Earlier today a murder in a heavily populated cafe in Toronto demonstrated how easily a hit man can do the deed and get away. LINK

In a part of town called "Little Italy", a fellow now identified as being known in the neighbourhood as "Little Johnny" was targeted while sitting outdoors at the "Sicilian Cafe" watching Euro Cup soccer. The killer was dressed in construction gear: white hard hat and vest with visibility markings, and a white dust mask over his face walked up to the victim through a crowd, drew a gun and fired five times, fleeing afterwards.

Police are investigating.

Funny, despite the visibility markings, they weren't able to see him...

The get away counts on panic though. Otherwise he is going to stand out in the crowd. "Yeah the one guy wearing a hard hat. Going down the street."

Yeah, that's why the police were looking in back yards for discarded items of clothing.

It's Canada. Even in Winnipeg gunshots are going to cause panic.

Even in the most gunshot-frequented hell holes, gunshots cause panic.

Concern, Maybe... Not always panic...

Bet there was a car or van waiting for him and the gear was all burnt several miles away from the hit site.

Concern, probably, more gunshots...likely

News currently suggests Little Johnny may have had connections to the mafia.

On another cool note, seeing the cafe on the news just now, I realize I stopped there, in the outdoor section where he was shot, one evening last month for an espresso.

Or the guy could really have been that good at avoiding attention, despite what he was wearing.

The police caught a suspect yesterday. Took him down not far from my place. If this is the killer, I guess his disguise didn't help him all that much.

What is that russian claim again? Wear a big fur coat and all that people remember is the coat?

Remember, SUSPECT.

And the cops are going to be pretty heavily pushed to find the person responsible for this, and are likely to be grabbing "The Usual Suspects", along with anyone else that looks likely just to show the appearance of doing "Something, ANYTHING!". As far as we know, the criteria for nabbing people is height and skin tone...

On the flipside, they could be working off actual evidence and have the right person, indeed. Point is, Suspect ≠ Guilty Party.

I mean, hell, look at Shadowrun. "We got a SINless Ork here that almost fits the description of a guy we want for three murders. Looks like we caught the murderer!"

Seriously. I'm running a Vegas game. Technomancers get blamed for EVERYthing.

This sounds very plausible.

Remember, I did say "if" he is the murderer.

Apparently, the suspect is being investigated for other crimes, including murder, in British Columbia as well.

You have to wonder, though. The witness descriptions say 6 feet tall and blond. The suspect is 6 1/2 feet tall and brown hair.

Sorry, knee-jerk reaction.

Reminds me of a robbery in Cologne ~3 years ago: The perpetrators were disguised as angel and devil, but on a day were half of the town runs around like this...

Though the basic idea of memorable but EASILY disposable quirk is old, all this you would need is maybe a small rucksack stash on their person (empty) out of site and an ally to remove the memorable items in then walk out looking totally different, perfrabely matching the same level of panic as the locals. It's not going to last if your a local though but would make a very nice disguise for an in and out job.

If you're a local, don't drek where you eat.

Just as an aside from construction work, you get to wear mirrored safety glasses, ear protection with a radio in it is a plus, and you can carry all kinds of things when you have a tool belt, vest, and overalls. Climbing harnesses would also not seem out of place with such a get up.

The high vis vest and helmet would surely have broken up his profile and if a sizable construction site was nearby, blending and having decoys would be pretty easy. The disguise would be very disposable and carry-able within a backpack.

The hardest thing to get right though to make such a disguise seem legit and that would be readily identifiable would be the boots - if not wearing the right boots, not a construction worker but how would anyone know to look for that in the confusion.

Here's an interesting thing I recall from the news around G20 Toronto, one of the bullshit detentions made at that time was a carpenter on his way home from work, the "police" were sure his tools were intended for looting and mayhem.

You think that was bad?

What a bunch of cocks.

I love the LARP gear. That's a classic.

And proof of sedition.

After all, LARPers read. And reading leads to thinking. And everyone knows how dangerous THINKING is.

Be good little sheeple and believe everything the government and corporations tell you. It's for your own good.

EDIT: Where's my Guy Fawkes mask?

I'm honestly not sure LARPers read. The locals I've met were not the brightest bunch. Kinda put me off the whole idea.

There tends to be two camps.

People who love traditional roleplaying but enjoy the dynamic energy shared by being active in movement and battle.

People who love power, but lack it in the real world. This usually means they're assholes.

It's been my experience that most LARPers fall in the first category, and most in-game leadership falls in the second.

I'm probably gonna give it a good shot this year though. Never really done it outside of a convention. I roleplay, I play paintball (which is close enough to LARPing as it is), I play hockey, might as well LARP too.

EDIT : Amusingly, Soaking boffer arrows in flammable liquids isn't a half bad idea for causing incendiary damage. It's just the 15 pound pull bow used to fire them isn't likely to power them very far.

Not that hard to get a compound bow to throw them farther however.

The idea I hate is that the cops just gave this idea to every idiot around now! Which, of course, the first time it's used the Toronto Police Service will jump on it as "proof" that they were right in doing what they did.

You do know that Warner Brothers is making tons of money on those masks, right? Get a 3D printer and get to work on not giving money to major corporations instead.

And Alan Moore gets quite a chuckle out of the fact, thanks to the mental paradox of said corporation bringing in the dough on what has become a anti-establishment message.

As Lenin said, capitalists will sell the rope used to hang them.

Actually, I think I'll wear the face of an anti-establishment figure than someone who wanted to blow up Parliament for religious reasons.

I'd more likely wear a featureless mask with a Black/Gold star on it, or possibly Black/White. Be a major toss up.

The latest variant i have seen are scarfs and simple printouts of the "face".

Btw, there is a funny image from Japan now. Seems a bunch dressed up in black suits and said masks to pick trash in a Tokyo park as some kind of symbolic protest.

As a former larper, I agree with everything said.

Larping groups:

Dumb folks who just want to hit stuff

Smart/experienced RPer's who want to enjoy the first person fun

Experienced or Power Hungry Assholes (or friends of such) who basically make up the "top tier" of any larp.


Pretty much the core.

All this LARP talk, I think you all owe it to yourselves to watch The Wild Hunt then. The ending goes especially Shadowrun, if I say anymore it will give it away.

And yeah, I heard about that at G20 Toronto when it went down. The Cons getting into positions of power marks the beginning of a dark time for Canada and its only getting more Shadowrun like everyday, they are the kind to put people in camps.

Canada is very shadowy, particularly the wilderness with its resources, the para-normal and meta will be fighting back before long. They don't have much choice, toxic spirits are already on the rise and going after water, the life blood.

I suspect if they do have a suspect in custody, my guess is they are a patsy. Black market business has been booming since 9/11 and territory is in dispute, aggressive business tactics have been out in force for a number of years now.

That's what happens when you start privatizing Crown Corporations.

On the topic of LARPs: on Friday, a local photography club is meeting for a photography night downtown. Theme: Shadowrun. There will be at least two duffel bags full of replica guns. At least we notified the cops that such a thing is going on.
Don't worry, I'll post photos. As many of them as I can get. Also, the epoxy on my headset prop is curing right now. Wish me luck!

Awesome... Good Luck.

One of the benefits where I live, if we ever do a Shadowrun LARP and run around with gun-looking items, no one will care. They'll just think it's the local militia out running drill.

Of course the downside is finding enough people to do a Shadowrun LARP.