A mother of three who was savagely beaten Sunday night in Surrey, British Columbia, has died.
Julie Paskall, 53, was waiting for her teenage son in the parking lot of a hockey arena when she was assaulted. Police say it was an “unprovoked and random attack” and that the motive was robbery.
Paskall was left clinging to life in hospital. Her family decided to take her off life support Tuesday.
This was Surrey’s 25th homicide of 2013 — a record for the city.
Surrey, which is located about half an hour’s drive southeast of Vancouver, is the province’s second largest municipality and one of the fastest growing in the country.
It has frequently been in the news because of gun violence and targeted murders. That’s because the city is home to a number of gangs that have been waging a turf war over drugs. It turned especially bloody in 2009 and it continues to claim lives. Four bodies were found in six weeks earlier this year in a sector the mayor Diane Watts conceded is a “problem area”.
Surrey has a population of 502,010 residents, about 100,000 fewer than Vancouver. Yet it has a homicide rate that is considerably higher at 4.38 per 100,000 people, compared to 0.86.
Gang members tend to kill members of rival gangs and although there have some innocent victims in the past, Paskall’s attack in the poorer neighbourhood of Newton is a rather uncommon occurrence.
That said, some residents don’t feel safe. The owner of a shop has decided not to renew her lease after 26 years in the area. “I’ve battled with the drug dealers long enough,” says Diane MacDermott. “I’m not interested in doing it anymore.”
Douglas Elford, a spokesman for the Newton Community Association, told CBC News “The neighbourhood we feel, particularly the town centre, is deteriorating and people are afraid to walk the streets at night.”
The City of Surrey launched a crime-reduction strategy in 2007, which included the installation of closed-circuit cameras, among other initiatives, and it hired a veteran of the London Metropolitan Police Service to oversee implementation. Since then, crime rates there have generally been decreasing.
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