Mayerthorpe Shooting

I was thinking about the whole Mayerthopre incident the other day and a few things caught my attention. But before I go to far into them I should mention this, I have one friend who was in jail waiting for one of the officers to testify against him and another friend who was a very good friend one of the officers. That being the case I hope that my comments can be objective enough that they help me at lease achieve some level of clarity.

Anyway, the things that caught my attention fell into a few different areas; planning the original visit, media coverage, legal questions and government responsibility. Since I really feel that many of these areas overlap, I am not going to try to limit myself to a strickly linear discussion. for example, when I refer to government responsibility I am referring not just to their inability to keep the staffing levels of the RCMP at what they should be for such a prosperous province but also their inability to house and support those members of our society that maybe should not be at large.

These two areas directly relate to the planning of the original visit, all of us know or have met someone that we would rather not run into in a dark alley. From all accounts JR was one of those people. On two recent occasions univited guests had received very negative greetings, one couple trying to enumerate for the election, had their tires blown out by a spike belt. Following that, a process server had to get a police escort to go to the property, those police refused to enter the property without more members. Anyone seeing a warning light going off here. Then we have the neighbors and his family saying the guy is a nut case. His family disowns him, his ex-friends are afraid of him stalking them and his arrest record goes back to about his school days , often for violent acts. Sounds like more warning signs.

How do you deal with that is of course the first question. Well it seems to me that there needs to be a threat assessment system in place where as a person goes through the system differnt flags are set off, what the hell the US has a terror assesment system it can't be that hard to develop. Added to that is the idea that people should be able to contact the authorities when they know of someone like that and add their assessment to the mix. Will there be some abuse as people use this to get back at others, yes, in the same way that people are falsely accused of assault and rape all the time, most often the truth will out and fortunately with DNA generally the innocent will go free. With a system like that in place it makes it easier for the police to say, "Sorry we don't go there without a significant force and we do not leave anyone on the property until the suspect is secured." Heck they arrested a 61 year old with the tactical unit in Edmonton while the RCMP, who should know better sent a few relatively young people into a hostile explosive situation. Two officers to wait for a person who has been reported to have numerous guns, who has past accusations if not convictions of pointing those guns at people, who is known to have a particular hate on for authority and who has acres of unsecured property to hide on. What the hell was the detachment thinking?

Maybe they were thinking that if the guy was really crazy and dangerous he'd already be locked up. Here we get to governement responsibility. We all go blithely along believing that the gov't is doing certain things to ensure our safety; making us wear seat belts and hard hats, checking the quality of our air and meat, and helping those who need help while protecting us from those that cannot be considered safe. Unfortunately, here in the richest province, we don't have the money or the desire to actually perform that last task. It is a lot easier to play ostrich and pretend that we are only letting people onto the street who will not harm themselves or others. Instead we are letting anyone out who can cover most of their own bills and will only starve to death on an individual basis, far enough apart so they can't be linked. Their outbreaks and criminal behaviour will be explained away in any manner that doesn't suggest they are unbalanced and if htey do something bad enough rather than treatment we will just lock them up for the requisite amount of time - warehouse them - and send them back out, hoping that if they do lose it it will be after the next election or in someone elses backyard.

So where does the media come in. That's actually almost a gimme. Let's be realistic, the media is about as interested in getting the truth out as any other conman. All they really want is a catchy sound bite that captures their audience long enough to get ratings. Sound bite 1 - grow-op = organized crime. Sound bite 2 organized crime = dead policemen. Sound bite 3 dead policemen = gun registry. And actually none of these things add up. Let's take the first sound bite; in their very first reports of the killing (after the event) they state clearly that the police were there to serve a warrant for stolen car parts and accidently saw the grow-op. It seems to me that maybe the hysteria should have been about car thefts in Alberta leading to this kind of tragedy, unfortunately we have so many car thefts that it isn't really news so why flog it, instead GROW-OPS!!, GROW-OPS!!!, GROW-OPS!!!! is flashed everywhere leading to calls of crackdowns and fears of Reefer Madness run rampant through the heartland.

Sound bite 2 organized crime = dead policemen. Okay if crime is that organized does it make sense to cause the police to be this pissed off or, is it easier to pay the money for a good attorney and call it the cost of doing business. There is no way that increased scrutiny of their operations can help what they are trying to accomplish, they are not out for publicity so why wouldn't they just let the drugs get confiscated and the property if necessary. Aren't we also supposed to believe that it is a multi-million dollar industry this should be peanuts. If they are not that organized then the term is an oxymoron and the media is instead treating us a morons if they think we believe it.

Sound bite 3 dead policemen = gun registry. The holes in that should fit a semi, especially in these days of virtually anything being available over the internet and the world's largest undefended border just hours away from virtually every major Canadian city. A child could see that with the amount of traffic flowing from the US, there is virtually no way to stop any determined individual from having anything that is available in the US. It may be a pain to get to but not impossible.

So let's add all this up. We have the warning signs that are not heeded. We have a lot of untreated unbalanced people running around. We have an availability of weapons with space to hide people as well as weapons. We have the media ready to call people to arms if we send in enough officers without being able to justify it and we have the makings of a tragedy, not just here but virtually all over the province and as recent event show possibly all over Canada.

So maybe he should not have been loose in the first place. If loose he should have been monitored or at least had a warning attached to his file. If a warning was there, then there should have been more officers. If none of this was done the media should be our first line of defense to ensure it is done properly in the future. And, the media has to take responsibility for investigating what is really going on rather than spending their time chasing sound bites and advertising dollars.

For myself I will be interested to see what recommendations come out of this, and then of course see if any of it helps.

That's my two cents.