Wednesday, October 7, 2009

OPP Camp break ins

Ontario Provincial Police are reminding camp owners to lock their summer homes up tight before leaving for the winter.

Valuables should be removed or hidden out of the sight of possible burglers.

Constable Dave Cain adds in the late fall unwanted animal guests may also show up to raid your garbage.

Cain notes burglers have broken into camps in the Kenora and Sioux Narrows over the winter and stolen electronics and alcohol.

OPPA Levi Schaeffer

More than three months following a fatal shooting in northwestern Ontario, details have been released into the death of a 25 year old Peterborough man near Pickle Lake.

The Ontario Provincial Police Assoication says they recently discovered the circustances surrounding the death of Levi Schaeffer on June 24th on Osnaburgh Lake.

Karl Walsh is president of the OPPA and says he's concerned that the director of the Special Investigations Unit did not include the details of the incident in his final report.

Walsh says the incident took place after officers confronted Schaeffer after receiving reports of a stolen boat.

He says Schaeffer had a knife and threatened the officers and backed them into an area they couldn't get out of.

One of the officers fire in self-defense, killing Schaeffer.

Fatal Accident Rainy River

A post-mortem is being carried out today at Lake of the Woods District Hospital on a 63 year old Emo man killed in an industrial accident.

The OPP say the accident involved a grader which had been working on the Turtle River Road in the Rainy River District yesterday morning.

Ambulence and fire crews were dispatched from Fort Frances.

The deceased has been identified as Larry Mann.

An investigator from the Ministry of Labor has been brought in to look into the incident.

Mining Act

Progressive Conservative Randy Hillier says the Ontario government is pushing through its reforms to the Mining Act without enough debate.

The government ended discussion on the bill with a vote of 56 to 30.

Hillier, a critic for northern affairs, mining and forestry, says that it's too soon to end the discussion because several stakeholders still have problems with the bill.

He says a committee sat for only 5-sessions and only 1-Liberal member spoke.

The new Mining Act was brought in this spring to modernize outdated provisions and address conflicts between prospectors and private landowners.

Hammond Reef

Drilling has started on the Hammond Reef Gold property north of Atikokan.

Vancouver-based Brett Resources says the work is to further examine a potentially large gold deposit in the area and to seek out new deposits.

The drilling program is to be completed by the fall of 2010.

Laurentian Dryden

Laurentian Goldfields has wrapped up its summer exploration program on its Van Horne project south of Dryden.

The Vancouver based company is now developing targets for a winter drilling program.

Drill targets will be selected using geochemical and geophysical data.Laurentian has more than 3-thousand hectares of mining claims in the area.

Bootlegger Charged

A 75-year-old Fort Frances man faces charges following an investigation into an illegal liquor sales operation in the community.

Provincial police charged Edward Teeple after a nearly two-week probe into illegal liquor sales in which several individuals, many of whom were under aged, had purchased alcohol from a resident.

Teeple is appear in court this week on charges of unlawfully keeping Liquor for sale, unlawfully selling liqour and selling to a Person Who Appears Under 19 Years.