With Good Reason

This morning I finished my early entries and then went and turned on the TV to see what was happening in the real world (I normally monitor CTV and CNN most days). I was met by emerging reports of the death of another fine young officer newly graduated from the RCMP Academy who responded to a report of an impaired driver in our far north. Details were very sketchy for the first few hours but now slightly more information is becoming available.

“There was a fellow in a pickup truck driving around with a young child, armed, and he [the Mountie] just came on the scene and was shot before he even got out of the car,” said Mr. Trickett.

If Trickett’s version turns out to be true this situation could have happened anywhere to virtually any officer because the simple truth is this. As soon as an officer puts a uniform on he becomes a highly visible target and some things cannot be avoided. It’s part of the job.

What concerns me is the age of this officer:

“The dead officer has been identified as Const. Douglas Scott, 20, from Brockville, Ont.”

And the posting (an isolated native community of 400 on Baffin Island with two fulltime policemen and lots of guns available).

Many years ago I read somewhere about the life expectancy of police officers on the NY Police Department. In the first few months of an officer’s service their life expectancy was measured in mere hours if I have it right. As they became more experienced their chances of survival increased from hours to days and then into weeks. Finally years. It is a brutal Darwinian process. Hopefully things have improved since I read that article but the point to be made is that even the most experienced officer can be suckered in a situation like Doug found himself in and many have been.

It should be noted that the RCMP appear to have learned from Chris Worden’s death and there was little delay in sending Scott’s backup to investigate when he didn’t answer his radio. Not that it would have made any difference to him. Where it did make a difference was in grabbing the person responsible. There was no time for the shooter to pack and run.

Be that as it may it still leaves me wrestling with the problem of sending young officers into isolated postings with little or no practical experience. These young people have not yet gained the kind of survival knowledge which can do so much to help ensure they retire in good health and it bothers me. I say this because for a number of months after a new officer joins a police force in Ontario he (or she) is paired with a “Coach Officer” — an officer with far more experience who has attended a special course designed to help him (or her) train that young officer to survive.

You would be surprised how simple some of this stuff is — “domestic” — come in quiet, park the car down the block and walk in so you can assess everything as you approach is one “for instance”. There is a lot more.

Without knowing all the details I can only speculate on what happened but I wonder if things might have turned out different had an older, far more experienced officer responded to that call.

It’s far to early to know but I will say that anger bred from pure frustration with the system has no place in this young officer’s death, as it did not in Worden’s passing.

Instead we should focus our sights on fixing it.

Mac and I have been kicking around a bit of stuff the past few days in private mail between us and I did not know until the other day that the RCMP are so short of money that their in service training has taken a huge hit. I took it as a given that once a year the RCMP went through what he and I know as ”Block Training” just as the OPP do (and have done for years).

It turns out they do not and it has to do with money. They don’t have it to spend while the OPP do and they can’t complain about it on pain of being fired. In point of fact, the rank and file are so tired of sending internal memo’s that they no longer bother.

Well maybe they can’t complain — but I can on their behalf.

Permit me to expand — their members attend Block Training once every three years and if I understand the situation right it is nothing like the OPP enjoy. For instance, two months before I retired I was required to qualify once again on all firearms in use by the OPP. I froze my fingers off — it was a regular thing shooting on an open range in the middle of winter — but I passed (as always). There is much more that OPP practice as “routine” because they have the money.

As I understand it the RCMP don’t do so because they can’t afford it. There is a lot more they can’t afford — really modern communication systems, quarters and vehicles. Instead they make do with what they have and if this sounds like an old movie you’ve seen before that’s because it is. Our Armed Forces and our Coast Guard have taken the same big hit not to mention our Port Police and Customs authorities. Without actually being a member I suspect that the RCMP are in just about the same boat that the OPP were in prior to Mike Harris taking over. Driving their cars until the wheels fall off and parking them when their detachment budget no longer permitted them to buy fuel.

OPP know about that stuff because we did it.

Things change though and as in the OPP case it all begins with a government that understands and is sympathetic. I think the time has arrived. I personally have the strong feeling Cst. Douglas Scott did not have to die last evening but I suspect he did because of lack of training directly attributable to a very tight budget.

I also feel (in my “pointy headed view”) we can change the picture if the motoring public sits up and demands the situation be fixed. In doing so, nobody would be wrong. We will still lose officers but perhaps “not so many” if we put things right.

This situation has run out of legs and I think we can do better.

We begin by trashing the “feel good” Gun Registry and giving the money saved to the people who need it most — our federal police force and we work from there as we trash all the other “feel good” programs and put the money where it counts.

I think Cst Douglas Scott would want that and I can think of no better way to remember him and all those that fell before him.

It’s common sense.