Two men lost faith in justice system after beatings by rowdies

Matthew Little, The Province

Eugene Evers and Pawan Singla have more than their 16 stitches in common.

They're also both family men who stepped forward to ask troublemakers in their neighbourhood to be quiet, were attacked for their trouble -- and left with so little respect for the justice system that they say they'll never stick their necks out again.

Evers says his experience was so horrific that he now suggests jokingly that people don blinders and earmuffs when things go bad around them. "Observe and report. That's really all you can do," he says.

But that's not what Pawan Singla did in Chilliwack in late June. After enduring months of what he describes as profanity and fighting at a flophouse next door, he asked visitors to the house not to swear in front of his kids -- and was viciously beaten in response.