bu BRIAN LOCKHART

It was Boxing Day 2005 when the sound of gunfire erupted on a downtown Toronto street.

Six people were injured, and an innocent teenage girl was killed in the crossfire.

Fifteen-year-old Jane Creba was out shopping with her family when her life was ended by rival gang members who decided to shoot it out on a public street.

She was an innocent bystander who had her young life cut short because of a bunch of lowlife criminals who had no care for anyone else on the street or in the city.

There were a lot more victims of this horrendous crime, notably Jane's family who had to go through the horror of having a daughter and sister murdered in front of them.

The Toronto Police managed to capture some of the gang members involved, and they were all sentenced to prison terms.

You would think that any normal person, once denied their freedom and spending time behind bars, would rethink some of the stupid decisions they made.

But some people are just too stupid to go through life making normal and decent decisions.

A friend of mine was in training to be a police officer, years ago, and as part of the training, he went on ride-alongs with police in a few northern towns to experience what the job was really like.

He explained what he observed about the criminal mentality and what the officers he trained with told him. I'm sure if you asked a police officer about this, they would tell you the same thing.

My friend explained how a lot of the time they would catch criminals because of plain stupidity and how the criminal mind works.

He gave as an example a time they were looking for suspects in a burglary. They were driving down a town street and observed a car blow through a red light with total disregard for other people or vehicles.

When they pulled the car over for the traffic violation, the police officer noticed burglary tools in plain view on the back seat. A subsequent investigation turned up stolen items in the trunk.

You would think that if you had any brains at all, and you just committed a crime, the last thing you would do, would be to drive recklessly and bring attention to yourself. But that's how the criminal mind works. They have no care for anyone else.

The main culprit in the Jane Creba murder case spent 20 years in a federal lock-up. He was granted full parole in January 2025.

Now 43-years-old, you would think Jeremiah Valentine, would at the very least, try to behave himself once released from prison.

Nope, this guy is a Class A idiot. Seven months after getting parole, he has been arrested, again, for shooting and killing a man in Montreal.

This guy managed to last seven months before committing another major crime – after spending 20 years in prison. You don't get much stupider than that.  

There are a lot of questions about why this guy was on the street at all.

Why did a man who just got out of federal prison have a gun on him?

Was no one keeping tabs on this guy?

The big question is, why was he released on full parole in the first place?

According to the Parole Board of Canada, a 2021 psychological assessment of this guy indicated he, as an offender, had the highest level of risk. He had a 76 per cent chance of violent recidivism over a period of five years after release.

And yet the parole board decided a 76 per cent chance of him committing another violent crime wasn't a good enough reason to keep him out of society and off of the streets.

There were four men convicted of crimes in the Jane Creba murder case.

The other three men have all been released – and all three have been arrested since their release on gun violence charges or drug trafficking.

Idiots seem to run in packs.

So, who will be accountable for the murder of this man in Montreal, other than the killer himself?

What about the people who signed the document releasing a dangerous man back into society in spite of the fact that it was determined he was at a high risk to commit another violent crime?

Most likely nothing will happen, because no one is ever held accountable for these things.

Things like this are always referred to as a “tragedy,” but only after the system has failed, again.