General Crimes Thread

Looks like there is an ongoing police operation in Montreal, centered on the Ubisoft office in the city.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-police-ubisoft-1.5801236

Other sources are calling it a potential hostage situation, but the situation is still developing.

I think a bunch of hostages just got released; people are still trapped on the roof.

From what I understand, this is not related to Ubisoft. Apparently some criminals headed into the building and took hostages.

The police won't even confirm the presence of intruders, just saw a CBC interview.

The roof employees are being escorted out of the building by SWAT. Police say they haven't identified any threat; this looks like a swatting (apparently, the Montreal police do maximum response to reported shootings these days).

EDIT: Yup, it's been confirmed that it was a prank call from within the Ubisoft building. Somebody is gonna get fired. And possibly arrested.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Nov 13th 2020 at 1:47:34 AM

Wow. That is harsh. Swatting your own office.

They had better be arrested for this. They cost the city of Montreal thousands during a pandemic, traumatized a lot of people, and diverted critical resources towards a fucking "joke".

That merits fines, and prison time.

Swatters are pure scumfucks.

~Dirtyblue 229 Do you have a source that confirms its an internal prank?

If it was an internal prank, it may not even fall under Swatting. That person will likely face heavier charges than that would suggest.

Couldn't find evidence it was a prank, but Montreal police tweeted an hour ago that they didn't identify a threat yet and were evacuating the building.

I found a source that says it was a prank.

WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK. I was scared shirtless and it turns out to be a freaking prank?!

Find them. Find whoever pulled this stunt and ARREST THEM.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:27:58 AM

Yeah I’m pretty sure they could still face terrorism charges for that, same as calling in a fake bomb threat.

Outright terrorism charges are unlikely, unless it was done in the name of a cause or as part of a proscribed organization.

And I think both the city of Montreal and Ubisoft have a strong civil case on hand as well. This shit ain't cheap.

Yeah looking it up they’d need the act to have been committed for “ a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause,”.

That still leaves open a lot of other criminal charges, over here someone got charged with menacing communications for joke tweeting that they’d blow up an airport, they got it overturned at appeal due to the obvious joke nature of the tweet, but that’s not gonna work in this case. Plus there’s also charges that can be levied for wasting police time and misuse of emergency services, potentially even some form of intentional infliction of emotional harm onto all the companies employees.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 13th 2020 at 12:41:47 PM

The typical charges here are harassment, uttering threats and disturbing the peace. And some of the sentences tend to be on the high end. Plus you get all the administrative charges for misusing emergency services.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Nov 13th 2020 at 8:42:24 AM

Yeah that sounds about right, probably a heavy sentence considering the scale of what they did.

Well, Ubisoft has recently become infamous for having a toxic work environment and crunching its employees. (Example: the allegations going on with Tommy François engaging in sexual harassment and Michel Ancel working the Beyond Good & Evil 2 crew to the bone.)

I'm no expert on this matter, but if this prank call was done in response to the toxicity going on in Ubisoft in general, I'd say that's a probable motive.

Motive isn’t enough, it needs to be tied to a political, religious of ideological cause. So unless they’re part of some anti-Ubisoft religion/political ideology it won’t be a terrorism charge.

Dutch law enforcement’s warning people not to go vigilante and hunt down pedophiles on their own. Someone was mistaken as one and died.

Died or was killed?

He died eventually. BBC reported that an ex-teacher sustained injuries from being attacked.

Edited by Ominae on Nov 13th 2020 at 5:33:52 AM

I am guessing we are talking about this: Police, ministers and the public prosecution department have called on vigilante groups to stop hunting down people they consider to be paedophiles, following the death of a 73-year-old man. The man, a retired teacher from Arnhem, died two weeks ago after being beaten up by a group of teenagers who had set him up online to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex. It is unclear if he knew the youth was a minor and four of the teenagers remain in custody. and predictably In my region, I know of no cases where this had led to the conviction of a child abuser.

Also, if if this is to be believed the 15-year-old kid was in on the plan and did it out of boredom during the COVID-19 lockdown. ...

Along the same paedophilia-related topic line: Philippines to raise age of sexual consent from 12 to 16.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/man-arrested-after-axe-attack-on-new-zealand-parliament

NZ Police arrested someone at 5 AM local time for using an axe to bash the doors of the Parliament building.