Lawrence Peter Bembin
Winnipeg, MB / Jan. 9, 1987
At 6:48 a.m. on Friday, January 9, 1987, Lawrence Bembin's computer signaled that he had picked up a fare, probably somewhere in the vicinity of Portage Avenue and Langside Street. Less than half an hour later, at about 7 a.m., his body was found in a back lane behind 380 Church Avenue. He had been stabbed to death.
An imprint of the cab's license plate was found in a snowbank nearby. Late the same afternoon the cab was found hidden in bush on the Fort Alexander Indian Reserve near Pine Falls.
Inquiries in the Pine Falls area led police back to Winnipeg, where two 17-year-old males were arrested and charged with Bembin's murder.
Bembin, 53, lived alone in Winnipeg. He had two sons and two daughters and four grandchildren. He worked for several years as a part-time driver for the same Unicity cab owner who was in hospital at the time of the murder. Bembin had volunteered to take the owner's place on the morning shift.
Bembin's death renewed calls for mandatory safety shields and provoked criticism of cabinet minister Gerard Lecuyer who had promised to make shields mandatory after Gurnam Singh Dhaliwal's death, but then backed down in the face of protests from cab owners. Lecuyer told a meeting of drivers that his department was recommending prosecution of some 30 owners who had ignored his order to submit safety improvement plans by December 5, 1986.
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