital’s machines. His body was bloated and initially he was unable to breathe on his own. He looked like the Frankenstein monster with staples all over his upper body, face and head. It was just short of a miracle that he even managed to regain consciousness and then finally return home. His physical recovery has been slow to say the least, but I will let him speak to this.

It has been our psychological recovery that is taking its time and toll, as well as the financial difficulties that have resulted because of the attack. In many ways, this has been harder than the physical and emotional recovery especially as none of this financial duress was a result of our own making. For something we had zero control over as well as nearly having to sacrifice a life for, it has been unduly stressful. It certainly has been a very bitter irony that one of the more dramatic consequences of the attack has resulted in affecting our family’s bottom line. While it is fairly easy to give a dollar value to our loss of income over these past twenty-one months, it is slightly more difficult to calculate other monies lost as a direct result of this attack.

As the attack occurred while we were fulfilling one of our job duties, our immediate supervisor was able to submit the appropriate forms necessary for us to qualify to receive Workers Compensation. Its another issue entirely though that the company we work for delayed almost three months in actually doing this. As neither Jim nor I were able to immediately return to work, we both began to receive Workers Compensation benefits which equal approx two thirds of our normal salary. Now, as part of our compensation package with our employer, not only did we receive our own two bedroom apartment, we also had our telephone, cable and internet paid for by them. Once we started to receive WSIB, our employer no longer covered the cost of the above. It was now our responsibility. So suddenly, not only were we receiving about a third less pay than we were used to, but from this reduced amount, we now had to cover these additional expenses of over $1000/month. This added stress is just one more thing that we’ve been forced to deal with because of the attack.

It hasn’t been just Jim and myself that have suffered because of the attack. Both of our daughters were teenagers at the time of the attack and as much as we tried to shield them from its effects, this proved impossible. They ended up being greatly affected because of the emotional and financial stress weighing heavily on me. While Jim and I attempted to adjust to each new change as it presented itself, I found myself getting increasingly angrier and bitter with our circumstances, and these feelings were then that much more difficult to hide from the girls. I was overwhelmed with feelings of self doubt and started to feel that I was failing them as a parent. I started to fall into a depression especially as relationships with my daughters started to change.

I have also just recently discovered that I may face yet another obstacle as a direct result of this attack. Currently, I have no job to return to as it has just been phased out of the company that employs us both since the beginning of the new year. Once again, we are victims not of our own making. Certainly, this will no doubt present another fairly large financial challenge to us – now just one of many. I really had begun to believe that we would soon be able to start to put all of this behind us, to make it a thing of the past. Yet, this seems near impossible as we seem to be faced with additional obstacles far too frequently.

Certainly the therapy that I continue to receive for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at Victoria Hospital has greatly benefited me, and is starting to alleviate a number of my symptoms. Jim has also started therapy with a different therapist and I believe that he too is finally starting to feel some benefits. Still, this offers only small comfort. Yes, we are all starting to heal, but in the end, this attack has fundamentally changed me as a person as well as the way that I now look at the world. I no longer recognize my reflection in the mirror and am not the person that I once was, or will ever be. This experience has so altered my life forever, as well as how I view life.

A Very Long Overdue Rant

About thirteen months ago, my husband and I were victims of an unprovoked, and very random, attack by three unknown young men – at the time, they were 20, 22 and 23 years of age. The attack occurred while we were responding to what should have been a routine noise complaint made by one of the other tenants of the apartment building where we were Building Managers. Within seconds, it was all too apparent that this was anything but routine. What should have been fairly straightforward and quick to resolve, quickly escalated to a harrowing and extremely violent and savage beating and stabbing of my husband. While the blame obviously lies in the hands of the three young men who initiated this attack, I hold one of the the other tenants primarily responsible for the resulting escalation of violence. I strongly feel that is was his actions immediately prior to the attack that nearly ended up costing my husband his life. I’m very surprised that something similar had not actually happened before this, and while I still hold a huge amount of anger and resentment towards my husband’s attackers, there are times when I find myself angrier and extremely bitter towards this tenant. In the end, I suspect that I will find it easier to forgive the attackers before I will be able to forgive the tenant. Not only did his actions, immediately prior to the attack, do much to exascerbate an already potentially volatile situation, but his utter lack of action while we were being attacked and immediately after resulted in even greater injury to my husband.

This was his second complaint in less than 25 minuted that day to me regarding his neighbours. During his second call that day, I requested that he please give the police a call to issue a formal complaint against his neighbours. Generally regarding noise issues, the landlord, or his agent, is not really supposed to contact the police. At a later date, there is always the possibility that the tenant could end up charging the landlord with harassment, as well as a number of other things, because of this particulat type of action. It is preferable to have a third party make the noise complaint to the authorities, thus allowing the landlord to maintain his neutrality. In fact, the very fact that we were even receiving a noise complaint from one tenant against another tenant within the building was practically unheard of. This was, and still is, an exceptionally quiet and calm building. It is extremely unusual to hear noise of any kind. In fact, I can easily count on one hand, the number of noise complaints in total that we have even received since we began working here. This particular problem simply does not exist within this building. Kind of ironic when you think about it now, but the few noise complaints that we have actually received, surprisingly, have all come from the exact same tenant. Colour me surprised.

Shortly after Jim and I had started working as Building Managers at this property, we were contacted by this particular individual regarding a tenant that lived on the floor beneath his. On this particular afternoon, apparently, the tenant residing below him had been listening to here reggae music quite loudly – is this even possible? He requested that one of us go and investigate what was happening, so immediately upon hanging up the phone, off I went. As I arrived at the floor that the other tenant lived on, I witnessed the complaining tenant walking away from her unit. During this time, I also witnessed her response apparently to his direct involvement in this situation. She was shouting quite loudly at him through her closed door to “f**k off, leave her alone, stop coming to her door using his cane to knock loudly on it until she came to her door”. Hmmm, most interesting.

Typically, we encourage tenants not to get directly involved whatsoever with each other when it concerns any type of noise issues. Surprisingly, there is a tendancy for violence to develop between the two tenants. We strongly advise the complaining tenant to allow their Building Managers to handle this situation. We ask that they give us reasonable time to investigate said complaint, as well as time to resolve any issues associated with their complaint. This is pretty much the industry standard, and the majority of Building Managers do their damnest to adhere as much as possible to this procedure. Problem is that it is next to impossible to do this when you’ve got a loose cannon thrown into the equation. Lucky us, as this is exactly what this tenant is, a loose cannon – may I add at this time that I’m being very charitble describing him as such. He is the type of tenant that is utterly incapable of leaving well enough alone. He has to be right in the middle of everything, and generally ends up doing more harm than good, not to mention, undermining our job each and every step along the way. This guy in particular is really quite the piece of work. He is a walking cliche and stereotype come to life.

The day of our attack, I can easily imagine all sorts of petty and annoying things that he was bothering his neighbour about because this would be his way of getting back at them for their allegedly disruptive behavior. Not that his behaviour in any way excuses or remotely mitigates the other three individual’s subsequent violent actions towards Jim or myself. Not at all, but I wonder if what ultimately ended up happening that Monday afternoon just over a year ago, could have possibly been avoided entirely, not to mention allowed us to handle the situation differently then what ended up happening. I believe that are options for resolution ended up being rather limited, as well as being almost completely out of our control by this time. In the end, this resulted with us walking into a completely different situation than what we had expected and anticipated, and right from the outset, we were set up to fail somehow or someway because we only had the smallest of pictures, so tp speak. If it wasn’t bad enough that it was due to his actions towards his neighbour over the course of that particular afternoon ended up with is being attacked, he did absolutely nothing at all to help us in anyway while we were under attack.

Later on in the day, he was interviewed by one of our local tv reporters and what he said to the reporter ended up being played at each news broadcast over a three day period. He was able to describe to this report what actually had happened when we approached his neighbours door. He had a good enough view of us to recount how we had been given no chance at all from our attackers. He stated that after we had approached their door and knocked on it, the moment that their door opened, I was pushed off to the side, while Jim was charged and thrown violently up against the door across the hall from them. He said that we weren’t given any opportunity at all to even identify ourselves before they attacked. At least he confirmed part my statement that I ultimately gave to the police that it was a completely unprovoked and unwarranted attack against us. But that’s about all that he is good for as the only thing that I am able to bring away from this is that he was lying in wait for us to arrive at his neighbours door, essentially spying to see what was going to happen. Then after seeing how they ended up responding to us, rather than attempt to assist us in any way, and by any, I mean he didn’t even call 911 on our behalf. All he ended up doing was slamming his door and locking it behind him. Nice.

At one point during their attack against us, I found myself outside of his unit, screaming for help and pounding relentless on his door. When he did finally respond, all he did was open his door to quickly slam and lock it right in my face. Through the closed door, I remember scrreaming at him that they were killing my husband, and begging and pleading for him to either call for help or call downstairs to our main office. I understand that when he looked out into the hall, what he must have seen scared him half to death. I know it surely did me. At no time did I expect anyone to put their own lives in any sort of danger by actually physicallly assisting us, but I had hoped that somebody would pick up their bloody phone to call for help. Whatever…

Initially, I had actually doubted whether or not the complaining tenant was exaggerating the extent of his neighbour’s disruption on this particular afternoon, as his reputation preceeded him. Every high rise has this tenant, some even a few. They are the ones that know absolutely every little thing about their immediate neighbours, as well as the majority of tenants in the entire complex. Rarely are they ever satisfied with the property management nor their direct representatives, their Building Managers. The company can never do enough for them, whether it is ensuring the cleanliness of the property, its daily maintenance and upkeep or anything else that they could possibley think of bothering the office about. They feel entitled to getting a new paint job annually or new carpet or flooring or lighting or whatever, and goodness, don’t let them find out that another unit may have gotten an appliance replaced for whatever reason, like, perhaps after thirty years, a new stove was actually warranted. They are absolutely incapable of leaving you alone. On a daily basis, you can be assured that they will somehow find a way to contact you, and believe me, it will never be to pat you on the back for doing a kickass job either!

Every other tenant understands when asked to contact their Building Managers during business hours only. After hours is to be reserved for emergencies only. This tenant doesn’t care what time it is. When he has a bee in his bonnet, then this is the time. Who cares if it happens to be a Sunday evening before 11pm – or better yet, a Saturday morning before 7am. If he has decided that he just wants his first initial appearing on the tenant listing at the building’s entrance, rather than his full first name, then to him, this is very much an emergency and the moment this idiotic idea grips his tiny, narrow mind, he just has to let his BM know. To really drive home just how utterly self centred and egomaniacal this idiot is, he doesn’t even have a modicum of courtesy when he attempts to reach you. He couldn’t be bothered using the telephone to communicate said ridiculous request. Instead, to ensure that the BM’s entire family is disrupted, he actually goes directly to their unit and knocks loudly and relentlessly on their unit’s door – even though he could have also submitted a written request and dropped it through the door’s mail slot that I got hastily put up shortly after meeting said nuisance. Everyone else managed to adapt nicely and quickly to this alternate route for communication. In the end, of course, he had to because a policy was implemented that no request by a tenant would be addressed unless submitted in writing to either the property management or their agent, their Building Manager.

Anyway, I’m sure that you have more than enough information now to be able to draw your own picture of this tenant. Given the time and opportunity, I could easily go on and on about this tenant as he is truly that annoying. In the end, it was kind or ironic that he stopped being his normal daily nuisance around this place. I presume that somehow he was able to connect the dots to figure out that perhaps he played a larger role than he imagined in the violence against us. I’d like to think that when he heard the extent of my husband’s injuries combined with the near seven hours of emergency surgery that he had to endure immediately after the attack, not to mention the last rites he received from the family priest that day, that just for a moment, he felt a tinge of guilt or possibley a modicum of responsibilty for what had occurred. If he did, I doubt very much that it ended up lasting too long. His type can too easily dismiss away these intruding feelings pretty readily. Its second nature to them as they’ve had a lifetime of practice.

Go To Video Report of Stabbing From AChannel

I have set up a permanent page regarding the most recent news report from AChannel concerning the assault and stabbing of Jim on Monday. Click right HERE to check it out. Warning that there are a few very graphic images. 

Second Chance

Right now I am at the hospital with no desire to go to sleep even though I know that I am running on empty. Earlier in the evening, I was able to dose for a little bit anytime Jim settled down, but no matter what kinds or amounts of meds that they were giving him for his pain, the longest amount of time he was still was no more than 40 mins. Once the meds wore off, he would start to get restless and then extremely aggitated especially if he didn’t have me in his sight upon waking. I don’t think that he is convinced that I am fine physically, that I wasn’t hurt in anyway. I am not really sure how much of the attack on him that he actually remembers. I do know that he is having some pretty bad nightmares because the last time that he woke up, he had to be restrained by a handful of nurses. I was also asked to leave them to resolve this which was fine by me because right now I am not really able to see Jim in any sort of pain or distress.

What an awful place the Critical Care Unit can be. While I was typing this, a lady about my age came over to ask me how to get back into see her husband so we started talking. She was about my age with two daughters about Sara and Katies age and she has been with her husband 28 years, the same as Jim and I. Her husband was in a bad motorcycle accident earlier tonight and was air lifted in from Owen Sound. He’s not going to make it. He wasn’t as lucky as Jim. I feel awful for her and her family. I sort of know how she feels. When they were giving Jim last rights last night I felt such a complete and utter emptiness thinking that he soon might be gone that I couldn’t even beging to describe it. I feel so very blessed that he is pulling through because we now will have a second chance.