Newton residents nervous, frustrated
Community meeting planned for tonight in hope of increasing neighbourhood safety
Hockey coach Darwyn Shawara always checks the backside of the Newton Recreation Centre arena before he sends his young players outside for a pre- ice warm- up ahead of a game.
And while the players train with the assistant coach, Shawara keeps an eye on the street — a precaution that has become commonplace in the crimeridden neighbourhood, where 53- year- old Julie Paskall was fatally attacked Dec. 29 as she waited for her son.
“Around here it’s pretty scary. People aren’t doing much and there’s outrage in the Newton community,” said Shawara, coach of Surrey Midget Thunder.
“You notice it’s getting a lot more sketchier.”
Paskall was waiting to pick up her son after hockey at about 9: 30 p. m. when she was beaten, likely with a rock, and left unconscious. Police believe the hockey mom, who died two days later in hospital, was the victim of a botched robbery, but have yet to catch her killer.
Her murder, which occurred two weeks after a similar — yet non- fatal — attack, underscores the ongoing problems that have plagued Newton for nearly a decade and prompted the Newton Community Association to schedule a public safety meeting for 7 p. m. tonight at the Newton Seniors Centre.
The tragedy has reverberated beyond the Surrey neighbourhood, with calls of condolences coming in from hockey clubs from as far away as Sweden and Hong Kong.
The Langley Rivermen Jr. A hockey team held a 50/ 50 draw at their game on Sunday, while two trust funds have been set up for Paskall’s family. Shawara and others are also planning a massive candlelight vigil, at which thousands of people are expected to celebrate Paskall’s life, once a date has been confirmed by the city.
The vigil is expected to be held ahead of Paskall’s funeral, which is slated to be a quiet affair for family and close friends only, Shawara said.
“We’ve got constant calls and stuff going on,” he said. “We’ve been hearing from people from all over the place.”
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said Paskall’s murder “has just really shocked all of us to the core.”
“Our focus, first and foremost, is to gather any information from the general public and make sure this person is taken off the streets,” she said. “( The police) are working around the clock on this.”
But Newton resident Doug Elford maintains the situation has been getting progressively worse in Newton over the past eight years, and is asking the public to “check their emotions” when they attend the public meeting and help come up with solutions to make the community safer.
“It’s easy to rant and scream but the bottom line is this guy is still out there,” he said. “We need to take ownership of our neighbourhood.”
Elford maintains the community needs more foot and bike police patrols to help combat rising crime levels, noting that some argue crime has shifted from Whalley as the city re- develops that area into the new City Centre. And it’s not just Newton that is worried: communities like Cloverdale and Sullivan fear the crime will shift to them next.
“We’ve been lobbying council for years to clean up Newton,” he said. “We’ve seen a real escalating fear. All I ask anyone to do is walk down our street and talk to anyone and see what they think.”
Watts said she understands the level of frustration being faced by Newton residents. She maintains the city has already added increased foot patrols to the Newton area and will be improving light and sightlines. It will also revisit a plan to cut back some of the heritage trees in the area, which have long been considered problematic but were kept because residents didn’t want them cut down.
“I can absolutely appreciate the sense of frustration and anger the residents in Newton have,” she said. “We’ve had our share of frustrations on a number of fronts too.”
Watts cited TransLink for refusing to relocate the Newton Exchange, which would allow the city to redevelop the entire Newton Recreation complex. She also pinned some of the blame on the provincial and federal governments for allowing a proliferation of unregulated recovery houses for people with mental illness or addictions, which can be set up anywhere in the city, as well as mass congregations of refugees.
If the city knew where these pockets of groups were, she said, it would have a better idea of how to deal with them in terms of services and infrastructure. “There are some recovery houses that are good and other that turn into drug houses,” she said. “That’s been our largest stumbling block in terms of trying to grapple with all of these folks being placed in the community.”
She noted the city’s task force, set up three weeks ago, will continue to deal with these issues.
Meanwhile, police received several tips after canvassing the area Saturday night but Integrated Homicide Investigation Team spokesman Sgt. Adam MacIntosh said police still need the public’s help.
“The guys are working very hard but it’s more about public assistance ... somebody out there might have that piece of information that we need,” he said.