Another TTC stabbing

[OS44]

Better think twice the next time you want to take the streetcar...

Victim Of Streetcar Stop Stabbing Remains In Hospital
Thursday May 22, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff

Late Tuesday night, Nicole MacDonald was on her way home from the gym. She had just finished her work-out and was looking for a streetcar.

But the 26-year-old college student didn't make it home. Instead, as she waited at a stop near Broadview and Danforth, she was brutally stabbed in what police are calling a random attack.

Her assailant knifed her in the arm and stomach, then ran away. It's believed her screams scared him off. Thankfully, that wasn't MacDonald's only encounter with a stranger that evening.

A Good Samaritan named Margot Hines also heard the young woman's cries for help and quickly came to her aid.

"I put pressure on her stomach, she was bleeding a lot," Margot Hines said. "I don't even know where it was coming from, it was gushing.

"She asked me if she was going to die and I said ... 'no you're going to be okay.'"

MacDonald remains in stable condition in hospital. Det Darren Laing of Toronto Police said that if it wasn't for Hines' quick actions, the outcome may have been very different.

"She suffered very serious life-threatening injuries, and if possibly not for the assistance she received ... right there on the street, this could have been a homicide, absolutely," confirmed Det. Laing.

Hines involvement didn't stop on the street. She also visited MacDonald in hospital Wednesday, and reported that despite her injuries, the woman was in good spirits.

"She was bandaged up and she was heavily sedated, but she was smiling and she was glad to see me, and I was even more glad to see her," she said.

Samad Dabiri, 47, faces three charges in connection with the stabbing: attempted murder, assault with a weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon.

He's been charged with committing similar crimes twice before, but those charges haven't resulted in significant jail time because he's been deemed not criminally responsible due to mental illness. Dabiri will appear in court Friday.

[joeym]

i read this story on today's national post but the focus is nothing about streetcars but the issue of the guy who did the crime.
he got away with similar crimes before but was let go due to him having a mental illness.

here's the story:

A man accused of stabbing and nearly killing a woman at a Toronto streetcar stop had been given an absolute discharge by mental health officials just six months earlier because, they said, "we cannot say that the accused continues to represent a significant risk to public safety."

Just a couple of hours away, another mentally ill man -- granted an unconditional release by the Ontario review board after shooting an Ottawa sportscaster -- was convicted yesterday of attacking a U. S. border guard.

Jeffrey Arenburg, who was found not criminally responsible in the shooting of sportscaster Brian Smith in 1995 after claiming he was trying to silence the voices in his head, was found guilty after punching a U. S. Customs official at a Buffalo, N. Y., border crossing.

In Toronto, Samad Dabiri was charged with attempted murder, assault with a weapon and carrying a concealed weapon after a 26-year-old was stabbed three times in an apparently unprovoked attack late on Tuesday night. Police said the attack was "eerily similar" to the 2003 stabbing of an elderly man in the Dufferin Mall.

In that case, Mr. Dabiri was found to have walked up to 65-year-old Spiros Leissos as he sat on a bench, stabbed him in the stomach and calmly walked away.

Mr. Dabiri, a 47-year-old landed immigrant from Iran, was found not criminally responsible for that attack and was committed to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in July, 2003, according to court documents. He was released on a conditional discharge in 2006.

The two cases highlight what victims rights groups say is a series of disturbing cases of dangerously ill people being released with no responsibility for their crimes and little follow-up to ensure they do not pose a danger to the public.

"We have to stop this idea that mental illness means you aren't responsible for your crimes," said David Van Duzen, of the British Columbiabased victims group Families Against Crime and Trauma.

"These people are walking among us and nobody knows. They have to be held accountable…. The way our system works right now is just wrong on so many levels," said Mr. Van Duzen, whose mother was tortured and murdered in 2004 by his foster brother Raymond, who had been discharged.

Joe Wright, a spokesman for the review board, said its five-member panels hear more than 1,500 cases a year across Ontario.

"The law requires that everyone has their case reviewed once a year," he said.

"If someone can be released who is no longer a danger to the public, then those beds have to be freed for people who need them."

In the case of Mr. Dabiri, doctors at the Toronto mental health centre diagnosed him with a delusional disorder after the earlier attack in the mall, noting that, "He consistently maintained that he had been followed by Iranian and Canadian intelligence services and by the RCMP and CSIS and that these services were against him."

He had earlier been charged with threatening to kill fellow tenants at the Toronto rooming house where he lived, but those charges were dropped in 1999 when the alleged victims did not appear in court.

The Ontario Review Board, the provincial body responsible for determining when psychiatric patients should be released, let Mr. Dabiri out on day passes in 2004, and gave him a conditional discharge in 2006.

That meant he had only to report to the centre once a week; hospital staff described his behaviour as "flawless," and recommended he be given an absolute discharge.

"It is the unanimous opinion of the clinical team that Mr. Dabiri no longer poses a significant threat to the safety of the public," centre officials wrote in a report to the review board.

After a hearing last Nov. 5, the board issued an absolute discharge to Mr. Dabiri, meaning he was free to leave with no criminal record, although it noted "the accused's imperfect insight" into his mental illness.

"He continued to endorse his persecutory delusions. He continually stated that he did not have a mental problem," the centre's doctors said in their report to the board.

Detective Darren Laing, of Toronto police, said Tuesday's attack could well have resulted in the death of the 26-year-old college student, whom Global News identified as Nicole Macdonald.

She was listed in serious but stable condition yesterday in the intensive care unit of St. Michael's Hospital.

"This woman was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Det. Laing said. "If not for the assistance she received from citizens right there on the street, this could have been a homicide."

Det. Laing said police had no knowledge that Mr. Dabiri was out in the community.

"There's absolutely no entry on our police data system…. Nothing comes up: no warnings, no cautions. He's never actually been convicted per se…. He's found guilty but not criminally responsible, so nothing actually goes on to his record. Once he received that absolute discharge ... he's a free man with no restrictions on him whatsoever."

Det. Laing said Immigration Canada officials are following the case closely. Asked if Mr. Dabiri, a former Iranian police officer who came to Canada in 1996, should be deported, Det. Laing said: "I would drive him to the airport."

[mgronqui]

She looks rough for a 16 year old.

[skyblue12]

She looks rough for a 16 year old.

she's 26 not 16..

[matdwyer]

Did anyone see the guy who sexually assaulted someone at st. andrews/george? station the other day? Its a guy who hangs outside my apartment ALL the time and will like yell at you if you don't give him change, and follow you around... kinda glad he's off the street for a while

[chrza]

Damn these streetcars causing people to stab others. I'm outraged.

[mgronqui]

she's 26 not 16..

Right, that was a typo. Still, she looks rough.

[MrDisco]

Right, that was a typo. Still, she looks rough.

how fricken' callous do you have to be? i'm sure you're a regular pretty boy aren't ya? care to post your pics up so we can tear apart how you look?

the women gets randomly stabbed (which should be the main topic here) and you're picking on her looks?

damn this place is complete garbage. thanks for adding to the pile.

[sexpuppet6000]

how fricken' callous do you have to be? i'm sure you're a regular pretty boy aren't ya? care to post your pics up so we can tear apart how you look?

the women gets randomly stabbed (which should be the main topic here) and you're picking on her looks?

damn this place is complete garbage. thanks for adding to the pile.

+1

[confused]

send this hobo to the federal pound me in the ass prison already

[SirAlain]

Did anyone see the guy who sexually assaulted someone at st. andrews/george? station the other day? Its a guy who hangs outside my apartment ALL the time and will like yell at you if you don't give him change, and follow you around... kinda glad he's off the street for a while

He sounds like this homeless guy who reeks of tobacco in Kensington market.


And I feel so sorry for the woman who got stabbed. I hope she gets well soon.

[psychokandy]

This makes me sick... how dangerous is Toronto becoming? I keep hearing stories of random acts of violence in every part of the city. The worst of it is it could be anyone anywhere anytime.

[kerorogunso]

That's Canada for you. Let loose of all the crazy people on the street, running around and stubbing people. And they call this "mercy".