Lawrence Peter Bembin, 53, lived alone but he had two sons, two daughters and four grandchildren. His home town was Thunder Bay, Ontario and he drove a taxi in Toronto before settling in Winnipeg. Mr. Bembin was a part-time driver who worked for Kuldip and Malkiat Thindh off and on over several years. The couple owned 32 Unicity taxis. Malkiat Thindh drove one of the taxis regularly but when he had to go into hospital for an operation Mr. Bembin volunteered to cover his early morning shift on Friday, January 9, 1987. The taxi Mr. Bembin drove was a so-called "Christmas Cab," one of the extra taxis that Manitoba owners were allowed to license temporarily over the winter season. Mr. Bembin started his 5 a.m. shift with back to back airport trips although with Winnipeg's airport practically in the middle of town these trips were not quite the plums that they could be in other cities. Mr. Bembin liked to wait for trips near the corner of Portage Avenue and Langside street, just west of the city's downtown business and shopping core. The corner was in a working-class residential neighbourhood with small-scale commercial frontages along Portage Avenue. The spot was close to the downtown action but out of its traffic congestion. There was also a McDonald's on the southeast corner with coffee, parking and a bathroom. There was walkup traffic as well. At 6:48 a.m. Mr. Bembin's computer signaled that he picked up a fare on or near Langside. The fare took him 6 km (4 miles) north into Winnipeg's old North End. The North End became part of the inner city in the mid-1970s when Winnipeg amalgamated with its ring of suburban municipalities. After dropping off this fare Mr. Bembin likely headed toward a North End parking spot or else decided to return downtown. As he drove along a residential street two 17-year-old men hailed him from a house. The house was the scene of a drunken party that had been going on for two days. Mr. Bembin was directed down a back lane behind the 300-block of Church Avenue. Here one of the men seized Mr. Bembin by the hair while the other slashed his throat and stabbed him several times in the neck. The killers pushed Mr. Bembin out of the taxi and drove off, leaving him to die. While turning the car around they nudged a snowbank and left behind a reverse impression of its license plate. A neighbour found Mr. Bembin's body about fifteen minutes after he picked up the Langside fare. The next day a woman reported finding the taxi in the yard of a house under construction along provincial highway 11, near the Fort Alexander Indian Reserve (now Sagkeeng First Nation), 122 km (76 miles) northeast of Winnipeg. [Next column]

In 1987 the four-year-old Lion's Place seniors' residence and the 79-year-old Winnipeg Roller Rink (1908-2007) faced each other on the SW and NW corners of Portage Avenue and Langside Street. A McDonald's restaurant occupied the SE corner. (Sources: Google Street View, June 2009; Pinterest via winnipegdowntownplaces.wordpress.com) The two killers were arrested in Winnipeg the same day. The fact that the killers were juveniles and subject to a maximum penalty of only three years imprisonment provoked loud demands for them to be tried as adults. This was granted after some delay, partly due to the killers hiring new lawyers during the process. In November, 1987 both killers were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. Judge Kris Stefanson "said the prison sentence should allow [the killers] an opportunity for rehabilitation as well as serving as general deterrence." In August, 1996, a year after his sentence expired, the killer who slashed Mr. Bembin's throat took part in a triple murder. He and two others invaded a home belonging to a rival biker gang and hacked and shot three men to death. Investigators said it was the bloodiest scene they had ever encountered. In 1997 the three killers were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prision with no possibliity of parole for 25 years. Mr. Bembin's killer had his appeal denied by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2000. The killer who held Mr. Bembin by the hair committed other offences after his release. In 2012 he violated a parole condition that forbade him to approach his former girlfriend. When police tried to arrest him he fled in his car, eventually colliding with another vehicle. He was arrested after a foot chase. Mr. Bembin's death renewed calls for mandatory safety shields and provoked criticism of provincial cabinet minister Gerard Lecuyer who had promised to make shields mandatory after Winnipeg driver Gurnam Singh Dhaliwal's death in April, 1986, but then backed down in the face of protests from cab owners. Mr. 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. Mr. and Mrs. Thindh were badly shaken by the murder of Gurnam Singh Dhaliwal and already planned to sell their taxis and move to Toronto. Mr. Bembin's murder confirmed them in their decision.