Comments for Past Tense

Comment on Death of the Streetcar by laniwurm

laniwurm — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:49:07 +0000

Thanks Malinda, and you’re welcome.

Comment on Death of the Streetcar by Malinda Threet

Malinda Threet — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:42:30 +0000

I normally don’t take the time out to thank people when i read their information but this was really informative.
I look forward to reading more on your blog.
Thank You.

Comment on Street Fighting Men by Street Fighting Men – Rolling Stones Riot in Vancouver (1972) « Vancouver Anarchist Online Archive

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:17:41 +0000

[...] http://pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/street-fighting-men/ Inspector Bud Errington on stage with the Rolling Stones at the Forum, 19 July 1966. Photo: Vancouver Police Museum Rioters outside the Pacific Coliseum during the Rolling Stones concert, Vancouver Sun, 5 June 1972 [...]

Comment on Gangland Vancouver by Street Fighting Men « Past Tense

Street Fighting Men « Past Tense — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:00:29 +0000

[...] that the obviously premeditated riot was orchestrated by the Clark Park Gang. At the time, youth gangs based in city parks were a preoccupation of the city police. Using the alias Ken Bell, Constable [...]

Comment on Public Enemy No. 1 by laniwurm

laniwurm — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:15:35 +0000

Thanks for that Charles. I’ve read that the Winnipeg papers were writing how there was an influx of vice criminals there after McGeer came to power in 1935.

Comment on What Frankie Said by Erin

Erin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:42:30 +0000

Thanks for the response and the link. I find, after reading these stories, that it’s usually the women who I’m particularly intrigued by– how they went through their daily lives when Vancouver was just that more dangerous for them.

I’m telling my friends about this site, I’m so excited by it!

Comment on What Frankie Said by Black and Blue, Life and Death « Past Tense

Black and Blue, Life and Death « Past Tense — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:09:02 +0000

[...] and killed Chief Constable McLennan and an eight-year old boy before committing suicide. That grisly drama began before the police were called with the landlord and his hireling breaking into Tait’s [...]

Comment on What Frankie Said by laniwurm

laniwurm — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:06:41 +0000

Thanks, Erin. I checked the vital stats index on the BC Archives website to see if she died in BC and when. There are a couple entries that might be her, but can’t be sure. Most likely, she returned to obscurity.

Aside from the events themselves, coming across the news coverage of her trial was a treat for me simply because people in Frankie’s station in life normally lived undocumented lives, leaving a lot of gaps in the historical record. Even her mugshots may very well have been the only photographs ever taken of her.

I got into researching this and another Vancouver cop-killing ( http://pasttensevancouver.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/black-and-blue-life-and-death/ ) after reading the VPD’s history, which has a lot of great detail and info, but naturally tends to be overly cop-sided.

Comment on What Frankie Said by Erin

Erin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:29:31 +0000

Thanks for this interesting history. What became of Frankie Russell?

I really appreciate reading the history from this perspective. It’s fascinating to read it with the focus on Tait and Russell, and then read the Police Museum’s version where the focus is Chief Constable MacLennan:
http://www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/FallenOfficers/malcolm_maclennan.html

Comment on Public Enemy No. 1 by Charles Campbell

Charles Campbell — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:17:30 +0000

Gerald McGeer was my great uncle. (He was never ‘Gerry’ to his family — they all called his sister Geraldine ‘Gerry’.) My uncle Jim remembers the Bar Celona campaign, and he remembers around 1940, while in the Canadian Navy, meeting a man on the Staten Island ferry. The man noticed my uncle’s Canadian uniform, and remarked that he had once lived in Vancouver. He said he loved the city, lived in a West End house with a ship’s wheel on top, but “when that bastard Gerry McGeer got elected we all had to get out of town”.