Royal Canadian Horse Manure

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Royal Canadian Horse Manure

You can smell it in the stats


CBC: RCMP officers given permission to break the law a record 73 times in 2017

• Under the law, which was introduced in 2002 after a Supreme Court case, officers are never allowed to cause bodily harm, sexually violate another person or obstruct justice, and an annual report summarizing the crimes has to be tabled in the House of Commons.
• During the past 14 years, there has been just one occasion where a designated officer proceeded without a senior official's authorization "due to exigent circumstances."

This is too laughable. First of all, that they waited until 2002 to introduce that law, and secondly that anybody believes it's only been broken 73 times this year, or any year, for that matter. Only failed to get away with it 73 times is more like it.

The following should tell you all you need to know about law enforcement supervision:

• During the past 14 years, there has been just one occasion where a designated officer proceeded without a senior official's authorization "due to exigent circumstances."

What's really being suggested is that supervision is either lax (looking the other way), non-existent, and/or in collusion.

Trust me, I worked for a decade around OPP and RCMP drug officers and I can tell you they were not what the rest of us consider clean cut, trustworthy, and law-abiding. I actually went on a date with the head of a drug unit and was scared out of my wits at how fast and recklessly he drove his car, while raging against a fellow officer who once squealed on him for drunk-driving. He said, through clenched teeth with his foot bearing down on the accelerator, that he'd like to piss on that guy's grave.

Clearly, squealing on a fellow officer is a no-no among the Cop Brotherhood.

Nor were drugs set aside when not undercover: a couple of male narks came to a Christmas party stoned out of their minds and tongue-kissed each other in front of us guests to show their solidarity, while their boss, present at our table, appeared too drunk (or drugged?) to even notice.

They laughed hysterically as they joked, "We faked inhaling the hash, and we faked the munchies afterwards. Yeah, sure we did."

Nor was it a problem that prostitutes waited, without fear of arrest, at the very doors of an annual full dress police dinner, once the brass had exited and the real party was about to begin. It was laughingly pointed out to me that now might be a good time to get myself get out of there. And I happily took the advice, especially since the decibel level had risen ominously and I sensed an air of impending chaos - sort of like in the cowboy movies where fights break out and chairs end up being smashed, with everyone else cheering - just for the fun of it.

So you can use your imagination as to what likely went on when prudes like myself were no longer there to witness. Especially in view of reports of mounties crossing lines to the point of having to leave the force to avoid discipline:

• Using RCMP aircraft to poach caribou, leaving a loaded gun at a gas station, sexual offences involving children and not responding to calls for help are among 700 cases over the last five years where the RCMP found its employees had broken its rules or the law.

Consider one such officer's alleged activities after retiring from the force with certain acquired clandestine skills:

Vice: Gregory Logan would never have become a criminal if he had not been a cop first.

• RCMP constable Gregory Logan illegally sold millions of dollars worth of narwhal tusks before he was caught in an elaborate cross-border sting. 

Back in the day, I even met a judge who enjoyed telling me that he took a seed from each marijuana exhibit in cases he adjudicated so he could grow his own at home. Too bad it's now legal (and he's too old or dead); he'd miss that delicious little activity.

Another judge I met was subsequently arrested in a "bawdy" house raid in Ottawa. Prior to that, he had laughingly told me that he once passed judgement on a prostitute without looking up from the file, at which point he heard his first name spoken in a pleading voice by the defendant.

I'm not suggesting that prostitution should be considered a crime; I'm merely pointing out that what officialdom says is a crime is not necessarily considered so among the enforcers. The public has no clue what actually goes on behind the curtains of touted respectability. I'm certain that what I witnessed and heard is quite mild compared to what actually occurred behind the scenes.

The so-adjudged "attempted" murder of the brutally slain Sammy Yatim should tell us everything we need to know about the disguised proclivities of today's militarily-trained police officers, and the courts that deal with the fallout.

If you're trained to kill, you're likely gonna itch to do it sometime. And if you're sometimes allowed to break rules for the sake of expedience, how many times might you just decide to go ahead and break them, plus a few heads, without permission? Especially if some member of the public really ticks you off?

TheGunBlog: SWAT Team Use in Canada Is Up 2,100% Since 1980, Researchers Say

• Police are using special units for “routine activities such as executing warrants, traffic enforcement, community policing and responding to mental health crises and domestic disturbances.”

My exposure to law enforcement was in the late 80's and the first half of the 90's, and here's a portion of what was written about the RCMP in 2002:

Robwipond:

• Over the past few years, RCMP controversies have been in the news constantly. The extent of lying revealed during the inquiry into the tasering and death of Robert Dziekanski has been mind-boggling. High-ranking RCMP officials embezzled millions from the force’s retirement funds. The RCMP Commissioner misled Parliament about what politicians knew about Maher Arar. During a recent botched drug bust, an RCMP dog dragged a Surrey man to officers who kicked and stomped on him, even after the man had apparently pointed out they had the wrong apartment number. A long-awaited RCMP investigation found no fault with its officers, even after Ian Bush was arrested outside a hockey arena for jokingly giving a false name and, 20 minutes later, was dead in a jail cell from a bullet to the back of the head.

Re Robert Dziekanski: There seems to have been more compassion for the police officer than for the victim: CBC: 

• [The judge] considered the Crown's recommendation of a sentence up to 36 months, he said, but opted for 30 in part because of the difficulties a police officer would face in prison.

​Read the full Wikipedia report of how law enforcement closed ranks and the RCMP who confiscated and then tried to hide the evidence of wrong-doing in this terribly sad case.

Then, if you wish, go ahead and believe the recent publicized statistics on the official infractions of the RCMP; believe also in the tooth fairy.

Addendum Nov. 27:  In 2013, the RCMP called for a "report" on the huge numbers of missing native women they've somehow, since as far back as the '60's, not been able to locate. In aboriginal communities, the RCMP is a policing agency, and their response, after all these years, is to call for a "report"? Justin Trudeau established a "National Enquiry" in late 2016 and it's anybody's guess why that endeavour has been virtually ham-strung.

​Are ordinary Canadians aware that Canada does not maintain a missing persons data base?

After all this time and all those missing persons, what kind of police force doesn't have a clue about why and how?