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CMAJ
CMAJ - November 17, 1998JAMC - le 17 novembre 1998

Police hope CMA's "huge reward" smokes out murderer

CMAJ 1998;159:1235

© 1998 Canadian Medical Association

The reward the CMA is offering for information that helps apprehend a sniper who has been targeting physicians in Canada and the US wasn't anticipated when it set its 1998 budget, but it is money the association would love to spend.

The decision to match rewards offered by its divisions and affiliates to a total of $250 000 is unprecedented in the CMA's 131-year history. If the potential total of $500 000 is reached, Canada's doctors would be providing the second-largest reward ever offered in Canada. Only the $1 million put forward in the hunt for suspects in the 1985 Air India crash that killed 329 people surpasses it.

"I'm very proud that the CMA has taken its leadership role within the medical profession and is acting as a focus for unity on this issue," said Winnipeg anesthetist Ian White, a past president of the Manitoba Medical Association (see CMAJ 1998;159:1153-5 [full text]). "But we must remember that this initiative is only part of the much bigger issue of violence against physicians and other health care workers in the workplace."

In an Oct. 26 memo to divisional CEOs, the CMA encouraged its divisions to post their own rewards and said it will continue its efforts to improve physician knowledge about the potential for workplace violence.

The CMA decided to take a lead role after the Oct. 23 murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo obstetrician­gynecologist who had performed abortions. The murder bears an eerie resemblance to the shooting of 4 other physicians, 3 in Canada and 1 in the US, since 1994; those doctors were all seriously wounded. All had performed abortions as part of their practices.

White, who is Manitoba's representative on the CMA board, takes the issue personally because a friend and neighbour, Dr. Jack Fainman, was one of the sniper's victims. White has worked closely with the police task force that is tracking the murderer, and says police consider reward money "their most powerful investigative tool with this type of crime. That is why the CMA has challenged its divisions and affiliates."

White was "horrified" by the latest shooting but was not surprised that the first murder in this series of sniper attacks had occurred in the US. "I was expecting the gunman to follow his pattern of last year [when physicians were shot in Richmond, NY, and Winnipeg a few weeks apart], although I was praying I would be wrong."

The CMA received heavy press coverage when it announced the reward Oct. 26. The National Post, which went to press for the first time Oct. 27, ran a half-page article with the headline: "CMA will offer $500,000 reward in doctor shootings." The Toronto Star reported: "Canada's doctors post huge reward for killer."

President-Elect Hugh Scully said the association acted because "violence of any kind is abhorrent and must not be tolerated."

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