World
15 killed in fourth U.S. air crash in six months. Page 11
Books
New book outlines the contradiction that was Nicole Simpson. Page 25
HBBBB
Comment
The 'fourth amigo' is all set to join NAFTA. Page 5
Sports
Cougars get long-awaited victory over the Blazers. Page 17
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INDEX
SWITCHBOARD: 562-2441
CLASSIFIED: 562-6666
CIRCULATION: 56
Ann Landers..............26
Bridge...................30
Business..............22,23
City, B.C 2,3,6,14,32
Classified...........27-31
Comics ..................24
Coming events ...........14
Commentary ..............5
Crossword ..............29
Entertainment ... .24,25
Horoscope................JO
Lifestyles...............26
Movies...................24
Nation ................7,10
Sports ..............17-21
Television .............31
World.................9,11
Farcus
“D’ya ever get the feeling we’re just going in circles?”
Use of
soars in city
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
Ten years ago there were 70 heroin addicts in Prince George.
That number has escalated to between 400 and 500 in recent years, Staff Sgt. Dale Dichrow of the RCMP Subdivision said Tuesday.
Dichrow, who heads the Subdivision drug section based in Prince George, said that statistic is based on information from sources that include the free needle-exchange clinic.
Police in the Lower Mainland said this month they fear a new wave of violence because of the combination of rising drug prices and weaker heroin for sale. Asked if the Prince George illegal drug market has been affected, Dichrow said, “No doubt about it.”
‘The quality of the heroin went up (within the past two years). It went anywhere from 3.5-per-cent purer to 25-per-cent purer.”
Dichrow said those hooked on heroin used the same amounts as they always did and their tolerance to the drug rose.
Then the quality of the drug suddenly dropped. “People who were shooting two needles a day were now shooting four or five or six to get the same hit.”
Dichrow said it’s been a successful marketing ploy by organized crime. “How else do you get more customers to use the product?”
Dichrow said he could not comment specifically on die connection between drugs and crime in Prince
George. Generally speaking, he said, a lot of crime is a tell-tale sign of drug abuse in a community.
And who is addicted can be any number of people and not necessarily street people, he added.
“We’re coming of age in Prince George,” he said. “For too long people have been saying 'Not my kid’ and 'Not in my neighborhood school.’
“People have got to wake up. Who else (but a drug addict) would rob a cab driver for $28?
“(In every community) we have to ask ourselves why so many corner store robberies are occurring in general; it’s all related to drugs.”
Dichrow expressed a nostalgia felt by others for the good old days when crime was • something that could be more easily dealt with and understood.
“I can understand a guy robbing a store for five loaves of bread and chicken to feed his kids,” he said. “I even have a certain amount of sympathy for that.
“But what I can’t see is someone bumping someone to feed a drug habit. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. But to me that’s a voluntary habit. The crime in this city is not from someone wanting to put food on the table.”
Dichrow said it’s essential for education about drugs and community awareness to grow.
“My thing is to make people realize . . . that people who live in the community have to take hold (of the existing problem) and see what’s up.”
Students at Giscome Elementary School presented Santa’s Holiday Hoedown Christmas concert Tuesday for the small community east of Prince George. From left, Michelle Dunphy plays Mrs. Claus, Shashi Sharma is Santa, Troy McComber portrays (Dwight) Yoakam and Darren Adams represents Vince (Gill) in a country musical that mixes Yuletide characters like Rudolph and Donner with such country artists as Reba, Tex Glitter and Dolly.
Report details infant deaths here
Citizen news services VANCOUVER — Six infants identified as possibly needing protection by the Social Services Ministry eventually died, says an internal report obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
All six lived in the Prince George area and came from “high-risk” families. They suffered from feeding problems, recurrent illnesses and spent time in hospital before their deaths.
The reasons for their hospital stays were not mentioned in the 10-page report by the ministry’s audit and review division, the newspaper says in a report published today.
The document notes that in all six cases “protection concerns had been identified prior to the infant’s death.” But in each case, the social workers involved were reluctant to take custody because clear, physical harm to the child was not evident.
Two of the children were two months old when they died; two were three months old; another was four months and the oldest was six months old.
All six died between February 1988 and August 1991. The report does not mention causes of death but lists at least one child’s death as a homicide and states that alcohol
abuse by a care-giver was a factor in four other deaths.
The Social Services Ministry is under scrutiny for failing to apprehend Matthew Vaudreuil, 5, before he was suffocated by his abusive mother in July 1992.
An inquiry is examining Matthew’s case and how the ministry deals with children in need of protection.
A confidential ministry memo made public last week describes eight cases where the ministry failed to investigate a child’s death or injury, including Vaudreuil’s. Joyce Rigaux, the superintendent of child and family services, did not order a review until two years
after his death.
Rigaux, who recently took a paid medical leave of absence from her job, was in charge when the six infants died in Prince George.
The report. Recurrent Themes in Prince George Child Welfare Practices, specifically criticizes the social workers and supervisors involved for failing to properly track the six high-risk families.
“Staff tended to lean very heavily in the direction of supporting the family rather than protecting the child,” the report says.
Cam Millar, Prince George-based regional director of Social Services, said the ministry will comment later today.
FUNERAL THURSDAY FOR GIRL 15
heroin
Teen
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
; The third violent death of a prince George teen in less than six pionths has shaken the community ,as RCMP continue to search for the filler of Alishia Damarah jGermaine.
| Police are continuing their investigation of the 15-year-old’s jdeath by stabbing Friday night. rThey hope soon to have a drawing ]of someone important to the case to circulate to try to get a name to go yvith it.
“We’re not sure if the person We’re seeking is a witness or a suspect, but we do feel the person could supply information we need,” RCMP spokesman Const. Gordon Molendyk said today.
Germaine, bom in 1979, had turned 15 six days before her death,
UJAnt><-AiS/coOCTU40.T
deaths shake community
not 16, as was first reported. Friends said Germaine, also known as Leah Cunningham, always told everyone she was a year older.
Mixed feelings are coming from the community after the three recent teen deaths.
Derek Scott McLelland, 16, was fatally shot Nov. 2 at a Fisk Avenue home. A 15-year-old girl was charged with his second-degree murder and remains in custody, awaiting a pre-trial conference expected in early January.
The remains of Roxanne Thiara, 15, last seen in Prince George, were discovered near Burns Lake in August. No suspect has been arrested.
“Hard times means dangerous times,” one street-wise person commented Tuesday. “It’s gotten so bad with the drugs that it’s like a dog
chasing his tail. And after a while he starts chewing on someone else.”
Two opinions on reporting on street kids in Prince George came Tuesday from individuals with opposite views.
One man, who said he had known Germaine, said he was upset by the expression “street urchins” that was used in a story published Saturday in the Prince George Citizen.
The story was about the street kids’ party Germaine had attended only hours before she was stabbed to death. He said he thought it presented street kids in* a derogatory light and said some teens at the Prince George Youth Containment Centre had told him they thought it was negative, too.
The Oxford dictionary defines urchin as: “a roguish or mischie-
ALISHIA GERMAINE
vous boy.” The word was in common use during the time of Charles Dickens who wrote about the evils perpetrated on street children in
mid 19th-century London.
The man also said he objected to news reports that continually focused on Germaine’s connection to drugs and prostitution. He said she had largely managed to get away from that scene.
An anonymous caller who phoned The Citizen said she feels many of the kids on the street in Prince George are there by their own choice. And she said it placed those responsible for wayward kids in an unfair light.
A visitation and funeral service will be held Thursday in Prince George for Germaine.
Rev. Lance Morgan officiates at 2 p.m. at the First Baptist Church at Fifth Avenue and Gillett Street. A potluck supper will follow at the Native Friendship Centre at 4 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations to AWAC (Advocacy for Women and
Children) are being asked by the family. The advocacy group sprang up last spring after a pressing need was seen for a “between-the-cracks” organization to rescue women and kids from violence.
Recently granted status as a charitable organization, AWAC is raising funds to get an emergency shelter operating early in the New Year.
AWAC’s focus is not to preempt existing counselling or services in the community nor to provide a regular shelter. Instead, it wants to provide a place and services for those needing immediate assistance, but who can’t get it for whatever reason through other organizations.
Please mail your donations to: Box 773, Station A, Prince George, B.C. V2L 4T3 or phone 562-0105.
058307001008