Crown: Finck pulled trigger
Friday, July 9, 2004
By Richard Cuthbertson
After numerous delays, the bail hearing for Larry Finck, one of the people at the centre of the Shirley Street standoff in May, finally got off the ground with the Crown painting Finck as an aggressive and violent man.One of the more compelling bits of evidence has to do with Finck’s custody battle for his elder daughter in Ontario, whose mother died soon after her birth.
Finck fled with his daughter in 1999 to Nova Scotia, and was found by police at his brother’s house. Crown attorney Rick Woodburn said Finck refused to give up his daughter, and had to be bent over a chair so the child could be pried free.
Finck was reportedly “very hostile and verbally aggressive,” said Woodburn.
“He would do anything to get his daughter back, and would kill anyone in his way,” said Woodburn, referring to a police statement Finck gave soon after his arrest.
Woodburn also said Finck told police that if his daughter was returned to her uncle, who had legal custody, he would, “take an AK-47 and take care of it himself.”
Finck was later convicted of kidnapping, and was handed a two-year jail sentence.
The Crown also focused on the circumstances of a gunshot that was fired from 6161 Shirley St. as police were attempting to batter down the barricaded front door during the early hours of the standoff. They contend it was Finck who pulled the trigger.
Reading from a statement made to police by Larry Finck after his arrest, Woodburn said the man suggested his mother, Mona Finck, had fired the gun, and that he’d instructed her to “aim high.”
“If he’d used the gun, (the police officers) would all be dead,” said Woodburn, referring to a statement Larry Finck made to police.
Mona Finck died in the house during the standoff. Woodburn said it was unlikely she fired the gun because the force of the shotgun would have, “set her back on her butt.”
He also said Carline VandenElsen, who was in the house, said Mona Finck was asleep during the shooting when she spoke with police during the standoff.
Woodburn also showed photographs of a pellet hole in the door window of 6161 Shirley St., as well as photos of where the shot hit a house across the street.
He said that judging by the path taken by the pellet and the whereabouts of VandenElsen in the house, Larry Finck was the only person who could have pulled the trigger.
Finck will have a chance to argue for bail when he appears back in court Monday.