Login / RegisterSex-trade activist Jamie Lee Hamilton ponders pulling out of missing women inquiry
A long-time Downtown Eastside activist who tried for many years to raise the alarm about a serial killer preying on sex-trade workers in her neighbourhood may choose not to testify at the B.C. missing women’s inquiry.
“I am seriously considering withdrawing, because it makes me feel as though the report has already been written, with all the focus on the policing aspect of it, and the actions of the commissioner,” Jamie Lee Hamilton, an advocate for LGBT issues, said by phone on February 1.
Hamilton confirmed she is scheduled to speak to the commission, but added, “They’re spending so much time with the police, the different various policing officials. I believe that they have 34 policing officials on their witness list and I think they’ve only got through four of them so far. So it’s very concerning.”
Earlier, Hamilton slammed Commissioner Wally Oppal for his treatment of lawyer Cameron Ward, who is representing the families of 25 missing and murdered women. Hamilton told the Straight that lawyer Jason Gratl, hired by the commission to represent the interests of Downtown Eastside residents—and in particular sex workers’ interests generally—is also getting short shrift at the inquiry.
“And yet, there are all these lawyers for the police—I think there are 19 now—and they are always getting up and taking their time, they are objecting, objecting, objecting,” Hamilton claimed. “If the commissioner wants this to be a credible inquiry, he needs to take a stand now, and he needs to get rid of all the lawyers. Because there doesn’t have to be those lawyers there.”
Hamilton said she had a clothing boutique on Hastings Street from 1993 to 1997, where many of the Downtown Eastside murdered sex-trade workers had shopped and “hung out”.
“I knew Sarah de Vries, who lived right around the corner,” Hamilton added. “I knew Angela Jardine, I knew Helen Hallmark. I knew Andrea Joesbury, I knew Serena Abbotsway.”
And Hamilton also knew Det. Const. Lori Shenher, who is now testifying downtown.
“I phoned her [Shenher] to say that, during the past three years, there’s been 21 women go missing,” Hamilton said, referring to a 1998 conversation. “I had a complete breakdown of the years. She demanded to know how I got that information. I said, ‘It doesn’t matter how I got the information. These are the facts. Are you going to verify those numbers?’ Just previous to that, I had reached the civilian person in the office, Sandy Cameron, who was just awful to me and rude. I kept notes of that. So when I talked to Shenher, Shenher then said to me, ‘Yeah, your numbers are correct, but please don’t release that information, because it’s going to create a panic.’ I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ I said women have to be warned that there is a serial killer down here.”
Hamilton conceded in closing that it could be “sad” for a lot of people if someone with her history and close relationship to the victims of Robert Pickton does not testify when she has the chance to.
“I think it’s sad as well, but it appears that the commission of inquiry is a whitewash, and it doesn’t appear that they want to hear from community members or family members,” she said. “They’re giving allocation of all the time to police officials. Doug LePard, who wasn’t even involved in the cases back in the day—but wrote the report—he was on the stand for two weeks. The officer from Ontario [Jennifer Evans] was a week. Kim Rossmo was close to a week, and now we’re already on the third day for Lori Shenher. And she’ll be on most of this week and most of next week.”
Is there no end to her vanity? Self importance?
"Hamilton conceded in closing that it could be “sad” for a lot of people if someone with her history and close relationship to the victims of Robert Pickton does not testify when she has the chance to." Oh my.
We will all be "sad" if we do not have another chance to hear JL Hamilton talk about JL Hamilton. Oh, the sorrow. Teeth will be gnashing and milk will curdle.
Come to think of it, its pretty much the end of the world as Jamie Lee knows it. Ahh, the sorrow and the pity.
What you should be more concerned with is that dozens, if not hundreds, of murders were pinned on Pickton so that Lower Mainland police forces, and the RCMP, wouldn't have to be bothered to perform an indepth investigation and bring the real perpetrators to light.
From what I understand, there was an underground ring of British Columbian men responsible for murdering the majority of women in the Pickton scandal. Some of these men in the underground ring were law enforcement officers.
So now Pickton is in jail and has been for years, and yet the murder of women on the lower mainland continues. It should be blatantly obvious at this point that Pickton wasn't the only serial killer, that members of British Columbian law enforcement may be perpetrating these murders themselves, and that law enforcement bureaus are not really all that interested in finding the real murderers, or resolving the conflict competently or effectively.
Perhaps JL Hamilton is seeking out the spotlight because after more than a decade the issue of male-on-female homicide and violence throughout the lower mainland continues to remain in the dark.
What's WRONG with you people?! You guys should be horrified. You guys should be protesting. Shame on British Columbians for continuing to allow these heinous crimes to go on without a thorough investigation.
You know what? If British Columbian law enforcement, and British Columbian branches of the RCMP, are unable or unwilling to bring these murderers to justice then perhaps it's time for outside law enforcement to step in.
I tell you this: if women from wealthy British Columbian families were being murdered, how long do you think local law enforcement would let it slide? After ten wealthy women were murdered? 20? 30? 100? 200?
But even she claims no knowledge, no evidence, no proof whatever of the plot you have described. Nowhere has she said she does. Not here. Not anywhere.
You also have no evidence of this 'conspiracy'. If you did, you would have gone to the cops long ago. Or the media. Or Tweeted some 'evidence'. Or called The Straight and laid it out. But you didn't. You won't. You can't.
Without the spotlight (however negative and sarcastic) Jamie Lee might just curl up and turn to dust. Illuminati, she has no more to offer than you do.
And that's why no one pays any attention. Except, of course, to laugh.
We await your 'evidence'.
Pickton is in jail, and women are still being murdered.
The police has been "investigating" for two decades now, and women are still being murdered.
What's worse, no one seems to care, and the few who speak out are ridiculed.
This would never happen on the east coast. Unlike the west coast, we love our women here and go out of our way to protect them, police included, regardless of age, ethnicity, or income status.