Sherman Murders: Warrants on the Mind
The police warrants have received some careful attention, but not so much in other ways. After perusing warrant #10, I stumbled upon something I hadn’t paid close attention to prior: the redaction of reasons. That is, judicial reasons, right there in the middle of the warrant document itself.
I don’t believe these pages have gone on to be unsealed and so the covering up of an already public document really jutted out as curios.
On review of the police discussion of the reasons, readers are left to wonder what part of Justice Watt’s contribution are being referenced.
The reasons cited by the police can be found here, and some guesses on the above, below.
ITO#10, Appendix C, Pg 96
Police begin this section by asserting their reasonable suspicion of communication that night. What follows are a few pages of redacted information.
ITO#10, Appendix C, Pg 99
Key here is that the excerpt relates to the explanation given by Justice Watt. The police literally use an example of a crime perpetrated by a group in the preamble.
Two parts of R. v. MAHMOOD stand out here and are given below.
The decision reads (Pg 7)":
“At the time the Tower Dump Warrants were sought, police did not have reasonable and probable grounds to believe that any of the Applicants, or indeed any particular person, was involved in the robbery, and the police were not specifically seeking records relating to their cellular phone numbers or any other particular cellular telephone numbers. The police did not have any direct evidence that a cellular telephone was either used during the robbery or that anyone involved in the robbery possessed a cellular telephone. However, PC Hackenbrook believed, based on his extensive experience, that cellular telephones were likely used by the perpetrators of this crime to communicate amongst themselves. He relied on alleged circumstantial evidence to support that belief. The two culprits who first entered Zaibi Jewellers must have had a means of communication with the third culprit who was a latecomer to the scene and who they admitted to the store only after they had secured its control. It was a reasonable and credible belief, the officer claimed, that cell phones must have been used to permit that communication between the two individuals in the store and the third robber who joined the scene after the robbery had commenced.”
The judge goes on (Pg 16):
“The key evidentiary importance of the cellular phone records obtained under the November 30 and December 8 warrants is that it places Fundi and Malik, and later Mahmood in the vicinity of the robbery at the time it occurred, and it is those records that show them engaged in extensive cellular telephone contact with each other and with Sheihk on that day before and after the robbery occurred, but not while it was believed to have been in progress. It is for this reason that the validity of these warrants is of critical importance. Absent the Tower Dump Records and, more importantly, the later Subscriber Records, police authorities would not have been able to place several of the co-accused close to the scene of the robbery at the time it occurred, communicating extensively with each other.”
There does seem to be something suggestive about that little preamble police give before reciting the judge’s explanation. It is a bit cryptic, and there may be other possibilities in the reasons that better fit. In any case, I thought some of these parallels were intriguing.
Do let me know what you think. Lawyer, or layperson, all takes welcome.
ps
Next week:
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I'd imagine they used burner phones. The murder of realtor Lindsay Buziek of Saanich was undertaken by criminals using burner phones bought in Vancouver.
I understand that police can now trace these phones to the locations they were purchased, which technology was not available at the time of her murder.
With that in mind, a Judge may allow a dump from the tower so that police can look for patterns (i.e. 5 burner phones all being used at same time in location of tower). As with the robbery case, it may help connect them to the people who bought the burner phones.