On May 18 2022 at 6:21 AM, 65-year-old Leonard Smith stood on a Calgary LRT platform waiting for a train to take him to work. Smith had to commute by train because he is visually impaired..Suddenly, Smith was attacked by a man who cut his throat from ear to ear with a utility knife leaving a 24 centimeter gash. Doctors told Smith the knife missed his carotid artery by a mere 4 mm. Had the artery been cut, Crane surely would have been killed for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..The man who cut Smith’s throat in this random act is a violent, chronic offender named Bobby Crane. Crane didn't know Smith. He told an acquaintance he wanted "to get" a guy before impulsively attacking Smith. He just had a sudden craving to try and kill somebody innocent, I guess. .Crane is no stranger to the justice system. He's been sentenced to six and-a-half years in jail for multiple crimes he committed since 2019. Clearly, he didn’t serve that time as he was free to attempt to murder an elderly, visually impaired man last May..Last week in an Alberta court, Judge Harry Van Harten sentenced Crane to two years less a day to ensure Crane doesn’t have to go to a federal prison. With time served in remand, Crane will be on the streets in a little more than a year. I wonder if he will succeed in killing somebody during his next period of freedom?.Van Harten noted treatment for FASD would serve Crane better than doing prison time. This may indeed be true. Prison has a way of making dangerous offenders even worse if they aren’t treated for whatever their underlying issues are. We should be looking at ways to reform offenders and avoiding prison when possible and we need to expand our treatment options..That said, public safety has to come first and Van Harten ignored that responsibility when he gave such a light sentence to a clearly violent man..With an offender as dangerous as Crane, we need to seek treatment options while he is secured. Letting him out is just inviting another random crime against an innocent citizen. If we need to create secured facilities that offer treatment for such conditions as FASD so be it. In the meantime, though, we still need to secure people who have demonstrated repeated, violent propensities. .Van Harten went further than just pointing out how Crane needed help in dealing with his FASD. He said the generational trauma European society has caused to indigenous communities had to be addressed..Really? By freeing dangerous criminals?.Van Harten also said “The history of colonialism has to be taken into account,”.What a load of woke crap..Crane is 25 years old. He never attended a residential school and he likely can’t even define colonialism. Crane has likely had a hard life and our messed up First Nations reserve system doubtless contributed to it..That does not negate the risk Crane presents to society..We do need to examine our entire system when it comes to First Nations. The reserve system is failing by every measure and the outdated, racist Indian Act should be repealed. That giant ball of wax is not Justice Van Harten’s responsibility. Van Harten should have been considering what risk Crane could present if released rather than dwelling on broader issues of European influence on modern history..I do hope to be wrong, but I fear I won’t be. My expectation is that Crane will reoffend violently and soon after his next release..Crane randomly picked out an elderly handicapped man and tried to murder him by cutting his throat. He is a cowardly, violent man and he won’t be any less so in a year from now..I know we need better ways to treat offenders. Until those means of treatment are developed and available though, the best way to protect the public from violent people like Bobby Crane remains incarceration. Crane may not be cured while behind bars, but he won't be able to assault more innocent citizens while he's there, either..The system is failing to protect us and woke judges like Van Harten should be held accountable if we're harmed by their refusal to incarcerate dangerous offenders.
