Jeffrey Arenburg
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Jeffrey Arenburg (October 2, 1951) is a Canadian gunman, who shot and killed broadcaster Brian Smith in Ottawa on August 1, 1995.
Arenburg, who was paranoid schizophrenic, had gone to Smith's employer, CJOH, because he thought the station was broadcasting messages in his head. Smith was the first broadcast personality that Arenburg saw and recognized coming out of the building.
Following the shooting, police found a list of other Ottawa media personalities in Arenburg's apartment, and an official at the city's press club noted that he had previously ejected Arenburg from the club three times for loudly demanding to see various people on his list. He had also been turned away from the Parliament Buildings several times.
Before moving to Ottawa, Arenburg had been a scallop fisherman in Nova Scotia. He had physically assaulted a radio station manager in Bridgewater in 1992, again citing messages being broadcast in his head. Arenburg was found guilty of assault and fined $300 or two weeks in jail in the earlier incident, but never showed up for his trial. He had already skipped town and moved to Ottawa; the authorities in Bridgewater decided that it was not worth their while to track him down.
Arenburg was found not criminally responsible in Smith's death, due to his mental condition. He was remanded to the Oak Ridge Division of the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre. Smith's murder led to renewed calls in Canada for strengthening of the government's gun control legislation.
In 2001, the Ontario Review Board began to grant Arenburg 72-hour release. He applied for full conditional release in 2004.
As of June 2005 he had been living in the Barrie area with his brother since March 2003, and had recently graduated from a community college.
The Ontario Review Board granted Arenburg an absolute discharge from the mental health centre in Penetanguishene in November 2006. According to CFRA, the board heard that he no longer poses a significant risk to the community and no longer suffers from the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia [1]. [2]
On November 29, 2007, Arenburg was arrested after assaulting a U.S. customs officer in Buffalo, New York at the Peace Bridge International Crossing. According to officials, Arenburg attempted to enter the United States on a commercial vehicle as a passenger and was denied entry due to past criminal convictions. [3]
