More RCMP Incidents

Before I dive into some more drug related violence I’ve got two news reports about two very different police incidents that show the kind of extremes we’re dealing with. Most recently another man was shot and killed by the RCMP in northern Alberta. The third person this month killed by the Alberta RCMP. Not including the man tracker they shot at another road side stop.

In this case it states a 52-year-old was shot at a home on the Cold Lake First Nation’s reserve. It doesn’t say who’s home. It said the man was wanted for sexual assaults and many officers, both in uniform and plain clothes, were at the home to execute warrants. “During the confrontation with the male, one RCMP officer fired his service weapon striking the male.” Investigators later recovered a knife from the scene.

So here we have a guy that has been accused of more than one sexual assault. Bad guy. If guilty. Several officers show up to execute the warrant. One of them shoots the suspect and they later recover a knife from the scene. So he was unarmed when they shot him. He wasn’t brandishing the knife. Not even a stapler. I’m having trouble with the math. Several officers show up to arrest a 52 year old and they aren’t capable of doing that without shooting the unarmed suspect? Something is very wrong with that picture. Unless of course they were giving him what he deserves.

Just like the VPD officers who gave that guy the boots and caved in his face who was accused of beating his wife. It was sadly unfortunate that they got the wrong door and that judge and jury made a mistake giving the boots to an innocent man. Well, at least they didn’t shoot him dead. That’s kind of the point behind having a court system in place. Police are law enforcement not judge and jury.

Likewise in the recent Toronto police incident this month when a guy with a knife cleared everyone off the bus. The police show up and shot him nine times. No hostages, no threat, just a wacko with a knife. No discussion. No negotiation. Bang bang bang - shot nine times. Evidently not in the leg. He hadn’t stabbed anyone. Unlike the wacko on the greyhound bus who stabbed a guy and cleared the bus. He decapitated the victim and started eating his flesh. No one shot him.

The other case goes from this extreme to the other where an Alberta RCMP officer pulled someone over in a routine stop and the guy got out of his car, assaulted the cop and strangled him in the ditch. Doesn't sound like he had a weapon. Thankfully that cop survived. It shows two different extremes and it also shows the potential risk police officers face every day on the job or as they say, in the line of duty.

It reminds us of the 4 RCMP officers who were shot dead in Alberta executing a search warrant back in 2005. Situations like that can make one understand how police can get trigger happy. Yet it doesn’t rationalize kicking the cat and shooting unarmed suspects. That needs to be addressed. We have made absolutely no progress at all since the taser incident at the airport. It’s just gotten worse. So has the crime.

I will add that one commenter on the blog was quite right. Police have confirmed that Pierre Lemaitre’s death was indeed a suicide. Tragic as is the timing. Somehow I don’t think he was currently involved in a high stress and trauma assignment. Since it was shortly after the officer in the taser incident shockingly got off on perjury charges, one has to wonder if that had anything to do with it.

He was the one accused of giving the media false information about the taser death. Yet he was simply reading from a press release he was given. When he tried to correct the information in the media his superiors prevented him from doing so. It is highly likely that the police cover up had something to do with his suicide. That is a genuine tragedy.