HUNTER: Rural home invasions becoming a killing zone for thugs

Article content

For Pumpkin, it was an epiphany.

Knocking off liquor stores had become too dangerous. The stores were owned by “foreigners” and “old Jews.” And they were armed and took being robbed personally.

Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) were the low-rent stick-up artists in Pulp Fiction, sipping coffee at a greasy spoon and plotting their next caper.

He says to his moll: “Yeah, no more liquor stores. Besides, it ain’t the giggle it used to be.”

Then they announce they’re robbing the diner.

Some of Canada’s small army of home invasion thugs might want to start giving a think to terrorizing people in rural areas.

In the past week, three have been iced by their targeted victims. You won’t hear a lot about it. Law enforcement in eastern Ontario and New Brunswick have been deathly quiet about the two incidents.

Cops say that on Feb. 2, around 9 p.m., OPP officers were called to a rural home in South Glengarry — about 110 kilometres southeast of Ottawa — for reports of two people shot.

Inside the house were two men who had been shot to death. A third slipped away in a vehicle and has not yet been found.

Detectives say the incident was targeted. But the outcome was certainly not what the thugs had desired.

“These individuals did go there for a reason, did force their way into the home and were confronted by an individual resulting in two of them being deceased and one on the run,” OPP spokesman Bill Dickson said.

Recommended video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

As for the residents, they were unharmed. They were taken into custody but later released unconditionally, and no charges have been laid.

Cops have not released the names of the recently departed home invaders.

Dickson told The Toronto Sun Tuesday that the investigation is “still ongoing” and that detectives were trying to determine the nature of the apparent home invasion.

Across the country, death came calling for Brian Justin Johnson, 35.  The Halifax man was taken off the board by a New Brunswick homeowner during what cops describe as a “violent home invasion.”

On Feb. 6, around 5:51 a.m., RCMP officers responded to a report of a home invasion in the tiny hamlet of Berry Hill, west of Moncton.

Cops said the invaders blew the door out with a shotgun to gain entry. But there was no prize behind Door Number One.

According to cops, a man and woman in their early thirties were home when three thugs forcibly broke into their home. Among the cast was the unfortunate Mr. Johnson who was found dead at the scene.

When police arrived, Johnson’s compadres were long gone. Cops described the incident as “targeted.” So far, there have been no charges filed against the homeowners.

For felons practising the fine art of home invasion, as in real estate, it’s location, location, location.

You’re unlikely to get wasted pulling a home invasion in Markham, Richmond Hill, Pickering or Rosedale.

But once you go rural, there’s a greater chance that your intended victim has a gun and a greater likelihood you’ll be fitted with a toe tag.

Philosophical hitman Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) thwarts Pumpkin and Honey Bunny’s scheme in Pulp Fiction. But he doesn’t ice them.

“You happen to pull this s*** while I’m in a transitional period, so I don’t wanna kill you,” Winnfield tells the pair.

Rural home invaders should probably pray that some of the armed country folk are also in a “transitional period” if the last week’s events are any indication.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun