Canada Valentine’s Day massacre foiled in Halifax area.

Canada Valentine’s Day massacre foiled in Halifax area. (WFP).

A senior police official said on Friday police foiled a plot by two suspects who were planning on going to a mall and killing as many people as they could before killing themselves on Valentines Day in Halifax.

The official told The Associated Press the suspects were on a chat stream and were apparently obsessed with killing and death and had many photos of mass killings. Police and other officials said it was not related to Islamic terrorism.

The official said one of the two suspects, a 23-year-old American woman from Geneva, Illinois, was arrested at Halifax’s airport and confessed to the plot. The official said she pre-wrote a number of pronouncements to be tweeted after her death.

The official said the 19-year-old male shot himself to death after police surrounded his parent’s home. The official said after police were tipped off about the plot they surrounded his home. Police saw his parents leave the house and called the man. As the man told police that he didn’t have any guns and he was on his way out of the house he shot himself, the official said.

Police received information from the public on Thursday morning of a potential significant weapons-related threat. The information suggested a 19-year-old Halifax-area man and a 23-year old woman from Geneva, Ill., had access to firearms, Brennan said.

“We received a threat that individuals were planning on targeting a public venue in Halifax, to go there and commit mass killings of civilians and to ultimately kill themselves,” Brennan, the senior Mountie in the province, said in a phone interview Friday night.

“Given the public venue that we believe was to be targeted, there was the potential for significant casualties and injury to citizens.” Brennan would not say which venue was being targeted.

He says two other male suspects, ages 20 and 17, were also involved, although he says investigators were still trying to determine what their role was.

Brennan said firearms have been seized, although he could not say what kind, how many, or where the weapons were seized.

“The weapons seized had the ability to inflict a lot of casualties if used in a populated area,” said Brennan.

Brennan said the 20-year-old man and 23-year-old woman were arrested around 2 a.m. at the Halifax airport. He said the woman was arriving on a plane and the man was there to meet her.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested around 11 a.m. in the Halifax area, he said. Brennan said all three suspects remain in police custody and there's no word on charges.

Brennan would not characterize the alleged plot as terrorism, saying the views of the individuals "were not based in religion or culture."

"(These) people were of the same destructive mindset," he said, although he would not elaborate on the nature of their mindset. Brennan said he's "extremely confident" that all participants in the incident have been arrested. "We're very, very confident that we got all those that we needed to get," he said. "There is no further threat... to the general public."

Judge: ‘Let’s Burn the Jew’ not Racism, Even if you Burn a Jew.

Judge: ‘Let’s Burn the Jew’ not Racism, Even if you Burn a Jew.(JN).By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus.

A high school student grabbed a Jewish female classmate, held a lighter to her hair and said out loud, “let’s burn the Jew,”  but a Canadian judge concluded that the incident was “not racially motivated.”

The incident between two 15 year old Winnipeg, Canada high school students took place in 2010.

The lawyer for the defendant claimed, essentially, it was the girl’s fault her hair caught on fire.

He said his client grabbed the girl, lit the lighter and made the comments, but her hair caught fire when she pulled away. 

He also said that referring to the girl as “the Jew” was simply the way people interacted at the school, and the defendant was not the only one who called her that. He referred to his client as “a jerk and a bully,” but said the incident was “impulsive and unplanned.”

The defendant’s therapist claimed the incident was an “impulsive teenage action.”

Winnipeg’s Provincial Court Judge Robert Finlayson, before whom the trial was held, agreed with the defense. While he called the act “totally vulgar and inappropriate,” Finlayson said he was satisfied it was not racially motivated.

Given the judge was unwilling to classify saying “let’s burn the Jew” and then actually grabbing a Jew and burning her hair as anti-Semitic, perhaps he should be praised for also stating that the school culture in which this kind of incident was commonplace was “unhealthy and dark and there’s no place for it in society.”

The victim claimed the incident “changed her world upside down.” She needed therapy to deal with her fears.  She also believes that the people in the school blamed her for making a big deal of the incident.Read the full story here.