westopher | 11-11-2014 08:04 PM | Well known animal abuser kills mother 2 years later. Vancouver man who left German Shepherd to die in dumpster now charged in woman's murder Quote:
“Brian, you know you think you hurt your mother. We just want you to come out and talk about it.”
It was that plea by a police negotiator who identified himself over a megaphone as Eric that stuck in the mind of Barrie Urquhart, a resident of Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood.
Urquhart recalled Sunday afternoon the details of an eight-hour police standoff that began late Saturday a block from his home and ended just before dawn with Brian Whitlock being taken into custody. Whitlock, 28, was charged later in the day with second-degree murder.
In the summer of 2012, Whitlock beat his two-year-old German Shepard, Captain, and left him for dead in a Kitsilano dumpster. Whitlock, then 26, got a 60-day jail sentence and a lifetime ban on owning animals after pleading guilty to animal cruelty in the high-profile case.
Police were called to the Dunbar home at 8:30 p.m. Saturday after a relative found a woman’s body, said Const. Brian Montague.
When police arrived at the scene, they found that a man had barricaded himself inside the two-storey home on a lot where a laneway house was under construction.
As many as 40 officers swept through nearby streets, yards and alleys, securing the area, say residents. Fire trucks and ambulances were stationed on surrounding blocks, and the operation was coordinated through a mobile command post that drove in and parked on the east side of Valdez Park.
“I’m not coming in,” Urquhart said Eric told the suspect before members of the Vancouver Police Department’s Emergency Response Team finally coaxed him from the home in the 3100-block of West 23rd Ave. “You’re going to be safe with me, Brian.”
Urquhart said Brian Whitlock lived in the house with his mother, which property records show is registered to a Barbara Whitlock. Urquhart, a general contractor, knew the man fairly well. He had given Whitlock a job in the past, and had known him as “one of the neighbourhood kids.”
Since that time, area residents said they regularly spotted him spending time in nearby Valdez Park, which is a popular spot among dog owners.
Residents spoke of feeling unsafe with Whitlock around — some because of the incident with his dog, and others, who knew him closely, because of a gradual and negative shift in his personality they said they saw over the decades they knew him.
Whitlock’s mental health was cited as a factor in the animal cruelty case. Medical records indicated he had been diagnosed with, and was being treated for, psychosis and schizophrenia during the year leading up to his sentencing.
Area resident Leah McIntyre said many of the negotiators’ requests were simple: they asked the man to turn down the music — he was listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They asked him to turn his porch lights on and off to let them know he was hearing them.
They also asked him to knock on his window, McIntyre said.
“He was responding with frantic thumping,” she said, adding that she could hear the banging from her house, about a block away.
It was not until shortly before 5 a.m. that the man finally left the home. He was shot with a non-lethal bullet because he was not compliant, Montague said. Police took the suspect into custody and they will be recommending murder charges to crown prosecutors, Montague said.
Investigators dressed in white plastic suits worked at the scene Sunday. The entire block where the standoff happened, and the alley behind the home, were draped in yellow police tape. At about noon, officials wheeled a stretcher that appeared to be carrying a body draped in fabric into a white van with black tinted windows.
“It’s safe to say we’ll be looking at whether or not mental health played a role in the homicide,” Montague said.
Police have not yet released the name of the victim.
| The story was updated last I checked that it was whitlocks Mother. Now I've said it before, and I will say it again. Animal abuse needs to be taken much more seriously. Why wasn't he given proper psychiatric assessments after a violent crime against an animal? Why were such obvious signs of violent behaviour ignored. Its quite a fucked up situation, but the biggest example of an "I told you so" moment I've seen in years. |