Playing the race card shows own prejudice

Last week in Cambridge Mass., Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct and first Gates through the media, and then on Wednesday, President Barack Obama, turned it into an issue of race. Professor Gates is black you see and an articulate and well-respected intellectual.

But claims that this is about race is a red herring at best and blatent character assassination of a professional, veteran police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, at worst.

The facts don't seem to be in dispute only the interpretation regurgitated by the tongue-cluckers who seem unable to separate the wheat from the chaff in all of this.

Professor Gates was returning from a trip and took a cab home. He had evidently forgotten his keys and together with the assistance of the also black cab driver, managed to force his way into the house. Unbeknownst to him, a woman observing the efforts to force entry into the home called 9-1-1 and said two black men were breaking into the house.

Now, lest we get distracted too early, the complainant was white and the men were black, yes. But, when the witness is asked to describe the indviduals she believes is breaking into a residence she can only state the obvious. Any suggestion to the contrary is specious.

Sgt. Crowley along with three other officers, one of whom was also black for the record, responded to the burglary in progress, a Priority One call in any jurisdiction in North America.

Upon arrival, Sgt. Crowley observed Professor Gates and instead of arresting him at gunpoint, which I might add might well have happened in any other jurisdiction which did not include Harvard, simply asked the good professor for identification to establish whether he belonged in the home.

Professor Gates responded with vitriol and abuse that was uncalled for and undeserved. He started the discourse by accusing the officer of racism with his first words in response to the request for ID when he said, "Why, because I am a black man in America?" Gee, no sir, it is because the police are responding to a break-in in progress call and they found you there so it might just be considered reasonable for them to ask if, in fact, you were a burglar or the rightful resident.

Gates kept up the abuse and was ultimately arrested and charged with the disorderly conduct offenses.

Gates, after he was released from custody a few hours later, clamboured up on his high horse and began his tirade of nonsense. The mainstream media gleefully picked up the clarion call of racism against the Cambridge police without putting the blame for the arrest on the one person who caused it to happen - Professor Gates.

And that's where the story might have died were it not for that silver-tongued orator and rhetoritician, Barack Obama, who fanned the dying embers of the story by saying when asked at the tail end of a press conference, what he thought of the story. "Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it is fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry." Well, he was right in that he hadn't seen the facts and that he wasn't there and didn't know if race played a role. And he should have shut his mouth having already said too much at that point.

But he couldn't resist his own underlying prejudices, now could he?

He continued, "Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home and number three, I think we know separately and apart from this incident, there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enorcement disproportionately, that's just a fact. Race remains a factor in this society. That does not lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that has been made but the fact of the matter is this still haunts us."

Ask the guy a question and get a speech in response. But it wasn't just the usual rhetoric and stuff and nonsense that has become his trademark. No, after admitting he didn't have the facts to form an opinion he did just that and said the police acted "stupidly." What? No they did not. In point of fact, Sgt. Crowley acted out of respect and professionalism, showing his experience when he didn't point a gun at the first sight of Gates and secure him, on the ground and in cuffs, prior to establishing he had a right to be there. Because, on any 'in progress' call, 9 times out of ten that's what would happen.

In this case, Crowley sensed this wasn't what it appeared to be to the complainant and was proceeding according to that sixth sense. He merely asked Gates to identify himself so that he could establish that the two black men who were seen breaking into the house had the right to do that. It was Gates who acted viscerally and verbally violent to the police officer. Well, guess what? He deserved to get arrested whether he was black, white, purple or a European blue blood. It was his behaviour and his abusive mouth and his own prejudice that triggered the arrest.

Even the 24 hour, all-Obama news network formerly known as CNN, seemed to sense that. By Thursday evening they were suggesting in hushed terms that maybe, just maybe, Obama should not have spoken out in such an irresponsible manner.

This case has nothing to do with racism on the part of the police and has everything to do with the blind ideology of Gates and unfortunately, the President of the United States. Sgt. Crowley can stand on the higher moral ground in this matter.

Unfortunately, he is alone in that regard.

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Plus ca change...

News items ran this week trumpeting that Canada was the methamphetimine production capital of the world and honorable mention was given to our position as the Ecstasy capital as well.  Many media outlets clucked their Holier-Than-Thou tongues about this as though it was something new.  Well, it isn't and not by a long shot.

Warnings have been going out for at least 15 years that the media has written about or been otherwise informed about.  Yet, higher purpose papers like the Globe & Mail seem to have just discovered this nugget of information as evidenced by their main editorial on Friday.

There is nothing  new or magical about this.  In the past 15-20 years Canada has become a major drug producing country on a parallel with Columbia.  We just don't have the sweaty jungles.

But we certainly do have the violence that goes with that territory.  And we have seen the intimidation attempts on law enforcement and participants in the justice system.   

How did we get here?  

Well now, there's a question.  And the short answer is the lurch to the political left this country has taken in the past forty years.  

In the '70s the rule of law was that evidence, no matter how gained, was admissible.  Now, a bloody murder weapon found in the hands of an accused can be excluded as evidence for a myriad of procedural issues that have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with lining lawyers' pockets.

Equally, in the '70s, if you committed a serious crime there was a reasonable chance you were going to go to jail.  Not anymore. It is nigh on impossible to go to jail in Canada, despite what the left would like you to believe.  Yes, the courts still send people to jail for things like murder and kidnapping and sometimes armed robbery and sexual assault.  But that's about it. And then, typically not for very long.  Commit any property crime, even one that has a penalty of up to life in prison and see if you go to jail for any length of time.  

You will likely get a conditional sentence.  Or, if you have about 100 prior convictions you may actually get a short custodial sentence. Maybe.

The reality is that our justice system is a joke to criminals.  They know they can do whatever they want with impugnity.  Murder is cheap in Canada.  Property is not really yours and all your efforts to get ahead and make a better life means nothing against the rights of the Bobby Logans of the world.

Ah yes, Bobby Logan, junkie, thief, ne'er do well and all around waste of good oxygen.  He's back in the news after yet again being arrested for . . . SURPRISE!  . . . . a series of residential B & E's.  

Regular readers will recall a series of pieces I wrote in 2002 about Logan and how the system failed him and his many victims time and time again.  Well, nothing has changed in the intervening years.  He has been in jail for short periods of time.  He has been on bail conditions, probation and all manner of court imposed rules.  None of which, I might add he has followed.  And that, in itself, is nothing new.

Logan has been before the courts more times than Carter has little liver pills and has progressively been treated less and less seriously by the courts.  This 44 year old man, and I use the expression in the loosest of terms, needs to be incarcerated for the rest of his waste of a life.  If, for no other reason than to save all of his future victims, also known as protecting the public which is one of the sentencing considerations the law says the judiciary must consider in sentencing.  But they rarely do.

The legal industry created by Pierre Trudeau with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is anything but, is to blame.  It is why organized crime has taken to Canada like fleas to a bloodhound.  It is why we are in the same class as Columbia or Afghanistan as drug producing nations.    And it is why we need to actually get tough on crime not just whimsically piss and moan about what a problem it is.

And, at the end of the day, it is why we need to tell the political left that we have had enough.  And while we are at it, we probably need to tell the current government to reclaim their rightful place on the right side of the political spectrum instead of buying into socialist nonsense for political expediency.  

Bobby Logan is an example of why this needs to happen fast. 

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

 

A troubling case gets worse

_{The Braidwood Inquiry into the Taser death of Robert Dziekanski has been ongoing for the past five months or so.  In the interim period we have heard more than enough about the structural failings of our national police force.  We have also heard ad hominen attacks against the four police officers involved who set out from home on that fateful day just determined to do their jobs.  They have been called thugs and murderers and all manner of hysterical epithets.} 

_{I have tried to keep the arguments on both sides balanced by stating discussions of  the actions of the members involved in the response to Dziekanski’s violent behaviour need to be separated from the way the RCMP handled the aftermath.}

_{The response by the four members involved was within the guidelines for the Use of Force set out by the RCMP and within that, the members acted appropriately.  Criminal charges of murder or criminal negligence or attempts by the media to pillory those members for their response that night are simply not warranted.} 

_{Could they have spent more time trying to reason with Dziekanski or otherwise settle the situation?  I think the response to that question is an obvious “Yes.”}

_{But not doing so does not make them murderers or thugs.}

_{But, saying that is not akin to agreeing with the RCMP’s media relations strategy or its response as the public sought to find the truth.}

_{Nor am I trying to justify the apparent discrepancies in the follow up investigation.  Nor am I backing the policy of the RCMP relative to the use of a conducted energy weapon in potentially violent situations.  I believe those are all separate arguments.}

_{Having said all of that, I am troubled by how the RCMP has positioned itself in this.  The public has a perception that the RCMP is lying or trying to cover up something.  If that perception is allowed to grow and build, then the inherent credibility of every serving member who does his and her best on a daily basis is threatened.  Perception is, after all, reality for those who hold it.}

_{This is not a “do over” situation.  Credibility, once lost, is nigh on impossible to regain.  If the public believes the RCMP has lied to cover up the actions of its members in one case then every case and every statement becomes suspect.}

_{There is no question that the RCMP has some problems in this starting with the original statements to the media going through the decision by a senior Mountie not to correct inaccurate versions of events released to the media in the early days to the discrepancies in the attending members’ recollection of events.}

_{But those need to be separated from the response to Dziekanski’s actions.}

_{Now we have the latest sequence of events in the petitioning of the BC Supreme Court to limit Judge Braidwood’s ability to find misconduct of the attending members.}

_{The members involved have a right to defend themselves.  And they have a right to use whatever means the law allows.  But the optics are not good.}

_{The arguments in play are viable.  What are the parameters of the inquiry? Here is the original announcement.} 

On the surface, at the least, findings, such as Braidwood is trying to suggest are in play, are beyond his parameters.

As far as the other main argument that a BC authority has no ability to direct anything against a federal police officer may hold more water.  The RCMP are not subject to the BC Police Act or the authority of the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner. They are subject of the authority of the RCMP Act, a piece of federal legislation.

This is a double-edged sword at best.  While it is true that the RCMP are not treated the same as the Vancouver Police Department when a complaint is laid, it is also true that they are acting as the municipal or provincial police depending on where they are assigned.

An argument in this vein may well serve the interests of the members but one can hardly see how it serves the interests of the RCMP in the face of the credibility issues they already face in the aftermath of the death of Robert Dziekanski.

And did I mention that the contract between the RCMP and the Province of British Columbia is coming due in the next couple of years?  The troubling matters in this case continue to build.

Leo Knight 

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Companion lost

I cried a lot today.

I know, I know, I’m a big tough guy. But today I had to put down my beautiful German Shepherd, Holmes, after 12 and a half years of being my unconditional friend and companion.

We are masochists us dog owners I think. We know we will outlive our pets and we get the gut-wrenching inevitable end such as I experienced today. Yet we will do it again and again.

Holmes was a terrific dog. I got her when she was just six weeks old. And walking her in those days down around Second Beach in Vancouver illustrated what a chick magnet she was. Or I suppose any puppy really. But damn, she was cute.

My friend John Daly, the BCTV, now Global, reporter was responsible for her improbable name. She was little ball of fluff when he first met her. The first words out of his mouth were “Yo Holmes” and thus she was named.

I spent a lot of time with her in the early days. She learned all the usual commands plus a few more. When she was told to “get busy,’ she went off the beaten path and did her business in an area where no living creature would likely tread.

I remember a day when she was ill and had diarrhea. I had to go out for the evening and was concerned about the state of the house upon my return. Well she did have an issue, but she had the good sense to get into the bathtub and deal with her issue there.

She was loved by anyone who came into contact with her. This morning those who loved her got together and walked with her in her favourite park. She went for a swim in the sea for the last time and was cheered on by those who cared.

I have been blessed to have had a great dog in my life and saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I held her in my lap as she breathed her last. I dread life without her, but I know she has had a great life and I know she enjoyed every moment she had.

Holmes, I will miss you.

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Media distorts not reports

Media distortion runs rampant today in all manner of issues and stories.  One need look no further than so-called Global Warming as an issue or the tasering of Robert Dziekanski as a story, to understand the power of the media and the truth distortion that occurs to fit their ideological concepts.

What concerns me most about this is that the role of the media is to inform and to shine light into the dark corners where those in power try to hide things.  Think Watergate and the yeoman’s job done by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  And those were certainly the lessons I learned as a green-as-grass puppy on the police desk in the newsroom of the now defunct Montreal Star studying in wide-eyed wonderment the methods of City Editor John Yorston or grizzled vet of the police desk Bob Taylor, or the oh-so-well connected Paul Dubois.

They didn’t make news or ‘spin’ news.  They reported it.  They were fair and balanced but they always worked to get the story and hold those responsible accountable for what they did.  They never created a story.  But they worked tirelessly to get the story. And they questioned everything.

Not so today I’m afraid. 

Newsrooms today are filled with reporters whose only source is a fax machine and don’t question the pablum being served up by the spin-meisters.  Look no further than the slack the mainstream media give the Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver.  The next time they are on the right side of an issue will be the first time yet they are given all sorts of credibility by the media as though every announcement about the horrible police is treated as though issued by Moses on the Mount.

Yet I know of incidents when a police officer was talking to a victim of a robbery trying to help when a Pivot activist thrust himself between the officer and the victim, pushing a “rights” card at him saying “you don’t have to talk to the cop.  Don’t say anything.”

Pivot are nothing more than another mouthpiece of the poverty industry in Vancouver, the almighty and self-serving ,‘way over there left,’ and deserve no more attention than that. 

But I digress. 

The Braidwood Inquiry is costing taxpayers millions.  And for what?  Really, for what, to prove that the media relations strategy and procedures of the RCMP is fundamentally broken?  Duh!  Who didn’t know that?

The Force has always been a one-way stream for information, even for members within, information goes in and precious little ever comes back the other way.  Why should it surprise anyone that the RCMP tried to keep information under wraps in the Dziekanski case a secret even after they learned that their spokesman had given inaccurate information on the night it occurred?  Misinformation and bottlenecks on information flow has been a part of the RCMP culture since the March West. 

But really, what has that or any of the millions of dollars spent thus far got to do with the death of Dziekanski? 

Dziekanski was a drifter with little purpose or skills in life.  He was a three pack a day smoker and an alcoholic.  He had been somewhere in the area of 18 hours without a smoke or a drink when he landed in Vancouver and spent the next 10 or 12 hours wandering around YVR in confusion until he lost it. 

The pathologist in the case testified the Taser did not kill Dziekanski.  Even when he conceded he had not been told that the Taser had been fired five times on Dziekanski did he change his opinion on the cause of death.  So, why are we spending these millions of taxpayer dollars on the Braidwood enquiry and watching various mainstream media setting their hair on fire?  To learn that the media relations strategy of the RCMP is fundamentally flawed or that the Force is fiercely protective of information and won’t share with the public information that the public has a right to know?

It is.  Always has been.  Not likely to change.  Can we move on?

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Media distorts not reports

Media distortion runs rampant today in all manner of issues and stories.  One need look no further than so-called Global Warming as an issue or the tasering of Robert Dziekanski as a story, to understand the power of the media and the truth distortion that occurs to fit their ideological concepts.

What concerns me most about this is that the role of the media is to inform and to shine light into the dark corners where those in power try to hide things.  Think Watergate and the yeoman's job done by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  And those were certainly the lessons I learned as a green-as-grass puppy on the police desk in the newsroom of the now defunct Montreal Star studying in wide-eyed wonderment the methods of City Editor John Yorston or grizzled vet of the police desk Bob Taylor, or the oh-so-well connected Paul Dubois.

They didn't make news or 'spin' news.  They reported it.  They were fair and balanced but they always worked to get the story and hold those responsible accountable for what they did.  They never created a story.  But they worked tirelessly to get the story. And they questioned everything.

Not so today I'm afraid. 

Newsrooms today are filled with reporters whose only source is a fax machine and don't question the pablum being served up by the spin-meisters.  Look no further than the slack the mainstream media give the Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver.  The next time they are on the right side of an issue will be the first time yet they are given all sorts of credibility by the media as though every announcement about the horrible police is treated as though issued by Moses on the Mount.

Yet I know of incidents when a police officer was talking to a victim of a robbery trying to help when a Pivot activist thrust himself between the officer and the victim, pushing a "rights" card at him saying "you don't have to talk to the cop.  Don't say anything."

Pivot are nothing more than another mouthpiece of the poverty industry in Vancouver, the almighty and self-serving ,'way over there left,' and deserve no more attention than that. 

But I digress. 

The Braidwood Inquiry is costing taxpayers millions.  And for what?  Really, for what, to prove that the media relations strategy and procedures of the RCMP is fundamentally broken?  Duh!  Who didn't know that?

The Force has always been a one-way stream for information, even for members within, information goes in and precious little ever comes back the other way.  Why should it surprise anyone that the RCMP tried to keep information under wraps in the Dziekanski case a secret even after they learned that their spokesman had given inaccurate information on the night it occurred?  Misinformation and bottlenecks on information flow has been a part of the RCMP culture since the March West. 

But really, what has that or any of the millions of dollars spent thus far got to do with the death of Dziekanski? 

Dziekanski was a drifter with little purpose or skills in life.  He was a three pack a day smoker and an alcoholic.  He had been somewhere in the area of 18 hours without a smoke or a drink when he landed in Vancouver and spent the next 10 or 12 hours wandering around YVR in confusion until he lost it. 

The pathologist in the case testified the Taser did not kill Dziekanski.  Even when he conceded he had not been told that the Taser had been fired five times on Dziekanski did he change his opinion on the cause of death.  So, why are we spending these millions of taxpayer dollars on the Braidwood enquiry and watching various mainstream media setting their hair on fire?  To learn that the media relations strategy of the RCMP is fundamentally flawed or that the Force is fiercely protective of information and won't share with the public information that the public has a right to know?

It is.  Always has been.  Not likely to change.  Can we move on?

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Reality at odds with picture painted by media in police shooting

In the middle of the media feeding frenzy pillorying the RCMP members involved responding to the disturbance caused by Polish traveler Robert Dziekanski who died after being Tasered, Vancouver Police officers shot and killed Michael Vann Hubbard in a busy area of downtown Vancouver. 

The initial reports were that he was a homeless man being checked as a possible suspect in a theft from a vehicle and in the process pulled a knife and was shot.  The two officers involved were both female and the usual nonsense was inevitable from the media, the hand-wringers and the cop haters.  Some of whom, I might add, are indistinguishable from the others.

But what was really amusing was the comments from some of the same folks blue with rage in their criticism of the RCMP for using a Taser on Dziekanski asking why the VPD officers involved in the shooting weren't armed with Tasers so they didn't have to shoot Vann Hubbard. 

The mind boggles at the sheer hypocrisy.

But even though the shooting is under investigation the cop critics were in full voice.  And they were happy to pile on the heels of the Braidwood inquiry into the death of Dziekanski.  Police were being referred to as thugs and murderers. 

On Friday members of the Vann Hubbard family filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful death on behalf of the VPD.  Well, whatever.  They have described their father as gentle and law abiding.  Perhaps he was when they knew him, but when he was in Vancouver, he was homeless and violent as evidenced by his own behaviour. 

He was being checked by two police officers while he was carrying a black backpack similar in description to one just stolen from a vehicle.  According to a memo circulated by the Chief Constable of the VPD, Jim Chu, they engaged him in conversation for at least a minute that was "uneventful." 

Suddenly, Vann Hubbard pulled a utility knife, a boxcutter if you will, that was razor sharp and fully extended.  He approached the police officers with it and they pulled their service weapons and retreated trying to keep a safe distance while containing the armed man.  All the while they endeavoured to keep busy downtown pedestrian traffic out of harm's way.

When at length, this "gentle man" charged at one of the officers after one minute and forty seconds of the standoff, he was shot. Once, to the centre of mass, just like the officer was trained to do.  Vann Hubbard died as a result. 

Those who were trying to nail the police to the wall, and I include the complicit media in this statement, tried to obfuscate the sequence of events to paint the police as killers and all manner of evil things.  The reality is that they were doing their jobs in investigating a just occurred theft from auto and wound up being themselves placed in harm's way.  Those two members, and females both I might add, accepted their responsibility in spite of the danger, and while trying to focus on the danger they faced also did everything they could to keep the public out of harm's way as the drama unfolded. 

Never mind the nonsense from the family, from the so-called witness who said the police deleted a video from his phone while saying the police fired several shots, never mind all the nonsense.  There are three independent videos of the shooting all of which corroborate the police version of events in the shooting. 

Those two police officers did their jobs on that day and for that they deserve to be supported not chastised by the chattering class. 

And for the family, I am sorry for your loss.  But really, why was your loved one homeless in Vancouver?  Why did he pull a utility knife one minute after being engaged by the police?  And finally, in the face of warnings to drop the knife, why did he charge at one officer?  Waste your time, money and energy in a lawsuit if you want, but the two members of the VPD did their job on that fateful day.  And they carry a distinct sadness as a result. 

Chief Constable Jim Chu did a service to the police officers of VPD with his memo. Hopefully the public airing of that memo will shut up those drowning in their ignorance when they are so quick to criticize those who protect the rest of us.

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Truth no defence for targetted police force

Many years ago when I joined the RCMP, it was a proud organization, albeit one rife with tradition and more than a little out of step with the times.  In those days, I referred to the Mounties as "100 years of tradition unhampered by progress."  To a degree that remains the same.  And, at the same time, the RCMP has struggled to reinvent itself to be more relevant in a changing world.

In my early days in the RCMP training academy in Regina I began to learn about that tradition and proud history.  I became part of a family that I will never quite be separated from no matter how much water passes under the bridge.  Indeed, I had dinner last summer with Terry David Mulligan, the ageless DJ who has made a career for himself in rock 'n roll presenting and promotion.  Mulligan, as a young man was also a Mountie and during dinner we didn't so much talk of music, past, current and future, but of our like experiences in the Mounted Police.

And it is that bond, born of running all over Hell's half-acre until you earned your marching orders and swimming with bricks and drill hall abuse that allows two people with disparate backgrounds to share a laugh and story about a challenge accepted and passed that will never go away.

But part of that is the angst felt watching the media devour the RCMP over the Taser incident at Vancouver International Airport that resulted in the death of Polish traveler Robert Dziekanski and feeling that it is all grossly unfair.

Media spin and obfuscation of the facts are old hat and to be expected when looking at any story where the "heavy-handed" police are involved.  Or, rather as a friend refers to the police as the "jack-booted enforcers."

The media coverage of the Braidwood Inquiry into the actions of the RCMP on that fateful night is little more of that confirmation of their bias and attempt to pillory what was once a great Canadian institution.

Dziekanski was a ne'er do well at best.  He was a drunk and a chain smoker who had done without both for more than 20 hours on his travels from Poland to YVR.  After that many hours in the air without a drink or a smoke, I can imagine he was a little on edge.  But while on the ground at YVR, he didn't seem to possess the mental acumen to get himself some help in the form of directions for hours on end.  Equally the Customs and Immigration folks and the YVR security folks seemed to have ignored him in a high security area for those same hours, yet it is the RCMP that are the bad guys in this movie.

So, when he started tossing around desks and computers it is only natural that the police were called.  And in strolled four members of our once-proud national police force just trying to do their job.  Their reward has been to be metaphorically hung, drawn and quartered by a media convinced they are covering up murder.

Those four members of the RCMP were just trying to do their job in the manner they were trained.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Yet it is the little details that have lawyers turning summersaults.  Quibble about the details all you want, but the bottom line is that four police officers were dispatched to a call of a violent, possibly drunk male who was on a rampage.  They attended, approached the suspect carefully and in the face of apparent dismissal and potential violence they responded in the manner they were trained.  And the reality is that every nickel – or perhaps I should say every millions of dollars of taxpayer money – spent on the Braidwood inquiry is an absolute waste of money.

There's no mystery here.  If you don't like the way the Mounties handled their response, lobby to change the policy, don't shoot the messenger.  Well, actually, that is already too late.  The professional bureaucrat named by the Prime Minister to take control of the once proud Force, William Elliot, has already altered Force policy on the use of Tasers without knowing thing one about reality on the mean streets.

But piling on the RCMP has almost become de rigeur for the mainstream media.  Today, for example, I did an interview with a CBC reporter about a situation involving a municipal police force and she kept referring to the RCMP so conditioned is she.

But that is what it is.  The RCMP is a big, scarlet clad target and that is fair enough.  But, I would much prefer a debate surrounded with facts not ideologically driven bovine scatology.  But, unfortunately, that is all the mainstream media seems to be capable of producing when the RCMP is under the microscope in this country.

The Mounties have many foibles and in my opinion need to be reconstituted as our National Police Force not municipal cops.  But that is my opinion and perhaps the subject of another discussion.  But they also do not deserve to be pilloried for trying to do their job. 

And Robert Dziekanski was waste of a man even if the police haters are trying to elevate him to sainthood.  He had not amounted to anything in his life and he wasn't smart enough to recognize that responding police officers were trying to intervene with his dilemma. 

Too bad, so sad.  But his death was not the fault of those four police officers.

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com

Parents' comments minimize Mayerthorpe reality

Three years ago I was sitting in a lounge in the Calgary airport when my Blackberry first started buzzing with information about a multiple shooting of RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alberta.  The original information was sketchy but all too soon the horrors perpetrated by James Roszko were all too clear.

Four young police officers, good Canadian boys, were dead.  Ambushed and cut down in the prime of their young lives by a man not fit to shine their boots.

Roszko, in true cowardly fashion, took his own life when another member attending from Edmonton returned Roszko's fire and wounded him.  Roszko crawled back into that Quonset hut which housed his marijuana grow op and chop shop and took his pathetic life.

The nation was shocked at the news and watched with heavy hearts as the Mounties gathered in record numbers in Edmonton to pay tribute to their fallen comrades.

But once the tears were shed and four young men laid to rest, investigators had to piece together what happened.  How was Roszko able to get back onto his property and ambush the police officers? 

Their investigation led to the arrest of two other young men who ultimately were the answer to that question.  They not only provided Roszko with a weapon, but they drove him to his property knowing full well he was going to do what he did.  And they did nothing to stop him. 

Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey were charged with being parties to the offence of first degree murder times four which, by law, is the applicable charge when the victim is a police officer.

Then began the predictable nonsense from friends and family of the two men. They were good boys don't you know?  They were pillars of the community and all that crap that seems ubiquitous in the mainstream media whenever someone does something horrid.  Reporters dutifully trot out and talk to family, friends and neighbours  who then utter banalities about what a nice man he was and I would have never imagined he could do something so awful . . .blah, blah, blah.  It's all so predictable.. 

The two accused last month pled guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter and were sentenced to 13 and 15 years respectively.  Which frankly, given the callous and deliberate manner that they enabled Roszko to do what he did, was not enough.  As far as I am concerned they should die in prison if there was justice in this country.

Last week, on the anniversary of the killings, I read a news story where the families of these young men are planning to appeal their convictions even though they pled guilty.  They are still maintaining their precious little children are really angels and did what they did because they were afraid of Roszko and … boo-hoo-hoo. 

Well, in the first instance I don't buy the "afraid" nonsense.  Had they alerted the police, Roszko would have not ambushed the murdered officers and the chance of him being able to exact any revenge on them would have been remote, at best.  Secondly, one of the pair was partnered with Roszko in his illicit activities in the Quonset.  He had much more to gain from Roszko's successful ambush of the Mounties than not. 

And that one fact alone should not be overlooked when we listen the families' whine about their good boys.  Perhaps, had the whining parents done a better job of educating their whelps in the concept of consequences for bad actions, then four young RCMP members might still be alive today. 

And their prattle about appeals in this matter show they still haven't grasped the concept.

Leo Knight

primetimecrime@gmail.com