Vancouver police show media-relations savvy on assault and sex offender's escape

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      In recent years, the Vancouver Police Department has become far more adept at public relations than a decade ago, when one spokesperson was transferred after making jokes about prostitutes and Downtown Eastside missing women.

      The two constables who now handle the bulk of the media work, Lindsey Houghton and Jana McGuinness, are probably as smooth with reporters as any police spokespeople across the country.

      This weekend, we saw another demonstration of the VPD's more sophisticated approach, this time involving a serious crime.

      A woman in her 50s was sexually assaulted around 6:40 a.m. on Good Friday near the corner of West 49th Avenue and Alberta Street.

      A man pulled her into the bushes. About an hour later, she made it home, where she called police.

      The suspect was described as a 5'10" white male in his 30s or 40s, wearing a black hat, black jacket, and white pants.

      On the same day, the VPD asked for the public's help in finding a 32-year-old high-risk sex offender named James Patrick Benson.

      He escaped from a halfway house in Vancouver late Thursday night.

      "Benson’s criminal history dating back to the early 1990s includes convictions for offences committed in the Calgary, Alberta area such as sexual assault, attempted murder, extortion, and various property and weapons offences," the VPD stated.

      He's a 5'8" white male, weighing 200 pounds with short brown hair and brown eyes. Benson has scars on his left forearm and left calf, and a tattoo on his left forearm reading "MORBID", a second with "01-17-07" on the inside of his left wrist, and another on the inside of his upper chest reading "LOST SOUL".

      It would have been easy for police to issue a statement linking the escape of Benson to the attack in South Vancouver, describing him as a "person of interest". That's how it usually goes in these cases.

      But that's not what happened. Instead, the VPD made it clear that the attack in South Vancouver may be completely unrelated to the other story.

      It's a refreshing change from the days when police spokespeople would convict people in the media before they had been charged, opening the door for defence lawyers to challenge the characterization of their clients in court.

      At the same time, if Benson is a suspect, the VPD has made a genuine effort to ensure that the public is aware of what he looks like.

      Anyone who sees Benson has been advised not to approach him and to call 9-1-1 immediately.

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