Lone ranger gets results

A horrible killing. An intensive but fruitless 10-day RCMP manhunt. Finally the suspect is located and brought in -- by the police? No, by a local guy who went out searching on his own with a couple of dogs and a gun:

"A local hunter and tracker in Merritt, B.C., played a major role in the arrest of a father who was wanted after RCMP identified him as the prime suspect in the deaths of his three children.

Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, 40, is now in police custody and the ranching community of Merritt, about 270 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, is breathing a sign of relief Wednesday, Mayor David Laird said.

Schoenborn was believed to have been captured Wednesday morning by Kim Robinson, who had told CBC News two days ago that he had been taking his dogs and tracking any food trail left behind in the valleys and mountains around the area."

Ironically, this Robinson dude was turned down by the RCMP when he offered them his assistance at the start of the manhunt. Apparently he took matters into his own hands and continued searching on his own until -- bingo! The suspect is now in custody.

Apart from the horrific crime, what a cool ending to the search: a dog, a rifle and a little tenacity gets the job done before the RCs even get out of the donut shop. Ha! It reminded me of the importance of independence, and how we often forget our own potential for self-sufficiency until the shit hits the fan.

One summer night a couple of years ago, I was awakened by some rattling noises outside -- I thought for sure the house was being broken into. It was *that kind* of noise. There was no point in calling the cops -- it takes them almost an hour to get here, so by the time they arrived there'd be nothing for them to do but shovel me into a body bag. My response to this perceived threat was instantaneous and unthinking: dig out the .38special and leap into pajama-clad action. Of course, my search for the intruder revealed that it was some stealthy nocturnal beast like a raccoon, but still. I felt powerful that night, glowingly powerful, independent and self-reliant. It's a good feeling... it definitely beats the hell out of waiting, shivering and trembling with a heart full of fear, for someone to arrive and save me (from a raccoon).

Whatever the RCMP end up saying about the Schoenborn capture (that they didn't do), you can be sure it'll include a face-saving, finger-wagging admonishment to the public not to play "vigilante". Sure. Because leaving things up to them was working out so well... for Schoenborn.

Stockie in Charge, Part Duhx

Why does the Harper government keep giving this bozo such important assignments? Here's another one that sounds like it should work out well:

"Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he has taken the first major step in reforming the RCMP, announcing the creation of a new council to oversee the overhaul of the force.

"It's one more step toward the changes that have to take place to make this organization even stronger than it is today," Day said Thursday morning.

The appointment of the implementation council, chaired by David McAusland, a top executive at Alcan Inc., is one of the key recommendations laid out by a task force that was asked by Ottawa to investigate structural problems plaguing the RCMP."

If anyone wants the top secret details on the re-organization, I guess they can be found in the dumpster behind Hy's Restaurant, in the file labeled "Top Secret Security Stuff and Junk Like That".

RCMP - the BS never stops

I'm getting tired of starting posts about the RCMP with the word "unbelievable", so let's kick this one off with "What a steaming load of bullshit":

"The RCMP Public Complaints Commissioner has ruled an officer's use of lethal force was necessary in the death of Ian Bush in Houston, B.C.

In a report released Thursday, Commissioner Paul Kennedy also ruled the RCMP's North District Major Crime Unit conducted a "highly professional'' investigation into Bush's death." [...]

"Bush, 22, was arrested outside the Houston, B.C., hockey rink with an open beer in October 2005. Less than an hour later he was dead, lying in a blood-spattered room in the RCMP detachment.

Const. Paul Koester testified he shot the young man in the back of the head in self-defence while the two were alone in an interview room." (emphasis mine)

Try as I might, I can't imagine how anyone could shoot a guy in the back of the head in self-defense. Defending oneself during a life and death struggle would suggest some kind of face-to-face situation, wouldn't it? Maybe I'm missing something. If I am, please advise. And I really hope I am.

Were YVR TASER® cops on steroids?

I was listening to CKNW this aft (while waiting for Cable Buddy to show), and like everyone, they were talking about the TASER® killing at YVR. The context of the discussion was compensation for Robert Dziekanski's mother, and her lawyer Walter Kosteckyj was a guest on the show. Speaking about the RCMP officers involved in the incident, Mr. Kosteckyj pondered something that hadn't occurred to me thus far, but makes sense -- the possibility that the situation escalated so quickly because one or more of the officers were "under the influence" of steroids.

It's a growing phenomenon: to bulk up and keep a physical edge on criminals, some cops have been resorting to the quick fix of steroids to augment their bodybuilding routines. Steroid use among police officers has soared in the last decade, and especially in the last couple of years. According to an ABC story published last month:

"From Boston to Arizona, police departments are investigating a growing number of incidents involving uniformed police officers using steroids. So-called "juicing" has been anecdotally associated with several brutality cases, including the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in New York City."

An expert quoted by ABC estimates roughly one in four police officers in high-pressure urban areas are on steroids, so while it's a minority, it's a significant one. While what happens in the States doesn't necessarily happen everywhere, police culture transcends boundaries. This informal poll at the BlueLine forum indicates that most officers believe strength and endurance are the best physical attributes for their job, and those are what 'roids do best. So it's probably not unreasonable to assume Canadian cops are experiencing the same phenomenon as their American cohorts, if to a lesser degree.

Well, let's see. The user profile fits. And what psychological traits are steroid users best known for? Oh yes -- short tempers and impaired judgment. Which would certainly help explain why a seemingly docile situation such as the police were dealing with in Robert Dziekanski could escalate and go sideways so fast. So steroid use could be a sidebar issue that an independent inquiry might want to examine, because if the TASERs® go, there are still maglites to bash people over the head with. And rocks.

Who ya gonna call?

Bloggers on all sides of the political compass have written eloquently over the past week about the Robert Dziekanski TASER® killing at YVR. Few are defending the RCMP's actions, but I can't help noticing that those who do typically rationalize their defense by saying "When your house gets broken into, who ya gonna call?"

"Next time your house gets broken into I assume you wont call the police for fear of a “summary execution”."

This cracks me up, given my own experience with the local RCMP detachment when my house was broken into 10 years ago. My call to them went something like this:

RCMP - Good afternoon, RCMP

ME - Yeah yeah! I just got home from work and my house was broken into today. My address is (zot zot zot)

RCMP - Oh, that's too bad. We'll make a note of it...

ME - A note? Are you sending someone out here?

RCMP - Do you want us to?

ME - Well, no kidding! I wouldn't mind seeing a cop car in my driveway right about now -- and I wouldn't mind the guy who broke in seeing it too, if he's still hanging around. Huh? What do you think?

RCMP - But everything's under control, right? Nobody's hurt? We don't usually bother coming out for B&Es unless it's an emergency.

ME - Listen buddy, I need a police report to file with my insurance claim!!

RCMP - Oh, okay. We'll be out in awhile.

"Awhile" was almost 3 hours later, after having to practically beg them to send someone out here. Okay, it wasn't an emergency, but it was still a crime scene. You'd think they'd be interested in checking it out. Given that lackadaisical response, I don't really want to see how they'd respond in an emergency (2 hours instead of 3?), nor would I likely have time to fuck around waiting for them in such a situation. So I'm prepared to handle anything that boots its way in here uninvited (while I'm home) without the help of the RCMP -- I'll still get them to write the report, though. If I can talk them into it.

Tall dark and dead

Something caught my eye in the story about the Robert Dziekanski video that ran on Thursday in the Star:

"... a tall and swarthy Dziekanski..." Swarthy. New crime of the 21st century bullshit post-9/11 law enforcement world: "Acting Up While Swarthy". Wow, I better watch it, I'm a little swarthy myself by mid-summer.

The new millenium's version of "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" -- "Don't tase me because I'm swarthy... bro".

Vancouver Airport taser death

The video of the October 15 tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport was finally made public late today. It was taken by a bystander (and amazingly, turned over to the RCMP without being copied), then kept from the public pending an investigation.

From what I saw on the video, what happened was unnecessary, unacceptable and brought to mind the thuggish brutality of a police state. The cops not only overreacted, but reacted with force far too soon. It was less than 30seconds after they approached that they tasered the guy, and keep in mind, there were three four of them and one of him. If three four cops can't get control of one guy without using a taser, they are in the wrong line of work.

Look at it this way: if the same cops had approached the guy and immediately started kicking the shit out of him, 4 on 1, it would be considered unacceptably savage. A taser can (obviously) be more deadly than a shitkicking, but because it's small and quick, somehow it gets lost that this is exactly what they're doing when they employ that kind of force.

Dr. Dawg has some more thoughts and a link to the video, watch it and make up your own mind.

New RCMP Commissioner

Stockwell Day lit up my TV screen awhile ago, announcing the appointment of a new RCMP Commissioner. This is a weird one:

"OTTAWA -- William Elliott is the new commissioner of the RCMP, taking over as Canada's top police officer at a time when the Mounties are under fire from external critics and even within their own ranks.

Elliott, a senior bureaucrat in the Public Safety Department which oversees the RCMP, is the first civilian to take the reins of the RCMP since the force was created in 1873."

The appointee, William Elliott, has some background in the Coast Guard and security, but technically he's a career civil servant -- a civilian, definitely not a cop. He's never done a cop's job or understands cop issues. I can't see him being able to command much respect from most of the rank-and-file cops he's been appointed to manage.

It's kind of an odd appointment in another way, too. The RCMP is supposed to be an organization apart from the government, giving it the independence to investigate the government itself if necessary. The appointment of a non-cop, government insider makes that relationship a little closer, which doesn't bode well for the upcoming cleanup of the RCMP. I'd rather let the mounties clean their own house than do it under the direction of Stephen Harper.