{"id":673593,"date":"2026-05-16T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/673593\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T14:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T14:35:10","slug":"letter-surrey-residents-sick-of-grandstanding-on-violent-crime-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/673593\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Surrey residents sick of \u2018grandstanding\u2019 on violent crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

LETTER: Surrey residents sick of \u2018grandstanding\u2019 on violent crime<\/p>\n

Published 6:00 pm Friday, May 15, 2026<\/p>\n

Editor, <\/p>\n

The eight-year sentence given to the man who fatally stabbed a teenager <\/a>aboard Surrey\u2019s 503 bus is an outrage. To many residents, it sends the message that even the taking of a young life no longer carries meaningful consequences in Canada\u2019s justice system. The fact that this offender has been identified as a high risk to reoffend only deepens the public\u2019s anger and concern.<\/p>\n

This was not an isolated tragedy. It was part of a growing pattern of violence that has left many Surrey families feeling unsafe in their own community. Parents should not have to wonder whether their children will make it home safely from school or from a bus ride across the city. Yet that fear has become increasingly common.<\/p>\n

The recent Mother\u2019s Day shooting<\/a> was another grim reminder that public safety in Surrey is deteriorating while political leaders continue to offer excuses and engage in endless political theatre. For years, Surrey residents watched politicians turn policing into a power struggle over the RCMP and Surrey Police Service instead of focusing on the one thing that actually matters: protecting the public.<\/p>\n

The people of Surrey are tired of the grandstanding, the blame-shifting, and the failure to show real leadership while violent crime continues to escalate. Public safety is not a political game, and residents are paying the price for years of dysfunction and indecision.<\/p>\n

With a municipal election approaching, voters should remember which leaders treated public safety as a political talking point instead of a responsibility. Surrey residents deserve leaders who will stop managing headlines and start protecting the people who live here.<\/p>\n

Michael Bardouniotis, Surrey <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LETTER: Surrey residents sick of \u2018grandstanding\u2019 on violent crime Published 6:00 pm Friday, May 15, 2026 Editor, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-673593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}