Police are warning Ottawa’s gay and lesbian community that a violent fugitive who is known to target gay men may be in the city.
Brook Makara, 33, is wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant for being unlawfully at large. He was ordered to reside in a halfway house in Montreal before he fled in November 2012.
Makara was convicted of beating, confining and sodomizing a Gatineau man with a beer bottle in 2000 and sexually assaulting a woman and holding her against her will in 2005.
“Due to the violent nature and sadistic crime, the court imposed a five-year long-term supervision in order to reduce the risk of recidivism after completion of the current prison term,” a press release from Detective Constable Josie Maisonneuve, of the Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement, East Team reads.
The RCMP believes Makara is in Ottawa, the release says.
Maisonneuve is out of the office until Oct 7 and could not be reached for comment.
Originally from Sault Ste Marie, Makara’s rap sheet includes several arrests in his hometown for burglary, theft and assault in the late 1990s.
Joan McKenna, co-chair of the Ottawa Police Service GLBT liaison committee, says informing Ottawa’s queer community that Makara may be in the city will hopefully lead to his arrest.
Project Condor, a partnership between the RCMP and the federal government agency responsible for administering court-ordered sentences of two years or more, heads the search for Makara.
Makara is described as five-foot-10 and 200 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. He has a tattoo on his right forearm. He is known to use several aliases, including Otis Brook Parkinson and Ryan Toms.
Anyone with information about Makara’s whereabouts is urged to contact the closest RCMP detachment or police station. Alternatively, Crime Stoppers receives tips at 1-800-222-8477.
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