Teen revels in making mockery of justice

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/06/2008 (6504 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She laughed at the death of a Winnipeg cab driver. She’s snubbed her nose at court orders. And now the 16-year-old who’s been called the “poster girl for auto-theft groupies” appears to be taking great delight in mocking the justice system.

The teen – who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act – has recently gone online with a series of photos and comments that will likely further raise the public’s collective blood pressure.

One image posted on the Internet less than two weeks ago shows her smirking and prominently displaying her electronic monitoring bracelet – the very device she’s accused of trying to saw off earlier last week, resulting in her latest re-arrest.

There are also two photos of the horrific March 29 crash that killed Antonio Lanzellotti and seriously injured a passenger in his taxi. The girl uses the caption “(expletive) deaaadly!” to describe one of them.

“I’m flabbergasted,” the girl’s mother told the Free Press Friday in an exclusive interview outside her North End home. The woman and her husband have been praised by the courts for trying to keep their daughter in line – including twice turning her into police because of breaches – and say they are at a loss to explain her continued shocking behaviour.

The girl pleaded guilty on June 4 to being one of seven occupants in a stolen, speeding SUV that struck Lanzellotti on Portage Avenue. They were racing with another stolen vehicle filled with seven other youths.

She was sentenced to two years probation in addition to the time she had already served in custody.

Her case made national headlines after court heard of chilling statements she made to police following her arrest, including a claim that she “didn’t care” about Lanzellotti and that he “had to die sometime anyway.” She was also seen smiling, laughing and twirling her hair as stunned police officers looked on.

Online, the teen has posted media reports detailing her role in the crash, suggesting that she’s enjoying all the attention.

“Holy, caan’t get enouugh of me,” the teen quips in a headline topping one of the articles.

She and her friends make light of her newly-found “hardcore” status inside Winnipeg’s auto-theft subculture in a separate gallery of recently-posted pictures.

She was released from custody following her initial sentencing, but has been re-arrested twice since for breaching the conditions of her probation.

The last incident was on Monday, just days after being released on the first breach. She was caught tampering with the ankle-bracelet by probation officers and re-arrested and now remains in custody.

She was the first female to be fitted with one of the devices under Manitoba’s auto theft strategy.

“Can uu be anymore stupider. Seee uuu when ever uuu qet out,” one of her friends writes online.

Beyond the teen’s seeming inability to grasp the seriousness of the incident and flagrant disregard of court orders and measures intended to help turn her life around, her Internet presence also shines a light on what may have caused the downward spiral in her behaviour.

At her June 12 sentencing, hearing for breaching her probation only four days into her sentence, provincial court Judge Heather Pullan was told that it’s only been in the last year or so that the teen’s actions have become unmanageable.

Online, it becomes clear that the suicide death of a teenage friend almost exactly a year ago has had a great impact on her life and behaviour.

Last July, the Free Press reported that a 14-year-old girl had killed herself after jumping off a 6th floor balcony after becoming distraught while at a West Kildonan house party.

The girl was a ward of CFS and on a weekend visit to Winnipeg from the northern reserve where she lived. She was also the laughing car thief’s best friend, according to her mother.

“That has had a real big impact on her,” she said Friday, noting the one-year anniversary is next Tuesday. She arranged grief counselling for her daughter, but she refused to attend.

“She just shuts down,” said her mother.

“Kids that age shouldn’t be losing their friends, not that way.”

CFS has never commented on the teen’s death, but the province’s chief medical examiner was called in to investigate the circumstances. Friends later confirmed it was a suicide.

In an excerpt from her online memorial, the 16-year-old details the relationship she had with her friend:

“You took something from all of us, but you gave something back, I don’t know what that is yet, but I’ll find out,” she writes.

The girl’s mother refuses to believe her daughter is as cold-hearted as it would appear.

“She did say to me recently ‘Mom, how do you think Mrs. Lanzellotti feels?’ I told her to image someone close to her dying. And she said ‘I already have’,” she said.

One of the conditions of the girl’s release into the community has been not to associate with the other 13 occupants of the stolen vehicles involved in the deadly crash.

Yet it appears officials at the Manitoba Youth Centre are paying little regard to that order – the Free Press has learned the teen was put in a cell following her arrest Monday with another female who is charged in the incident.

“Talk about sending a mixed message to her,” a justice source said Friday.

Earlier this week, the Free Press detailed a few of the challenges faced by youth correctional officers at the MYC as they try and keep order in an overcrowded, gang-infested facility.

MYC Staff are forced to try and house gang-members according to street affiliations to quell violent outbreaks.

According to the MYC’s superintendent, 60 per cent of all inmates at the Doncaster Street facility have some gang-connection, causing staff to be intensely wary of who’s being put in a cell together.

The girl’s next court appearance is July 7.

james.turner@freepress.mb.ca www.mikeoncrime.com

No remorse

A 16-year-old girl was among

13 occupants of two stolen

vehicles involved in a fatal crash

March 29, and she’s enjoying

the notoriety.

‘Holy, caan’t get

enouugh of me’

— her own words on a website

But the girl’s mother has been

praised for trying to help, including

once turning her in.

‘I’m flabbergasted’

— girl’s mother

The girl was ordered to stay

away from others involved in

the crash, but after arrest for

breach of probation, was placed

in a cell with one of them.

‘Talk about sending a

mixed message to her’

— a justice source

Her whole attitude may be tied

to a friend’s suicide last year.

‘You took something

from all of us, but you

gave something back’

— her own words in an online

memorial to her friend