- Joined
- Apr 20, 2020
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If you search the title I quoted you might be able to find it for free in a different newspaper like Niagara This Week. The summary of it is essentially that Niagara is seeing a large influx of violent crime stemming from organized crime and gang activity that has set its sights on Niagara because it has many colleges and Universities and tourist-driven attractions like casinos and thus a very active nightlife. Criminals are essentially throwing after parties and using them to sell drugs, weapons and people and Police are struggling to apprehend them because they are short-lived pop-up parties that disipate before they ever learn of them. They are also stealing cars and selling them overseas. There have been drive-by shootings and the average annual homicide rate went from 4 to 14 in one year.
I see that Residents often follow a Facebook page "Niagara 411" and in the comments you can see that residents frequently describe the cities as unrecognizable. You can also see there are patterns of suicides that seem to repeat over and over again. One pattern is of people jumping off a bridge in St. Catharines that has since had something built to prevent suicides. A second pattern is people again jumping off a bridge into a hydro canal in Niagara Falls, or going over the falls. And then a third emerging pattern seems to be people walking away from a bar after a night of drinking and vanishing off the face of tbe Earth only to be discovered in many places along Lake Ontario. Alcohol is a depressant and that can be very dangerous for people with mood disorders. Bar culture can seem social but it can also be a thin vaneer as this group of people tend to be avoiding facing their own problems so they're not likely to pry into anyone else's too deeply. One can end up feeling very alone in a sea full of hollow people. It's sad really.
I do not know this man so I can only speculate about possibilities.
If he's a creature of habit, then he's going to follow a routine. If he couldn't find Swiss Chalet, he's either going to a familiar second best or giving up abd going home. Why didn't he make it home?
Did he suffer a medical emergency, if so, why hasn't his car been found? It would be somewhere between a business offering food and home.
As time goes on and he's not found, it gets a bit more grim. Did he smoke? Did he stop to get smokes or gas and ask someone for directions? Would he allow a stranger into his car if they offered to show him in exchange for a lift?
Did he have other vices that could put him into harms way? Did he have stressor in his life that maybe he was hiding from family and friends that might make him a risk to himself?
I don't think anything is really off the table. I really feel for that family. I hope they find him soon.
