A Toronto black man and known crack addict spends five years imprisoned awaiting trial for charges robbery and manslaughter which he had not committed. The media refer to the case as the “Just Desserts” trial, named after the pastry shop where the murder/robbery takes place. A jury acquits this man of all charges in 1999 and a few days ago he is the victim of a murder in Jamaica.
I happen to know a great deal about this particular case but I am not at liberty to disclose my knowledge or sources but let us remind ourselves that O’Neil Grant was acquitted because there was not even one shred of compelling evidence to find for a finding of guilt. While it was true that Mr. Grant was a crack addict and had previous convictions for the typical drug addict type offensives; it was also true he had not been convicted of an offense for two years prior to the 1994 Just Desserts slaying.
A number of VRWC blog sights seem to think the intentional murder of an innocent black man makes their day, or the victim is finally justified in receiving his “just desserts” while others think the murder is “karmic”. I really don’t know what to say to you people except you are guilty of a far greater evil than you can begin to imagine. And my sympathies, at this time, go out to the family of O’Neil Grant – his mother, his wife and their three fatherless Canadian children.
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I just arrived here following my usual mid-afternoon sweep through Canada's URQ country. (You're not part of that sweep, by the way...you're one of the transition-back-to-sanity sites). My lapsed - sorry, LAST - stop before this was at a site that positively reveled in Grant's murder, dismissing his acquittal with complete contempt. and suggesting that his death somehow represented the justice that had been too long coming.
Both extremes of the political continuum breed their own sick lunacy...cloying dependency and victim mentalities on the left, and that kind of gleeful, racist viciousness on the right.
I am not sure about my overall sanity but the Just Desserts murder/trial was a turning point in the Jamaican community of Toronto.
Up until that point, most Canadian-Jamaicans believed in the innate goodwill of their fellow citizens. The backlash began there. It seemed to make no traction with non-Jamaicans that the vast overwhelming majority of the Jamaican community were law abiding citizens. And all afro-centric black males magically became Jamaican by virtue of their arrest.
Then the deportations started in earnest. Even Grant was not deported per say because of length of his criminal record but because he failed to formally advise Canadian immigration authorities of his change of address during his detention in the Don Jail. The system seemed determined to punish him for being found innocent of the Just Desserts crimes.
I would love to make a movie to show what happens in the lives of these children, which the state, in its wisdom, renders fatherless. What a great many people fail to understand is that a fair number of these children actually do/did have relationships with their fathers. Maybe not the kind of relationship one would wish in a perfect world but a relationship nonetheless. And we should all know by now the consequences of what commonly happens to children who grow up fatherless.
I use to know this man who had 9 children with four different women. He did not support his children financially per say but he would give what he could when he could, where he could. He would visit all four homes ---spending a night here and a night there. All his children had a number to reach him if something came up. In good weather, he would take all his kids and his wives off to a picnic at High Park every Sunday. Go figure. I was always amazed how well they all got along – no doubt warring families could possibly learn something beneficial from his case study.
Anyway, he was convicted of trafficking in weed and deported. Nine children were traumatized, and I do mean traumatized. Two years later he was found dead on the streets of Spanishtown Jamaica. Cause of death? At heart attack at 40. We can sit here and argue to the cows came home what a horrible man he was and it was the logical consequences of choices but none of those children deserved the world of pain which was visited onto them. And today, we have 9 very angry and bitter teenagers with absolutely no respect for any authority or any government figure - who we cannot deport – let me repeat that – we cannot deport.
ONeil Grant was a drug addict. He wasn’t born being a crack addict, it was something he discovered living in Canada. It got the best of him for years and when he started to get a handle on his addiction, he ended up charged in a murder/robbery. He sat for five years in jail as an innocent man. He was mistreated by the government and then deported. Today, we have three children who are again grieving for the loss of their father and this time they are without hope of every seeing him again.
You know what statistic the government won’t collect and/or publish? How many children of deportees grow up to commit crimes. I read one article where an immigration official stated they only push for deportation in the most hardened cases but I do believe “hardened cases” is code for black Jamaican male.
Otherwise who do you justify this stay of a deportation order when a Jamaican national and father of 9 Canadian children with no violent criminal convictions is instead prosecuted to the full extent?
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7f806222-cdc6-4cbf-a722-698425dc1b65&k=19081
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