Pubdate: Fri, 11 Mar 2005
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Leo Knight, Former RCMP officer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Rochfort+Bridge (Rochfort Bridge)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

FOUR GOOD MEN DIED BECAUSE OF AN EVIL MAN AND A WEAK SOCIETY

I was in the lounge at the Calgary airport when I got the first call
of a shooting in Mayerthorpe.

Initial indications were there may have been two RCMP members shot and
possibly as many as six.

When I landed in Vancouver and checked my Blackberry, the full horror
of the tragedy was evident.

It was a massacre.

Four junior members of the RCMP, with 12 years' combined experience,
lay dead.

The news stunned this country.

I received e-mails from as far-flung places as Tennessee and Norway,
from police officers expressing their sadness and trying to understand
how this could have happened.

How indeed?

There has been a litany of people using the deaths of the officers to
further their own pet personal or political causes.

One of the blindly stupid lines of thought emanated from the "legalize
pot" crowd.

"Those officers would still be alive if pot were legal" went the
argument. The naivete hardly bears analysis.

But the criminalization, de-criminalization or the legalization of
marijuana had absolutely nothing to do with why these members died.

Others have tried to blame the RCMP because the members were so
junior.

I don't accept that.

I joined the RCMP a month after my 19th birthday. The RCMP trained me
well.

Six months later I was part of a squad responsible for the well-being
of the prime minister. Less than a year later, at 20, I was on patrol
by myself in the City of Langley.

At 21, I worked my first homicide. At 22, I'd been seconded to work on
a major heroin conspiracy.

At that time, I had a grand total of three years' experience, less
than two of the members killed by James Roszko -- the one actually
responsible for these killings.

Roszko was an evil, violent, deviant of a man who murdered four RCMP
members in their prime, men who were proud to serve the country that
refused to jail this freak.

But he had an accomplice.

And I'm not talking about someone who might have driven him 20
kilometres from where his truck was found.

No, I am talking about the rampant liberalization of this country. We
have created a system that refuses to recognize the existence of true
evil.

It's a faux liberal society that thinks everyone can be rehabilitated
if you try over and over and over again.

It's one that has decided that the privacy rights of criminals
outweigh the government's first and primary duty -- to protect the
Canadian citizenry.

It's one that teaches our kids that historical, societal norms are
some type of "phobia," and that drugs are somehow good.

Yes, the late-but-not-lamented Roszko is directly responsible for the
killing of four young police officers.

But he had help from several decades of liberal hand-wringing and
social engineering.

And four good young men are dead because of it. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake