He kills a police officer in cold blood and we turn around and reward him with $10,000? Unbelievable is all I have to say.
A man serving a life sentence for murdering an Ottawa-area police officer in 1983 has just been awarded nearly $10,000 in compensation for the way he was treated by prison staff.
Hmmm...
Cruel and unusual treatment as a back lash to killing a cop? Nope. Peter Collins was made to stand up for a head count everyday. Oh my... how brutal. Apparently Collins has chronic back pain and had made requests to have assistance while standing, but guards waited too long to accommodate him. Boo hoo. Collins gave up his rights twenty some years ago when he made a poor choice that took an innocent life as far as I'm concerned.
Now 48, Collins, was convicted in 1984 of the shooting death of Ontario police Constable David Utman. Utman, 38, was having a coffee at the restaurant when Collins approached him with a gun and asked him to stand up. Utman reportedly tried to talk Collins into giving up the gun and that's when Collins shot him point blank in the chest. He died a short time later in hospital. Since then, Collins has been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder at the Bath Institution just west of Kingston. And rightly so.
Collins' complaints began in 2005 when corrections staff demanded he stand for a daily head count in spite of his chronic back pain. He saw a doctor and sought exemption. The correction service agreed to allow him to stand with assistance, but a recent Tribunal ruling says it took too long to accommodate him properly.
Seriously? So what does the Canadian justice system do? We don't just right the wrong and move on, we hand the guy nearly ten grand in compensation. That is downright ridiculous. Who exactly is this Tribunal serving? Certainly not the law abiding citizens of the country.
This isn't the first time Collins has been in the spotlight either. In 2008, he won a human rights award for helping educate other prisoners about preventing HIV infection. He also gained notoriety in 1998 for a series of cartoons lampooning police and correctional service staff. Nice.
If this is the way we choose to operate, it's no wonder our system is riddled with problems. It's time we stand up for the innocent and if that means killers suffer a tad, then so be it.
