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Monday, July 12, 2010

[CAN] RCMP Officer Sehmbi accused of killing wife - near site of another cop-on-cop domestic violence murder-suicide



RCMP Officer Tirth Sehmbi was charged with second-degree murder Sunday by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) - one day after Rajpinder Kaur Sehmbi was found slain in their home. One of her co-workers said, "She was kind of like the mom at Starbucks for us. If we needed to talk about anything we could definitely go to Raj, because she was a very approachable person."

EDMONTON RCMP OFFICER CHARGED WITH SECOND DEGREE MURDER OF WIFE
By Karl Gotthardt
Edmonton : Canada
July 12, 2010
[Excerpts] An Edmonton Police Officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been charged with Second Degree Murder of his wife. Police was called to a South Edmonton home early Saturday morning after neighbours heard shots. Police found the body of a woman. About an hour later they arrested Tarith Sehmbi in another location. Tarith Sehmbi is a seven year member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Since a policeman was involved the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) was called in to investigate the incident... [Full article here]


SLAYING OCCURRED NEAR 21-YEAR-OLD COP MURDER-SUICIDE SCENE
News Canada
By ALYSSA NOEL, QMI Agency
July 10, 2010
[Excerpts] The slaying of an RCMP officer's wife Saturday morning occurred about two kilometres from the scene of a domestic murder-suicide involving two Edmonton cops 21 years earlier. In April 1989, Const. Jerry Donovan, 34, and his wife Const. Shannon Donovan, 28, both Edmonton police officers, were found dead in their home at 5604 40 Ave., reports from the time say. Police believe Jerry, who had been an officer for 12 years, shot his wife three times with a police-issued handgun before turning it on himself. She had been an officer for seven years.... Media reports say Jerry was facing charges at the time for allegedly sexually assaulting a female police officer in December 1988... While Saturday's tragedy was a few blocks away at 44 Jefferson Rd., the proximity and similarity of the incident struck the neighbour as strange. "Not only (were the scenes close), it's really weird it's police officers," he said... [Full article here]


7/13/2010 UPDATE:

Video: [CAN] Friends of slain Rajpinder Sehmbi want her remembered
[police officer involved domestic violence oidv intimate partner violence (IPV) abuse law enforcement public safety fatality fatalities lethal murder canada mountie constable]

22 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 12, 2010

    I try to be understanding of our judicial system and that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. What I fail to understand is providing benefits to an individual that has been charged just because of his line of work. This officer will be given full pay and is suspended until a further determination can be made. How long will that take? If an individual that did not hold a government position was allegedly held for this crime would he/she be afforded the same luxury of being paid while waiting in jail? Why does the money not go to his minor children in the interim to be held in a trust account so that it benefits their care and will help to now raise them. The money could go for counselling for the children who I am sure are going to have a traumatic experience now dealing with this situation.
    What do you think?

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  2. AnonymousJuly 12, 2010

    I think: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!!! What do you want them to do, take him out and shoot him in the head??!!

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  3. AnonymousJuly 12, 2010

    The question asked was why pay him.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 13, 2010

    Why pay him? Because he's innocent until proven guilty! You can't punish him and his children by extension, by not paying him, not until he is proven to be guilty. The money that goes to him will obviously go to whoever is looking after the children, he won't be able to access the funds while he's being held in custody.

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  5. RCMP Officer Tirth Sehmbi was charged with second-degree murder Sunday by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) - one day after Rajpinder Kaur Sehmbi was found slain in their home. One of her co-workers said, "She was kind of like the mom at Starbucks for us. If we needed to talk about anything we could definitely go to Raj, because she was a very approachable person."

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  6. EDMONTON-AREA MOUNTIE MAKES FIRST COURT APEARANCE
    CTV.ca, ctvedmonton.ca
    Updated: Mon Jul. 12 2010 15:53:13
    [Excerpts] An Edmonton-area Mountie made his first court appearance Monday after being charged with the second-degree murder of his wife. Tirth Sehmbi, 36, was charged over the weekend in connection to his wife's death. Sehmbi's wife, Raj Sehmbi, was found inside their Jackson Heights home on Saturday... "It is with regret that RCMP can now confirm that Const. Tirth Sehmbi has been officially charged with second-degree murder of his wife," said Sgt. Tim Taniguchi with the RCMP. There is now suspicion surfacing about what Sehmbi may have been planning in the days leading up to the murder. A neighbour tells CTV News that Sehmbi approached him on Thursday and asked to use his holiday trailer for the weekend so that he could keep an eye on his own home... [Full article here]

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  7. ALBERTA MOUNTIE CHARGED IN WIFE'S SLAYING MAKES FIRST COURT APPEARANCE
    The Canadian Press
    By: Lisa Arrowsmith
    12/07/2010 5:02 PM
    [Excerpts] A speedy court appearance and a clerical error over a murder charge marked an Alberta Mountie's entrance into the legal system after being charged in his wife's slaying. Const. Tirth Sehmbi, 36, was led into court Monday... Sehmbi stood quietly in the prisoner's box for just a few seconds as a judge agreed to a defence request to adjourn the case until Aug. 12... Later in the day justice officials had to backtrack after a court document said that the Mountie had been charged with the more serious offence of first-degree murder. "The information that was sworn and appeared in court this morning clearly had a typo or typographical error on it and he was charged with first-degree murder," said Clifton Purvis, executive director of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team... The team is the provincial body that investigates incidents involving police and is spearheading the homicide probe into the death of Sehmbi's wife... The constable remains in custody... Taniguchi echoed previous comments made by Peter Hourihan, an RCMP assistant commissioner, who said on Saturday that there are programs to help Mounties who have personal or professional problems... Having a member charged with murder has been very difficult for Sehmbi's colleagues... [Full article here]

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  8. ...According to Mr. Dhillon, who yesterday spoke with some of Ms. Sehmbi's family members in London, England, the 29-year-old mother had lived in an abusive relationship for many years. "She was physically and mentally tortured by [Mr. Sehmbi's] family"...

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  9. RCMP OFFICER ACCUSED OF MURDERING WIFE APPEARS IN EDMONTON COURT
    National Post
    Karen Kleiss
    Monday, Jul. 12, 2010
    [Excerpts] ...Mr. Sehmbi has been suspended with pay from his job with the traffic section of the RCMP Stony Plain detachment, about 40 kilometres west of Edmonton. The professional standards division will decide whether further action, such as suspending his pay, will be taken, said Sgt. Tim Taniguchi, RCMP spokesman. “This is very difficult for the Stony Plain detachment,” he said Monday. Defence lawyer Mike Danyluik had the case adjourned until Aug. 12. Laat Bhinder, a journalist for the Punjabi newspaper Ajit Jalandhar, said outside court that the community has been unable to locate any of Rajpinder Sehmbi’s family in the Edmonton area and has started searching for relatives in India. “We sent news to India yesterday,” he said, adding a story about the killing appeared in Monday’s edition of Ajit Jalandhar. “Her family is in New Delhi”... Little is known about the victim, Rajpinder Sehmbi, but a co-worker confirmed that she worked at a Starbucks. Bhinder said she has also worked as a teaching assistant. RCMP officials say Sehmbi was married to her for about nine years. Neighbours say they often saw the constable and his two young sons outside but they never or rarely saw Mr. Sehmbi’s wife. The boys regularly played outside with other kids in the community... Ms. Hunt said she didn’t talk to Sehmbi often, but said she and her 10-year-old son saw Mr. Sehmbi and his wife fighting in the past... Police say Mr. Sehmbi’s children are now in the care of family members. They don’t believe the two boys were home when their mother was killed.... Mr. Sehmbi and his family were also active in the Gurdwara Millwoods, a Sikh temple... [Full article here]

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  10. ACCUSED MOUNTIE'S MARRIAGE WAS TROUBLED: FAMILY OF SLAIN WIFE
    Edmonton Sun
    By CANDICE WARD
    July 12, 2010 4:53pm
    [Excerpts] The arranged marriage between a slain mother-of-two and her Mountie husband was always a "stormy" one says her family, who live in the UK and India... "Rajpinder suffered ... 10 years of tortured married life," Kalvinder Ubbi, Rajpinder's aunt, told the Sun Monday from London, England... "My niece is dead. We are very traumatized by this," said Ubbi... About six months after they were married, Rajpinder, a devout Sikh, joined Tirth in Canada. Rajpinder had no immediate family in Canada, only that of her husband. In 2006, Ubbi and her husband visited Edmonton to see if they could help the couple with their marriage problems... After the 2006 visit, it became more difficult to contact Rajpinder, as phone numbers and e-mail addresses kept changing, said Ubbi. She had not heard from her niece since December. Ubbi described Rajpinder as a devoted mother. "She was the normal Indian housewife," said Ubbi. The boys — ages five and 10 — were not home at the time of the killing. They are now staying with their dad's parents. Ubbi was Monday making arrangements to visit Edmonton by week's end to help with funeral arrangements. "We are her family, we will take her to her final resting place," said Ubbi. Ubbi added that Rajpinder's parents are trying to get here from India as well... [Full article here]

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  11. MARRIAGE WAS TROUBLED: RELATIVES: RCMP officer charged with second-degree murder in wife's death
    Edmonton Journal
    By Elise Stolte And Ben Gelinas
    July 13, 2010 2:08 AM
    [Excerpts] A decade before RCMP Const. Tirth Sehmbi was charged with the murder of his wife, Rajpinder, the couple began an arranged marriage that family say was sour from the start. At one point, the Sehmbis separated for a year. When they reunited, the couple moved out of his parents' house in the hopes more privacy would help. But that served only to isolate them, a close relative of Tirth said. After the couple moved, there was no one to stop them from arguing, she said. Tirth was also showing signs of depression. "We are all in shock," said the relative, who asked not to be named. "They both needed counselling. The frustration for so long kept building. I wish I could do something, but it's too late now"... Rajpinder worked at several places after moving to Canada to be with her new husband: at various Starbucks and Sobeys locations, and in kindergarten classes at Headway School, a private Sikh elementary and junior high in Mill Woods. At Starbucks, the girls called her Raj. She was a bubbly, petite mother figure who could be counted on to dispense advice or coax out smiles between rush times, co-worker Cara Levesque said... Rajpinder worked full time with Levesque at the Mill Woods Town Centre Starbucks for about two years, and they became good friends as part of a team... "She fit right in with us. She was kind of like a big kid herself, but she was also a mom when she needed to be," Levesque said. "She was kind of like the mom at Starbucks for us. If we needed to talk about anything we could definitely go to Raj, because she was a very approachable person"... Rajpinder and Tirth were married in a ceremony held in New Delhi 10 years ago. Family on both sides say the arranged marriage was rife with difficulties. "We gave her away for him to love her, look after her, cherish her, regardless of the marital problems they were having," Rajpinder's aunt, Kalvinder Ubbi, told Global News... When [Rajpinder] went back to India a few years ago to visit her parents, family say Tirth paid for only a one-way ticket. Ubbi said her family had difficulty getting Rajpinder home to her children and had little help from Tirth... "She came back and clung to those kids as if that was the last thing on Earth for her." When the couple separated in 2004, Rajpinder went back to India for a year, but her parents encouraged her to return to Canada and try again, the relative close to Tirth said... In Sikh culture, a woman's brothers will be her advocate if a marriage is failing. But women like Rajpinder leave all those supports behind, and in the stress of trying to set up in a new country - including working, taking care of children and making meals - there is little time for women to develop their own support structure of friends... "She's dependant on her husband, and her social structure is based around that"... A four-bed shelter for South Asian women opened three months ago, she said. But the issue of violence against women isn't just an issue in one community. Twenty-one years ago, in a home just two kilometres from the Sehmbis' house, a police officer killed his wife before committing suicide. "This is not about Sikh or Hindu or Christian. This is about women," she said. "What is it about our system that doesn't pick up when people are in trouble?" [Full article here

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  12. USE OF 'HONOUR KILLING' DISPUTED
    National Post; Canwest News Service
    Kenyon Wallace
    Tuesday, Jul. 13, 2010
    [Excerpts] The producer of a Punjabi radio show hosted by Tirth Sehmbi, the Edmonton RCMP constable charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife, said yesterday the woman was not the victim of an honour killing, but rather, a "family dispute." Sukhdev Dhillon, operator of Edmonton's Radio Punjab, where Const. Sehmbi recently hosted a weekly call-in show to help newcomers adjust to life in Canada, says the city's Sikh community is "shocked" that someone of "such high stature" is alleged to have murdered his wife. "Was this an honour killing? I don't think that's the case," Mr. Dhillon said. "He seemed like a very nice gentleman.... It's too early to judge." Const. Sehmbi, 36, was arrested early on Saturday after the body of his wife of nine years, Rajpinder Sehmbi, was found in the couple's home, which they share with their two elementary school-aged boys in the upscale Jackson Heights neighbourhood. Neighbours reported hearing screaming followed by multiple gunshots in rapid succession coming from the house at about 4:20 a.m. on Saturday. According to Mr. Dhillon, who yesterday spoke with some of Ms. Sehmbi's family members in London, England, the 29-year-old mother had lived in an abusive relationship for many years. "She was physically and mentally tortured by [Mr. Sehmbi's] family," he alleged. The marriage was arranged and shaky from the start, said a relative of Const. Sehmbi. The couple had separated for a year and then got back together. They moved out of his parents' house to see if that would help, but it only isolated them more, said the relative. "Even his job didn't help him," she said. "We are all in shock. They both needed counselling. The frustration for so long kept building"... Phyllis Chesler, an emerita professor of psychology and women's studies at City University of New York, warns against labelling a murder an "honour killing" before the circumstances of the relationship are known... "Women from these kinds of families are not ever allowed to expose the abuse, go to the secular authorities for help with the abuse or return to their families of origin because of the abuse," Ms. Chesler said... [Full article here]

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  13. ...The arranged marriage between a slain mother-of-two and her Mountie husband was always a "stormy" one says her family, who live in the UK and India...

    Neighbours reported hearing screaming followed by multiple gunshots in rapid succession coming from the house at about 4:20 a.m. on Saturday...

    ..."Even his job didn't help him... We are all in shock. They both needed counselling. The frustration for so long kept building"...

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  14. AnonymousJuly 13, 2010

    HE should have thought of the children before he killed their mother. He is temporarily being paid but the decision is being made whether to continue paying him. He's paid for now. August at the hearing it may be different. We'll see then.

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  15. AnonymousJuly 13, 2010

    Sounds like Raj didn't like being property that was given away and then owned.

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  16. AnonymousJuly 13, 2010

    As much as this is shock to the Sikh community, we must realize the that occurs in every race and culture. Only you can help stop the violence by reaching out to the victim unfortunately this one is lost to us, her children and even her husband. He seemed a trouble soul that few times I meet him. My prayers go out to Raj and her family but to his parents who must now live with the bloodshed on their hands. They lost their son and daughter in 1 day which could have been prevented.

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  17. AnonymousJuly 17, 2010

    Apparently, Tirth Sehmbi's home was "known to police". This brings up an important issue: why did an officer who had run afoul of the law still have a job. The elephant in the room here is the Force's obsession with 'diversity', even at the cost of professionalism. With Sehmbi's activities in the traffic unit, there should be an investigation into possible links with Indo-Canadian organized crime groups in the trucking industry.

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  18. This blog is full of cop-involved family murders, MANY which were preceded by numerous calls to the residence. It is a sad stretch make the Sehmbi case a racial case. Don't do it. White cops kill too... disproportionately. The elephant in the room is NOT diversity. The elephant is why there are numerous calls with no charges or interventions.

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    Replies
    1. thank you ... it's not about race ... it's about why when cops are called to a service members home for a domestic abuse, they don't charge? my sister died so an inquiry would put recommendations in place ... those "recommendations" are enforced except when dealing with service members?

      Delete
  19. To the person who wrote, thank you.

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  20. Thankfully Tirth Sehmbi has been charged of first degree murder.
    It makes my heart break that women like Raj had no where to go. No one to talk to because if she did, she would have practically been shunned from her sikh community. and here you are talking about this being about the sikh people.."This is not about Sikh or Hindu or Christian. This is about women," i knew she had a troubled life at home. I knew about it and i wish i had said something to help her out.

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