Globe: Editorial, Reticence and the RCMP
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Globe and Mail, Wednesday July 19 2006, Editorial, Reticence and the RCMP
The RCMP is the turtle of Canadian institutions. Inching along in its investigations of deadly shootings, it disappears into its shell as soon as the public or media ask a question. When extraordinary events occur -- the latest being the shooting deaths of two of its officers in Saskatchewan -- the force does itself no favours with its instinctive secrecy.
There have been three extraordinary events in the past year and a half. Four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alta., were killed by James Roszko in March of 2005, and the force has yet to provide a detailed report of what happened, citing a continuing criminal investigation. But Mr. Roszko is dead, and it's hard to understand how a search for a possible accomplice would be compromised by such a report.
A second extraordinary event occurred last October when Ian Bush, 22, of Houston, B.C., was arrested on a misdemeanour and taken to a police station. A short time later, he was dead from an RCMP bullet. It is very hard to understand how the investigation and a decision on whether to lay charges against the officer involved could take nine months and counting.
About the third extraordinary event, the July 7 killings of two RCMP officers in Spiritwood, two hours north of Saskatoon, the public knows there was a family dispute leading to a 27-kilometre police chase of suspect Curtis Dagenais and then the fatal shootings, and the wounding of a third officer. The Globe reported yesterday that the RCMP asked for an ambulance more than an hour after the force says the officers were shot. Perhaps the officers were not shot at the time the RCMP says they were. Perhaps there is some other explanation. Much else is not known. Was the suspect's gun recovered? Was it registered? What happened that justified such a long police chase? The information vacuum does not make the RCMP look good, and its record of sitting on information naturally leads the public to wonder whether the force has something to hide.
After its fruitless 20-year investigation into the 1985 Air-India terrorist bombings, after the fiasco of Canadian Maher Arar's 2002 deportation from New York to a Syrian nightmare, it's disconcerting that the Mounties should treat the public with such contempt. "The public doesn't have a right to know anything," the RCMP's spokesman in Vancouver, Staff Sgt. John Ward, said two months ago about the investigation into the Bush shooting. "It takes long because it takes long."
A turtle with the power of speech couldn't have said it better. But in the absence of information, people will make their own judgments about the competence (and, in the Bush case, the impartiality) of the RCMP. And public trust, once weakened, may never be regained.
The RCMP is the turtle of Canadian institutions. Inching along in its investigations of deadly shootings, it disappears into its shell as soon as the public or media ask a question. When extraordinary events occur -- the latest being the shooting deaths of two of its officers in Saskatchewan -- the force does itself no favours with its instinctive secrecy.
There have been three extraordinary events in the past year and a half. Four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe, Alta., were killed by James Roszko in March of 2005, and the force has yet to provide a detailed report of what happened, citing a continuing criminal investigation. But Mr. Roszko is dead, and it's hard to understand how a search for a possible accomplice would be compromised by such a report.
A second extraordinary event occurred last October when Ian Bush, 22, of Houston, B.C., was arrested on a misdemeanour and taken to a police station. A short time later, he was dead from an RCMP bullet. It is very hard to understand how the investigation and a decision on whether to lay charges against the officer involved could take nine months and counting.
About the third extraordinary event, the July 7 killings of two RCMP officers in Spiritwood, two hours north of Saskatoon, the public knows there was a family dispute leading to a 27-kilometre police chase of suspect Curtis Dagenais and then the fatal shootings, and the wounding of a third officer. The Globe reported yesterday that the RCMP asked for an ambulance more than an hour after the force says the officers were shot. Perhaps the officers were not shot at the time the RCMP says they were. Perhaps there is some other explanation. Much else is not known. Was the suspect's gun recovered? Was it registered? What happened that justified such a long police chase? The information vacuum does not make the RCMP look good, and its record of sitting on information naturally leads the public to wonder whether the force has something to hide.
After its fruitless 20-year investigation into the 1985 Air-India terrorist bombings, after the fiasco of Canadian Maher Arar's 2002 deportation from New York to a Syrian nightmare, it's disconcerting that the Mounties should treat the public with such contempt. "The public doesn't have a right to know anything," the RCMP's spokesman in Vancouver, Staff Sgt. John Ward, said two months ago about the investigation into the Bush shooting. "It takes long because it takes long."
A turtle with the power of speech couldn't have said it better. But in the absence of information, people will make their own judgments about the competence (and, in the Bush case, the impartiality) of the RCMP. And public trust, once weakened, may never be regained.
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