Richard Martin Update

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

We had been kicking ourselves for jumping the gun on our big scoop. It will happen, but we shouldn't have said anything until we were sure when. Hey, we were excited. Live and learn.

So we decided that while we waited for the go ahead to publish the story, we'd add some filler. We wrote a brief profile on Toronto area bonehead Richard Martin. Little did we know what dividends would result.

Not long after we published Martin's profile did we receive the following pictures from a reader:


We then asked if any of our readers could inform us where this took place. We couldn't be more pleased with the response. We received a message with a link to a story covering this and two other attacks on the same store:

Russian store targeted by punks 

By TAMARA CHERRY, SUN MEDIALast Updated: 14th February 2009, 3:38am 

Two weeks ago, it was a burned flag. Three nights ago, it was neo-Nazi vandalism. And yesterday morning, it was a broken window. 

Now Russian shop owner Alexander Shapurko wonders: What next? 

"I thought maybe it was young people -- sometimes they do these stupid things," 49-year-old Shapurko said inside Russian Stuff and More on Oakwood Ave. yesterday. "But once they put swastikas, it really was -- I still can't even imagine this happened in Canada." 

Shapurko, who came to Canada with his son from Saint Petersburg, Russia, five years ago before opening his store up in front of his home a year after that, awoke Thursday morning to find his shop windows covered in red paint depicting a swastika, "88" -- code for Heil Hitler -- and "WP," presumably for "white power," he said. 

He heard the window of his shop breaking around 4 a.m. yesterday, but the suspect or suspects got away before he got outside. 

"It's not politics in here at all," he said. "It's just memorabilia."

The shop is filled with Russian souvenirs, from fur hats and wooden dolls to medals and Soviet Union insignia. 

Shapurko's grandfather left World War II decorated and wounded.

"For five years, they fought fascism," he said. "(This) is unacceptable in Canadian society."

Two weeks ago, the Soviet Union flag on the side of Shapurko's shop was lit on fire. He didn't think much of it until the vandalism earlier this week. 

"Today I called police again," he said. "It's kind of escalated. What's next? A grenade in my window?"

From another reader we received another picture:

This picture was taken the same evening by Andrew Benson. In this photo are Richard Martin and L.M (who used to be involved with both Martin and a bonehead named Mike Gaio), as well as a young "lady" who's age we're uncertain of. Note the bottle of lighter fluid is the same as was used in the vandalism of Mr. Shapurko's store.

Based on comments made by Martin, we believe he lives somewhere on Vaughan Rd. in Toronto. Notice how close he lives to the street where the business that was attacked is located:


We're going to contact the reporter for this story and other interested parties. However, we would like to thank our readers for really stepping up to the plate. Well done!

Our readers really do deserve a hell of a lot of credit for digging this up.

UPDATE: Looks like Richard Martin has noticed us:



Aside from the fact that we are not an ARA website, we're not so certain if Mr. Martin should be all that happy about this.