Hammer threat leads to conditional sentence
By Delon Shurtz on April 21, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
A woman who caused a commotion at a fast-food restaurant and threatened an employee with a hammer, has been ordered to spend time in custody, but in her home, not jail.
Gloria Brave Rock was handed a six-month conditional sentence Friday after she pleaded guilty to charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, assault with a weapon, and assault.
On Aug. 16, 2019, Brave Rock got into an altercation with some patrons at the McDonald’s restaurant on 3 Avenue South, and was told by staff to leave. Brave Rock began yelling and accusing staff of being racist, and threatened to kill one of the employees and cut off his head.
The woman threw a pair of sunglasses at the employee, swung her fist at other people, and finally left the restaurant, but returned a few minutes later with a hammer. Other people in the restaurant fled, and the employee, who was on the phone with police dispatch, ran to the back of the building and hid while Brave Rock searched for him.
When police arrived with guns and Tasers drawn, Brave Rock got down on her knees and was handcuffed, but continued to yell and scream.
The woman also pleaded guilty to breaching probation and breaching release conditions.
Brave Rock had been ordered not to go to McDonald’s, but when the intoxicated woman returned to the restaurant, staff recognized her from the previous incident and police were called. Brave Rock had also been previously bound by an order to report to probation, and she failed to report on several occasions.
Crown Prosecutor Adam Zelmer recommended a “short, sharp” jail sentence of one or two months, plus one year probation.
Lethbridge lawyer Miranda Hlady suggested, however, a suspended sentence, and said Brave Rock needs to avoid custody so she can complete job search training, and continue helping her ailing mother raise several nieces and nephews.
Hlady said her client has remained out of trouble recently, made strides in her life, and is remorseful and ashamed for her actions.
“When I’m sober, I’m not that person,” Brave Rock told the judge. “I’m not happy with myself.”
Medicine Hat Judge Michelle Christopher said nothing would be served putting Brave Rock in jail, especially since she is needed at home with her mother. Christopher also noted concerns relating to the “over-incarceration” of First Nations people.
As part of Brave Rock’s probation, she must stay away from McDonald’s, avoid any contact with the employee she threatened, and be assessed for counseling as directed by her probation officer.
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Brave rock said, “When I’m sober, I’m not that person,” Brave Rock told the judge.
This is BS.
Alcohol intoxication removes inhibition to expose one’s true thoughts and desires. Alcohol intoxication allows you to say the words and do the actions that are truly in your heart. In this case it exposed the internal anger, hatred, and violence. These are all learned negative emotions from childhood.
Aside from that, it’s just another example amongst endless, that allow intoxicated Indigenous people to continuously harm themselves and others without repercussions. Our municipal politicians bury their heads on the matter, and ignorant “pat me on the back do gooder” people erroneously claim the Indigenous issue is caused by poverty. Due to all of this, no one is addressing the real issue Indigenous people are facing, let alone doing anything of value to help them.
Lawyer Hlady said her client has remained out of trouble recently, made strides in her life, and is remorseful and ashamed for her actions.
Remorseful my ass. She’s so remorseful, but did the same thing twice. Remorseful would have been going back and apologizing after she did it the first time. Truth is, she’s only remorseful that she got caught.
The statement is also BS given her current criminal behavior and previous breaches of probation and breaching of release conditions
The judge, also noted concerns relating to the “over-incarceration” of First Nations people.
Yet even more BS.
Here’s an idea: Stop hurting people and you won’t go to jail. Oh and by the way, that over incarceration thing? The Lethbridge jail has an overabundance of Indigenous people simply because per capita, Indigenous people are committing virtually all of the “street crime”. Well, never mind per capita…they’re committing most of the street crime despite being a very tiny percentage of the population. Everyone knows this, but most are too afraid to say it. Regardless, to allow people to continuously harm others because their race is “over represented in jail” is absolute idiocy. It’s typical of bleeding heart people that always cause more harm than good.
Just chiming in to say ” here here “. Great comment Seth
Per capita white men make up the most amount of pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers by a WIDE margin.
I think that should be a racialized hallmark us settler descendants should chime in before every single time we start picking on Indigenous people.
You said, “Per capita white men make up the most amount of pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers by a WIDE margin.”
Ya, so? How is that relevant to the discussion?
This, and similar past discussions are in relation to what is occurring in Lethbridge. More specifically, virtually no repercussions for Indigenous people that continuously harm others (Gladue is a part of this). In addition this and similar discussions refer to our politicians that not only ignore causes, but ignore the issue as a whole. A shocking 39% of babies born on the Blood Reserve are born addicted to narcotics. It’s even more shocking that the statistic does not include the percentage born with FAS. This is an atrocity that should be headline news, but no one that I can see is addressing what is causing this, let alone doing anything of value to help them.
I probably should elaborate on my poverty comment.
This is from a previous letter to the editor in which the author stated:
“The discussion around people experiencing homelessness, addictions, and disrupted mental health continues apace both in this paper and in other venues around the city. It is worth noting the problem is largely poverty”.
I replied with:
I suggest that the author’s conclusion of, “the problem is largely poverty” is incorrect.
The first problem with the author’s statement, is that the term “poverty” is generic and subjective. As such, the term would need to be defined before a conclusion can be drawn regarding such. For example, is poverty being on the verge of starving and/or freezing to death? Is poverty living in a grass hut while having to hunt for food? Is poverty having to live in small apartment and not a house? Is poverty not being able to go to a restaurant once a week? Is poverty not being able to buy a new iPhone every year? Is poverty not being able to afford a vehicle? The question then begs, “Is what people consider poverty, often just a desire to have luxuries that other people have”?
The second problem with the author’s statement is that reality disproves her conclusion. Millions of people all over the globe have lived and currently live, in poverty, yet only a miniscule fraction of those resort to aberrant behavior. The same could be said if we reduce the sample size down to North America, then Canada, then Lethbridge.
Whether or not someone who grows up in poverty becomes addicted, is fundamentally determined by how they were raised through the alleged poverty. For example, let’s take two hypothetical and identical families that are living in poverty. One family raises kids that all have substance abuse problems, the other family raises kids that have no substance abuse problems. So what was the difference? The difference is that in one of the families the children were taught (either inadvertently or advertently) to be ashamed and have a low self esteem. The other families taught the children to be proud and confident. This all leads back to a previous post of mine in this thread that states that the type of addiction in question, is fundamentally caused by teaching kids shame and anger.
BTW- If you don’t agree with my position and want to debate it, then please start your rebuttal by defining poverty, then showing how your definition of poverty leads to addiction.
i do not agree that jail be avoided simply because there are too many of a group represented there already. jail should not fall under the same nonsense “thinking” as does the faux “equal opportunity employer” approach. in reality, that was just another form of discrimination, whereby white saxon males are denied equal opportunity.
that said, seth, the following comment you have posted is without merit: “Alcohol intoxication removes inhibition to expose one’s true thoughts and desires. Alcohol intoxication allows you to say the words and do the actions that are truly in your heart.” and, right on through both of those paragraphs. to that i not only call bs, but also wonder whether you are aware of what is arrogance. you have demonstrated no understanding of the effects of heavy alcohol consumption; you have demonstrated no understanding of poverty. and no, i am not going to get into semantics around defining poverty. however, there are a plethora of robust and compelling studies on the significant and adverse effects of poverty on groups and individuals. some are equipped and strong enough to get beyond, many are not.
What I’ve stated in regards to alcohol intoxication is well established. That’s why it is known as a truth serum. When intoxicated, people lose their inhibition (sense of repercussion), and start doing and saying what is “in their heart”, but are afraid to say or do when sober. Heck, that’s alcohol intoxication 101. Losing inhibition to be free to do and say “what you really feel”, is one of the main reasons people enjoy getting drunk. Ironically, it’s also the main reason people regret getting drunk 🙂
In regards to my poverty statements, again: Start your rebuttal by defining poverty, then showing how your definition of poverty leads to addiction. If you can’t do that, then you’ve got nothing but an unproven opinion.
Oh and by the way, you said to me “You have demonstrated no understanding of the effects of heavy alcohol consumption”. Well, that is your assumption. In fact, I used to be a severe alcoholic.
you are strong to have been able to quit – very well done!
i will agree only so far as to say that alcohol undermines one’s ability to filter thoughts and restrain actions – it lends to behaviour ruled by compulsion. however, one’s words and behaviours while drunk are not always expressions of what one truly wishes.
Thank you 🙂 It was a few years of hell under the guise of heaven.
You said, “One’s words and behaviours while drunk are not always expressions of what one truly wishes“.
To which I would say “They are expressions of what one truly wishes if there were no repercussions”… And of course, alcohol intoxication removes the repercussions aspect
Regardless, can you please provide an example of your point?
we all have a myriad of thoughts and impulses we filter and regulate many times over throughout a day. some are dreams/wishes that are not likely to ever materialise for us; some are angry – ie “i could kill that fkr”; some are sexual in nature; some are completely more irrational; some are without issue or concern at all if we acted…and so on. if we had no inhibitions, no concern for others, we would then act with random abandon, but seeing we all were as such, it would be normal. but, that is not the case as “normal” people are able to control their impulses and can separate what is realistic from what is fantasy or acceptable/permissive. drugs like alcohol blur and weaken our impulse control (i meant impulsive and not compulsion in the previous entry). consequently, without our usual ability to access our developed self controls and ability to self regulate, our actions can easily be hurtful and violent. even people that are not otherwise violent/aggressive can become prone to such behaviour when under the influence. we can also lose control due to the sudden onset of severe emotion, such as anger. hence, just as when we are angry, alcohol can also undermine our ability to conduct ourselves in the manner that is normal for oneself: we will say things or act in ways that are unusual and out of character for us.
btw; this is a significant issue with those impacted by fasd. the ability to self regulate, to consider the big picture, to control impulse…is severely compromised. i do not at all say that those with fasd should be permitted to behave in an anti-social ways in society. what i say is they need support so as to humanely protect them – and everyone else. it would cost less to provide ongoing supports and interventions than does jail and the legal system; it would be more humane; and it would protect us all far better than turfing them to the streets at age 18.
always great to interact with you, seth, whether we are on the same or not 🙂
I enjoy are conversations as well.
Alcohol intoxication doesn’t create new thoughts. It merely reduces inhibition (sense of repercussions) to expose thoughts and emotions that already existed. When sober, those thoughts and emotions are “covered” by inhibition. For example, if someone gets drunk and starts yelling out obscene racist slurs, it’s not because the alcohol magically made them a racist. They were already a racist. Alcohol just brought it out into the open.
As the old saying goes: “A drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.”
to reduce what i just wrote: we all have thoughts that stream ongoing through our consciousness. many of them are rooted in fear: insecurity, envy, mistrust and so forth. among the thoughts that come from that realm will be thoughts that are, in a nutshell, nasty and antisocial, and many of those are effects of from what we have seen or heard and otherwise have been socialised into considering. however, simply because we have these thoughts does not make us whatever the thought pertains to. how we act out is another matter. alcohol, in fact undermines our real selves; perhaps, it makes us more who we are not, subject to the lower order self that cannot regulate impulses. there may be exceptions, but those would likely be people that do not care about how their actions affect others when they are sober, too.
none of this is to say alcohol should be used as an excuse so one can hurt another.
https://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17127/1/Does-Your-True-Self-Come-Out-When-Youre-Drunk.html
https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/does-alcohol-reveal-the-real-you
https://drugfree.org/drug-and-alcohol-news/study-helps-explain-how-alcohol-affects-self-control/
I just read your links and cracked up when I read this:
It’s often quoted that when we are drunk our ‘true selves’ come out. Thus we are more likely to say the things we really mean and do the things we really want to. At times this can seem like a nice sentiment even – particularly when we’re drunkenly phoning our parents to tell them we love them, or texting our friends to tell them how important they are to us. Aww, that’s your ‘true self’…
But then you go on to pull your pants down in the pub, and to run around with a traffic cone on your head only to wake up the next morning in prison. So your true self is… a jackass?
LMAO!
I agree with the biological aspects that are presented in the links, but I don’t think they took it far enough. I don’t think they quite “nailed it”. Let’s keep in mind that it’s typically rather terrifying to know your (often) subconscious thoughts, so the safe position is, “I was drunk, so it wasn’t really me”.
If the assertions proposed in your links were fully true, then everyone who got drunk would act the same. They would all express “primal violence”. Yet, obviously they don’t. That’s because we all differ in our thoughts.
Here’s an example:
At a club you’ll see people getting drunk and wanting to physically express themselves. Most will physically express their intoxicated state by dancing. A small percentage will want to physically express themselves in a violent way. There the one’s you see breaking bottles and picking fights.
The difference between the drunken dancer and the drunken fighter, is one has subconscious and/or conscious violent thoughts (anger), and one does not.
also, i agree it is not alcohol that would make one racist or antisocial: it is the effect that alcohol has on undermining the part of the brain that elevates us. it is powerful stuff – it can undo millions of years of evolution and reduce us to near or absolutely our most primitive incarnation.
an example – i think i have one: i see an item in a store i really want, but i either do not have the money to spare, or do not like the price. my evolved self directs me out of the store without said item. i made a good choice; but because i thought about it does not make me a thief. (perhaps in a heavily drunken state i may not be able to exercise higher order restraint and might act impulsively and steal the item; the action would indeed make me a thief, and if i did not wish to remain one i would at least return the item back to whence it came).
now, there may be cases where getting drunk is purposeful toward wanting to be able to act aggressively/antisocially. getting drunk in order to behave that way is another matter. however, the difference is that the decision is made while sober, whilst still the true self. to that end, if someone is usually getting into trouble while drunk, and is not trying very hard to stop getting drunk, then perhaps they are looking for an excuse to be their truer self.
but, as you will know, overcoming an addiction takes a ton of commitment and strength, and not everyone is there yet. hence, we have a fine line as to whether one is getting drunk to be their truer self, or is getting drunk simply because they are not yet capable of stopping.
imagine, if one will, how absolutely the difficulty to stop drinking will be compounded for those that have reduced capacity for impulse control even without alcohol. and for those affected by fasd – which, please all keep in mind, they never asked for or deserved, and which cannot be reversed – that person would have been drenched in alcohol considerably while developing into a person. talk about normalising alcohol for that entity. i suspect the first time they consume alcohol as a non-fetus would be like a home coming party.
You said:
I see an item in a store i really want, but i either do not have the money to spare, or do not like the price. my evolved self directs me out of the store without said item. i made a good choice; but because i thought about it does not make me a thief. (perhaps in a heavily drunken state i may not be able to exercise higher order restraint and might act impulsively and steal the item; the action would indeed make me a thief.
Thank you for finally giving me an example 🙂
Before I can reply to your example, I need you to clear something up. When you said, “I thought about”, are you saying that when in the store while sober, you momentarily thought about stealing the item?
The following bolded quotes are from your links. Note how they actually agree with my position:
But is alcohol really a truth serum? The short answer is yes, but only for the kind of truth that leaks out of a brain that’s not working too well.
That statement agrees with my position but with the caveat “not working too well”. Well ya, it’s not working too well because one is not thinking about the repercussions of their thoughts. The point being, it is still their thoughts (either consciously or subconsciously)
“Booze makes you less careful about what you say and making “Drunk You” a stupid, brakes-off version of “Real You.”
That statement outright agrees with my position.
If the assertions proposed in your links were fully true, then everyone who got drunk would exhibit the same emotions, words, and actions. Yet, reality (not theory like in your links) proves that there are many kinds of drunken behavior based on the individual. That’s because we all differ in our conscious and subconscious thoughts, and those deep (often masked) personal thoughts, ultimately determines our behavior when intoxicated.
we might now be at apples and oranges. yes, we all think differently and we all have varying random thoughts, fantasies, hopes and dreams, priorities etc. among that streaming of thought and mind chatter will come scenarios that are irrational/rational, social/antisocial. however, because we think something does not make it real; things are real only when we choose and act. it is our ability to invoke our executive reasoning/function capacity that determines what we really are (notwithstanding our higher selves as spiritual energies, if one wishes to believe so). alcohol undermines our executive functioning.
put another way, i cannot fathom that we are our most real when drunk. among other things, that would suggest only those that have consumed alcohol display real behaviour, and we otherwise are each faking it whilst sober. i see it instead that we are most who we are through our actions; and, we are able to be our best when our executive functions are not impaired.
the only condition i can see where alcohol manifests our true self is when we choose to drink so that we can act in way that we find difficult whilst sober. as i have stated already, that choice is made while sober, while able to access our executive functions, and as such, it becomes a reflection of our real self.
perhaps it can sum up as intention. am i getting drunk to be an idiot; am i staying sober because i am an idiot when i drink.
i will look for a reply if you wish to make another entry. but i will leave it at this, or that. thanks again, seth, for taking time to go deep on an issue – cheers 🙂
No further replies from me as well. I think we have gone as far as we can on this topic.
Thanks for the interaction Biff. It was fun 🙂
Just here to point out how the clearly Indigenous named individual who THREATENED someone with a hammer received 7 comments from local yokel herald commentators.
Meanwhile in the same issue of the herald the NON Indigenous person who actually assaulted an old lady with a hot cup of coffee to the face while stealing to supply her drug habit gets no comments at all.
First, how do you know she’s not Indigenous?
Second, the two stories were posted at once. I chose to post my comments in this story becauses my comments would have been similar for both stories, but this story had a lot more BS I wanted to comment on.
Third, just because no one posted in that thread, doesn’t negate the points made here.
Fourth, do you have anything of value to add to the discussion,
or are you content with your insult that is void of substance?