View a slideshow of newspaper clippings. If we had not managed to generate alot of media, we would not have gained public support because the public wouldn't have known about it.

Actions 2000 | Actions 1994 |

The petty harassment which police and prosecutors subjected Klassen to was echoed at the Stonechild Inquiry: During the first week of the Inquiry it was discovered that police had surveillance cameras all around the hotel to secretly take pictures of who was attending the Inquiry.

Actions: 2003

Fighting petty charges and flak

October 30, 2003: Richard Klassen attended at Provincial court to appear before judge Barry Singer regarding the crown's failure to disclose its case on the noise charge it laid July 10. The Crown eventually stayed the charge, after an interesting discussion about the free speech issues. The Crown had wished to amend its information to change "causing a disturbance with a megaphone" to "causing a disturbance by shouting." Klassen noted that the megaphone had been seized as part of the evidence. He also noted that he had not been provided with disclosure as previously ordered. Crown proseutor Black said she could have the disclosure ready for a week from Friday, but then stated that her bosses in Regina had instructed her to allow Klassen to admit he had broken the law in return for stay. Klassen told the court that he had no problem admitting that he caused the disturbance and said that since it was getting cold and he had pretty well "run the gamut" of his issues with the police, he would not likely be demonstrating at the police station in the near future. There was no admission of any lawbreaking and Singer said he would be very reluctant to limit Klassen's right to speak. Klassen got his stay and the Crown saved a little bit of face in this ridiculous proceeding. The case ended with everyone in good humour, with Judge Singer making a point that he did not see any reasons for any nonpublication orders regarding this case. (This has been clarified from yesterday where the report mistakenly led readers to believe Klassen pled guilty.) Proceedings in his civil case were delayed for half an hour to allow Klassen to attend to this matter.

Getting back some Charter Rights in Saskatoon

August 5, 2003: For an hour just after mid-day, Ang Geworsky caried a bullhorn in front of the Saskatoon Police Station down town while Sheila Steele passed out a leaflet. Kari Klassen took pictures.

We also set up our 6 foot signs and many people stopped to read them.

Through the bullhorn, Ang broadcast a taped recording of Klassen's remarks the day he was arrested, at level four -- the same level Klassen was broadcasting.

Everyone was civil, most accepted leaflets and several smartly dressed women refused to accept the leaflet, a couple making disparaging remarks. Several people accepted the leaflet with enthusiasm and encouraged us to continue with our campaign. Meanwhile, Richard Klassen who has now had his banishment from attending the police station lifted, postered announcements of the September 8 court proceedings around town. He is specifically banned from demonstrating.

Although the police took our pictures, they did not issue us with any warnings or make any moves to arrest us.

Harassing Klassen

Amidst reports that Saskatoon is the Crime Capital of Canada, Rick Klassen was in provincial court Friday morning, July 25 to answer to charges of making too much noise.

He told the magistrate that he expected to call 40-50 witnesses (including all members of Platoon 4 who were on duty the morning of his arrest). At 9.30 he arranged with Judge Barry Singer to get his disclosure and to have a hearing next week to adjust the terms of his bail which include banishment from areas within two blocks of both Saskatoon Police stations. Crown Prosecutor Brent Klause will have to defend his okaying of this condition which violates Klassen's rights under several sections of the Charter. Klassen intends to bring forth dozens of cases which show why Saskatoon police cannot have a restraining order against a citizen.

Regarding the difficulty in obtaining disclosure, the Crown instituted a ridiculous procedure which requires people who don't have lawyers to appear before a judge and sign a paper stating they will not make public anything disclosed to them and that they must return it all to the Crown. These procedures were put in place in response to our publicizing the tapes and documents in the Klassen/Kvello malicious prosecutions (which resulted in our cause being taken up by CBC's Fifth Estate.)

Klassen had already had an opportunity to view some of the dislosure in his noise case. (He retained a lawyer for the sole purpose of expediting the release of this material). What he saw has very little to do with him and many pages referring to John Melenchuk who participated in the same informational picket Klassen was arrested at. The picketers were aware that the demonstration (the third that week) was being videotaped by police and he is requesting the full three hours of tape. Injusticebusters have no intention of keeping any of this information secret. Saskatoon police and prosecutors all over the country have to be taught a lesson in our constitutional rights and we will take full advantage of those rights we have left to teach it to them. Disturbing the police is not disturbing the peace; making public criminal activity by public officials is not a violation of any disclosure rules which will withstand court challenges.

After leaving court, Klassen formally gave the Crown 72 hours notice to withdraw the charge or face the 13th malicious prosecution lawsuit in this province.

We then went for coffee at Capri Place, choosing a window where we could keep a close eye on our parking meter. Before we had poured our first cup of coffee, we saw a woman wearing a Partnership hat removing one of our posters (see the Signs clip). We immediately confronted her and told her to tell her bosses she was not taking down any more of our signs.

Six years ago the postering issue came to a head in Saskatoon when the Partnership (a businessman's group) set about to restrict areas where posters could be placed. They came up with a set of by-laws which decreed that all posters must be dated, posted for only one week, and placed only on poster poles provided by the Partnership. Citizens Concerned About Free Trade went to the Ombudsman to complain that their rights had been violated by removal of their signs and they won a $5000 award. As I understood it, the award was based on an understanding that the group would respect City by-laws in future postering campaigns.

I never respected that by-law and during the past six years have continued to paste posters from time to time. Although my posters were not dated (largely directed at Brian Dueck throughout his various rises in rank and there is still no foreseeable date when this shameful situation will end) the website address was always included. It is my personal belief that anonymous postings carry small force and the police have always known how to contact me.

The current injusticebusters' postering campaign, designed to publicize the upcoming court events, has been done with cello-tape, as the by-law requires, but beyond the limited information poles designated by the by-law. --Sheila Steele, July 26, 2003 (50th Anniversary of the attack on the Moncado Barracks in Cuba)

Making noise and building the campaign to fill the courthouse on September 8

Richard Klassen was arrested on Thursday and his portable public address system taken "as evidence."

Friday morning, Ang Geworsky and John Melenchuk were back at the police station. They used a bullhorn. Ang repeated the same statements Richard had used the previous day and included protests about his arrest.

Richard had kept the volume setting at 4.

Ang turned it up to 8, and, for the last ten minutes, all the way to ten. No arrests. Several police made a point of telling her they agreed with her.

On Monday we took our police education show to the Provincial courthourse. One of the guards came out and made threatening noises but there were no arrests.

On Tuesday, Mayor Maddin along with Superintendents Wiks and Dueck were on hand to turn the sod for the new "brief detox center" which is to be built. We got several new pictures of Dueck, one of which forms the background for a poster we have been placing on down town posts, to advertise the September court events.

We will continue to poster all over down town, the Broadway area and the university and hope that visitors to the Fringe and the new crop of university students will help us fill Queen's Bench court house September 8 for what promise to be two of the most riviting, educational and entertaining events occurring in the province.

July 19: Klassen got a peek at the disclosure regarding his "noise" charge. There is no mention of the amplified sound. There is reference to a "masked man." We know that the mask don't fit so . . . Klassen will appear in provincial court July 25 for his first hearing on this matter. One of the "Prosecutors from hell", Brent Klause will be prosecuting this outrageous waste of the people's time which violates Klassen's charter rights and puts the justice in disrepute by willfully twisting the Criminal Code of Canada to suit the impulses of pea-brained cops and Crowns in Saskatoon.

August, 2003: John Melenchuk was arrested while protesting at the Little Chief police station on 20th Street.

Blogging

Blogging has been in the news. It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created each day. I established a blog for this website last September and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the pages with ongoing discussions.

Tasering Mary Lutz

Saskatchewan Centenary

Quint Blog discussion

Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police

Blogging for choice

Michael Cardamone witch hunt

Implement recommendations of public inquiries

Stealing from the poor

Vancouver's killer cops

Tisdale rapists appeal

Winnipeg police misdeeds

Milgaard Inquiry

Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?

The Old Boys' Club Must Go!

Vancouver activists

John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie

City of intolerance

Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!

Eric Cline

This is a great way for like-minded people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.

People who want to contribute simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine, I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.

Please, please give it a try. The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic -- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it has ever seen.

Come on. Don't be shy. Join the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

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Publisher : Sheila Steele

Got something to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!

injusticebusters court advice :

How to walk yourself through the justice system

 

Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)

 

Sermonette: The Naked Truth -- (You will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this page

Another target of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Stephen Williams: Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police

Terry Arnold: : Snitch a suicide?

RCMP scenario stings: Brian Hutchinson starts digging

Gary wells: Faulty eye-witness testimony

Tulia, Texas

Gilmer, Texas

Willie Upshaw

Wrongfully convicted in Canada

Foster Parent false accusations

Martensville

Don Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction

James Lockyer

Hurricane Carter

Johnny Cochran speaks up for Bill Sampson

Vopnis

Abdulai Mohamed

Nfld Defamation story:

Wanda Young

Racism in the Federal Civil Service

The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns convictions

Trial set for June 15

We know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured affidavit from a Winnipeg cop

The Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing. Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.

 

 

2005: In the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming at us!

 

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Brandon Morin:

Convicted in Oregon

of rapes which did not happen

This website has good information about Measure 11 -- Oregon's Mandatory Sentencing requirements which have been in place since 1994. In this case we see how the combination of a flawed grand jury system and prosecutors who seek not justice but convictions is a recipe for wrongful convictions.

 

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Revitalizing the archives From 1998 until 2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of identity crisis. What was it? What were we doing? We grappled with editorial policy at the same time we were learning the nuts and bolts of building and posting a website. Once we had a secure, paid site I had full editorial control, although I talked regularly to Richard Klassen who was forced to move his family several times and did not always have access to the internet. Rick's pages: one | two We posted our earliest and later actions. Early versions of the site can be found on the Wayback Machine. I began following other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct and the site's character took on another facet: a newsclipping scrapbook where stories could live longer than they would in print form. I also began picking up other stories of wrongfully convicted people. It was an explosion. By 2003 there were over 700 pages. I also had contact with several other people (Don Smith, Leon Walchuk, Monique Turenne, the Vopnis) and kept these stories going. It was the story of the Ross children's treatment at the hands of the Saskatchewan government which grabbed the attention of The Fifth Estate. The civil claim (The $10M Lawsuit as we called it) was only mentioned briefly at the end of their show which aired in November, 2000. When Richard Klassen began to make progress in bringing his civil claim to court, the government and police defendants alleged he was breaking the rules of court by publishing discovery material on the internet. MacNeil clinic (the document which started it all) The Thompson Papers Carol Bunko-Ruys reports This claim was absolutely false. However, rather than risk being thrown out of his civil claim, Klassen undertook before Judge Mona Dovall to sever all ties with the website. The court fights: Les Perreaux report QB271 These pages have links which lead to other pages from that era. Now that some of the dust has settled, I have been going back through the material we had posted in the early days. In the spirit of keeping the scrapbook alive, I have been reformatting and placing links. The original material remains intact. I hope the information, which chronicles our struggle is useful to you. The identity crisis is over. We know who we are --Sheila Steele, March 28, 2005

 

 

 

 

Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved claims over last five years