On January 24, 2002, Jacqueline Watt lost her life trying to prevent a man from stabbing his estranged girlfriend and their two-year-old son, in Langham, Saskatchewan. After the boy’s father broke into her friend’s apartment, Ms. Watt instructed the mother to run for help while she stayed behind to stop the knife-wielding father from getting closer to the child. In doing so, she was stabbed by the attacker and fell to her knees, severely injured. She managed to get up in a desperate effort to reach the child, but was stabbed again by her assailant. Sadly, Ms. Watt succumbed to her wounds but, thanks to her valiant efforts, the toddler survived the brutal attack.
While police surrounded the apartment, determining if it was safe to enter.
Tanker writes, “There are plenty of good cops out there, but the training standards and policies/procedures have neutered them.” We then get, as KevinB points out, the “FIDO” cops.
Teachers are constrained and neutered by the same stultifying policies and procedures as the police are: most public education systems haven’t seen a slacker or miscreant—especially if from a protected group—whose side they won’t take. Teachers inclined to expect high standards/discipline do so on their own recognisance: in most cases, a parent complaint guarantees that the teacher—not the offending student—will be hauled on the carpet. So, underachieving/belligerent students feel free to escalate their challenging behaviour, while the teacher’s integrity is left in shreds. In many cases, the teacher becomes a “FIDO” too. (BTW, the left wing union turns a blind eye: it thinks that student testing of authority is a good idea.)
I noticed the abject appeasement beginning to happen in the early ‘90s, just as the first Charter cases were being decided. The boards began to get wet feet about Charter litigation—and soft on deviant student behaviour. It’s gone from bad to worse, and the worst case students and their usually irresponsible, cantankerous parents hold the system hostage. The yellow bellied administrators cower in their offices, while their teachers are thrown to the wolves in the trenches. The rules are deliberately set up to NOT support any teacher who might take a stand against such craziness.
Our kids are learning early and often that deviant behaviour will be appeased, not challenged, by the authorities. As the cases here demonstrate, we’re reaping the whirlwind of Canada’s state religion, moral relativism, which has almost totally replaced the integrity and effectiveness of the Ten Commandments.
Kyrie eleison.
I’m no cop hater. In fact, I’ve often spoken to police officers in Tim Horton’s and encouraged them in the very difficult job they’re called to do.
As a citizen of a large metropolis, however, where street-corner shootings, many random it seems, are becoming increasingly common, I’m alarmed at how passive the police presence in this city has become.
Police stationed at construction sites; police stationed on streets that are being torn up; police in cop cars; police protecting Hamas, Hezbollah, and Tamil Tigers demonstrators; police in coffee shops; police everywhere but at Jane and Finch or on any of the other mean streets where drug deals are going down and innocent bystanders are being gunned down.
Why are there so many illegal guns in Toronto? Why are law-abiding, legal gun-holding citizens harassed, while thugs using illegal guns seem to get a free pass?
We have a huge problem at the political level — and police I’ve talked to often say that they can’t police the way they’d like to because they get their orders “from above.” Our political overlords, Moron Miller being one of the prime examples, have completely capitulated to politically correct multiculturalism, which translated means that if you’re a felon from a visible minority you’re almost an untouchable when it comes to being properly charged and/or sentenced for misdemeanors. PC multiculturalism also means that way too many incompetents are being hired in our law enforcement branches because of racial/cultural quotas.
We’re screwed, folks. I don’t feel safe. Phoning the police if something goes wrong does not fill me with confidence. The police want to keep their jobs — ‘can’t blame them — and unless they toe the PC party line, they’re in the crosshairs of their PC managers.
This multicultural morass has gone way wrong. I’ve lived in a third-world country of which Toronto increasingly reminds me. From a law-and-order, pleasant, boring, and clean city, Toronto has become a filthy, weed-infested dumping ground for Canada’s socialist, G*dless, multicultural experiment. Ineffectual policing is simply a symptom of a totally failed social experiment which we’re all having to live with.
Our political overlords have made sure that they live in the tony parts of town, where they don’t have to deal with the fallout of their asinine and destructive policies. They have cottage- and ski chalet-get-aways, which ensure that they can get out of town on weekends and during summer in the city when the natives get really restless. They’re shielded from the realities of lawlessness on our streets, while they tout their hug-a-thug, equality, tolerance, and diversity inanities.
We’re so “diverse” now, there’s no common ground. I think it’s called bedlam.
I agree with the criticism levelled against the four RCMP officers who tazered Dzakanski. Were it up to me they’d all be fired.
There are other cases of incompetence that one could point out. This is a police force of over 26000 members in some 750 detachments. I don’t care what organization you want to look at with that many employees you are not going to get perfection across the board.
Horny Toad – are you saying that if you’re not an asshole when you go into the RCMP you’ll soon become one? If you are, that would be like saying that everyone who spent any amount of time with you would soon become an idiot. Now we all know that’s not the case, right?
Gunney 99 – you say that the posts here are not a criticism of the police – spend a little time and re-read the posts. Its a slugfest.
Texas – the Greyhound bus incident is not a valid point here. Had the victim been alive when the police got there and done nothing then I’d agree. Possibly the only benefit of going into that bus and taking the guy out, and I mean permanently, would be to ensure that he doesn’t live to ever do it again. He has been declared NCR – Not Criminally Responsible – is now in a mental hospital. This being Canada he will be let out at some point and when that happens look for something bad to happen again.
Its not our cops that are screwed up – its our non-existent legal system.
The native stand-off is a whole different issue and it has nothing to do with the police. That is purely a political issue. If the government wanted to end that it is simply a matter of calling in the military and it gets done in short order. The optics would be horrendous
I spent a few days skiing with an ex-cop. Believe me he demanded respect because of his size and strength. He demonstrated his skills by throwing a SCROG (sp?) on me. I would have been twitching on the ground in seconds had he applied some more pressure. Of course this and many other police tactics are no longer allowed. Why is he an ex-cop? He couldn’t stand arresting the scum of the earth and having a limp wristed judge release them the next day.
Then there is the tale also from an ex-cop of the hiker spotting items of woman’s clothing, brassier panties shorts etc beside a river. This was reported to the RCMP but these reports go through a dispatch center in Red Deer and then are forwarded to the officers in the field. The report was sent to a young female officer in Canmore, Alberta. Her response was “We are not responsible for Lost and Found”.
Small town BC perspective: Owned a small business in town next to a high school.
Example A: A lunch hour fight started behind our store. My wife phoned the RCMP (before 911). Their response “Go out there and ask them to quit.” My 5’1″ wife hung up on them.
ExampleB: Our in-store video survellance caught a staff member handing goods out the back door of the store to 3 local hoods ‘well known to law enforcement’. The local staff sargent called me in about 2 weeks later to show me a memo that the Crown prosecutor was not proceding with charges. I called this charactor and asked for an explanation. His comment was ‘ your staff member handing these goods through the back door could be interpreted as ill advised extension of credit. Thusly the likelyhood of conviction was very low.’
Example C: After having particular items shoplifted over an extended period we maintained a ongoing video lookout. We nailed the shoplifter who admitted to his act over a 18 month period. Estimated value $2600. Result: A letter of apology and a promise to never enter our store again. No prosecution, no restitution. On review we found out he had done the same in 3 other stores.
Conclusion: The criminal justice system does not work and the problem is far more extensive than policing, they cannot press charges the crown does. One posters comment that this is a self perpetuating bureaucracy with no accountability could not be more true.
It’s everywhere, it’s everywhere! What is? Lack of accountability and the so-called authorities’ refusal to use the means at their disposal—e.g., in education, the Education Act and the Criminal Code (for now)—to enforce accountability. The inmates appear to be running all the asylums.
Also, Caledonia has everything to do with the police, who follow orders to look the other way for native infractions, while letting those natives bully, harass, and worse non-native, law abiding citizens.
The politicization of all our public, and most of our private, institutions (churches, schools) has turned most of them into left-wing, hug a thug—as batb says—abominations. Teachers and police, who try to stem the tide, are usually brow beaten and worse by their appeasing overlords, whose orders are to be soft on student/criminal infractions, in case some lowest common denominator complainant doesn’t think the authorities are being “fair”.
Like the officer loboy2k describes, I left my career early too: I finally got fed up, seeing my talents to actually make a difference in kids’ lives shoved aside and both my personal and professional integrity belittled. While judges and school administrators huddle on the deck, police and teachers (and the rest of society, like ct) are walking the gangplank above the shark infested waters.
Trudeau’s abominable, deliberately post-Christian Charter has everything to do with this mess.
When the rank and file start telling the shirts to go pound their “politics of Pierre” and reassert their role as originally intended by Sir Robert Peel?
Then the healing begins.
This reminds me of that Can. Coast Guard incident a few years back the gist of which was that a number of victims drowned inside the hull of an overturned boat (B.C. coast) because management regulations forbade, on pain of firing, C.C.G.S. members from diving on the overturned boat. They were ordered to wait for a RCN dive team.
ESSENTIAL READ!:
http://www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/rboshier/RBrescusediving.htm
I am an ex-Mountie and I have to say I agree with a lot of the negative comments directed against the Force. Waiting for an Emergency Response Team to arrive on the scene before you enter a residence when someone is in need of your help is b.s. Cowardly would be a work that comes to mine. When you become a cop you have to realize that one day you may have to give your life to save innonence. That was the way I always viewed police work. The 14 young girls that got killed in Montreal while the uniform guy were outside waiting for the SWAT is a joke. Pull your gun and go in and shoot the asshole…..We are paid to save lives…so do it or quit and get a job at Superstore. The person who commented on size has sone validity in his statemet that the members today are small little people. You still need to have some size if you are going to be breaking up fights, arresting drunks, etc. People, especially criminals are intimadated by size so being a big guy is definitely an advantage.
The gene pool could be getting smaller in Canada and kids now are raised different that we were 30 years ago. The courts, the law are a joke and most cops have lost interest. They look at their job as a job, while we looked at like a calling. They just want to put in their time and go home.
Cops have been dumped on for years and they have a ” hell with it ” attitude. They just dont care.
Cops reflect what society is…
That said…I met alot of good, brave and hard working cops in my day but today I think there are less…….
Enough said….
Mike L, writes, “Cops have been dumped on for years and they have a ‘hell with it’ attitude. They just dont care.
“Cops reflect what society is…
“That said…I met alot of good, brave and hard working cops in my day but today I think there are less…….”
This describes the teaching profession very well. It used to be that teachers had a vocation. It was honoured and supported. In the highly politicized propaganda machine public education has become, not any more.
And who has a great deal of influence in the formation of our cops? It’s a vicious circle . . .
Holy whiners Batman. The best you people can do is complain on a message board? Why don’t you try and change the things you believe to be wrong? Run for office! Get your message out instead of having a group hug on a message board. People who sit back and complain and do nothing are just as bad as the people they complain about.
I don’t agree with everything Kate says, but at least she did something to get her voice heard. Now she needs to run for office and work change that way. Turn those page hits into votes!