seriously, the recent admissions on the parts of the vancouver police and rcmp are not really news to anyone who has been following the picton case in any way at all.
those missing women didn't have to be missing at all, maybe some of them would still be alive today if the police hadn't treated them, the people who were missing them, and the people who knew about (and reported) picton like garbage.
i agree that there needs to be a public inquiry, because what that inquiry says about how the police acted in this case (and how is was a gross and egregious abuse of their position as "police") will have a lot to say about Canadian society as a whole and how most people didn't give a shit about those women until this became a huge "Serial Killer" case.
also, maybe a public inquiry will light a fire under the police's ass to try to find out what happened to all of the other missing women they've been ignoring for years.
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Recently I've read some articles that suggest that the Van police were devoting all of their time and resources to the war on drugs (ie. pot busts, grow labs etc.) during the initial missing persons investigations. This combined with indifference toward the victims given their backgrounds helps explain how Pickton was able to carry on murdering women for so long. It hardly excuses them though. I think Pickton is a sick fucker but I think the police are almost as bad given how slowly they reacted and how poorly they handled the investigation.
The worst part about the whole Pickton case is that the City of Vancouver actively sought to marginalise the most vulnerable women in the city. Prostitution was moved from main city streets, where women could account for each other, the police could see them and knew them and there were people around into the back alleys where Pickton could happily prey on unsuspecting women. I read a study that discussed how easy it was for Pickton to pick up his victims because they were alone, in the dark, and away from potential aid. The Van City police have a lot on their plate: dereliction, poverty, drugs, gangs etc. but it's probably a safe bet that racism and misogyny played a big part in why the disappearances of these women was never investigated to the fullest extent of the law.
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