RCMP and city police have been warning the public, for thier own safety, to 'STAY AWAY" from know and dangerous criminals

I found the following story (details of which I became aware of yesterday), to be of note, which is why I am passing it along.  The writer of the story is Kim Bolan from the Vancouver Sun.

Jaspal Singh Atwal, convicted
of attempted murder in 1986

Convicted gunman attended B.C. budget speech --Complaint filed after invitation-only event

A formal complaint was made to the speaker of the B.C. legislature last week after a would-be assassin received an invitation to attend the budget speech, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

Jaspal Singh Atwal, who was convicted of attempted murder for shooting a visiting Punjabi cabinet minister in 1986, attended the invite-only event in the B.C. legislature Feb. 21.

He sat in the public gallery, while the legislature was locked down and only invited guests, MLAs and accredited media were allowed inside.

Shane Mills, Premier Christy Clark's director of communications, said Monday that Atwal only made his way onto the guest list when another person invited by the premier's office asked for an extra ticket to attend.

"His name was on a list. It was put on the list at the request of an invited guest," Mills said. "If we had known his background, he would not have been invited."

Mills said Atwal's name was just given to government the day before the budget speech.

"And we don't normally vet those kind of things. So we were unaware of the person's background and we will be working to improve the vetting and working with the Speaker's office on that," he said.

Atwal - and three others - were convicted in 1987 of trying to kill Malkiat Singh Sidhu on an isolated Vancouver Island road. Sidhu was struck twice and survived the attempt on his life, but was later assassinated in India.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the story


Saying if they had known who this individual was, 'he would not have been invited' doesn't give me a lot of confidence in how the system of inviting guest is currently working.

In the past year, RCMP and city police at the coast have been warning people to 'STAY AWAY" from know and dangerous criminals ... for their own safety.  Yet ... here we had a known dangerous individual right in the Gallery of the Legislative Assembly.


If there is not currently some kind of vetting system in place for those invited to attend events like this, perhaps now is the time ... before something like this happens again.

Also missing from the story, was the name of the person who invited this known criminal.  Should we not be made aware of who they were as well, given this lack of judgement in inviting Jaspal Singh Atwal to this event?


What do you think?

I'm Alan Forseth in Kamloops, with the thoughts of one conservative

PS ... I'll be away for a few days and so I'll be absent from any posts likely till later during the weekend, or early next week.  Talk to you soon.