(This column was published in the North Shore News on June 18, 2003)
No-nonsense RCMP protect North Van
By Leo Knight
North Shore resident and avid reader of this space, Dan Ames, wrote to me on the weekend concerned about a couple of letters to the editor which he thought contained "veiled anti-police rhetoric."
The letters were written on the subject of whether or not the name of the North Vancouver Mountie who was injured when his weapon accidentally discharged and wounded him in the leg should be made public.
One of the letters suggested that not releasing the name somehow placed the public at risk.
Ames, in his letter to me, responded and I thought appropriately, when he said, "What nonsense!"
He explained in the letter, "Are these idiots suggesting that if they are told this member's name they will give him a wide berth should they encounter him on a city street?"
Apparently.
"They are after one thing, the public embarrassment of a cop," he concluded.
Evidently.
The incident was an accident and nothing more.
The Mountie has served this community well for a long time and was getting into a ceremonial uniform to go to a community event.
The accident nearly turned tragic when the bullet clipped the femoral artery.
He could have bled to death before he was found had not someone else been passing by the change room in the basement of the police building and heard the shot. He had to be transferred to a trauma centre in Vancouver because of the seriousness of the injury once he was stabilized at Lion's Gate Hospital.
I fail to see what the public identification of him would serve.
In an editorial run by the North Shore News last week, headlined Called to Action, I think that the theme was generally anti-police and suggested that given the spate of recent murders and the incident involving the police officer mentioned previously, that somehow the Mounties were over their heads.
It concluded with the statement "It's a good thing our community has been relatively crime free because it seems as though our police probably couldn't handle it otherwise."
Now, I firstly must admit I do not know who wrote the editorial.
Nor do I know if it is the collective opinion of the people who own the paper.
What I do know is the reality of the situation.
In the first place, two of the three homicides referred to in the piece were not handled by North Vancouver RCMP. The North Vancouver woman's body was dumped in Coquitlam.
Jurisdiction belongs to the authorities where the body is found.
North Van Mounties are certainly assisting in the file, but in reality, so is Coquitlam.
The new Integrated Homicide Investigative Team (IHIT) is actually handling the file.
So too, the file of the downtown trans-gendered individual whose body was dumped just off Capilano Road near Marine Drive in North Vancouver.
It is a cross-jurisdictional file too and the IHIT crew are the primaries.
The North Shore has long been a dumping ground for murderers to try and dispose of their handiwork. Look at the case currently before the courts from the mid-80s that hung out as a "cold case" until former North Vancouver constables Lee Gregor and Paul Duffy got their teeth into it and got a result.
Previously, it was the responsibility of North Vancouver RCMP to deal with the files where the bodies were dumped in their jurisdiction, but killed elsewhere.
This is no longer the case.
But the bit that really has me a little testy was the statement concerning the "undercover" operation conducted in North Shore neighbourhoods relating to the shooting death of a North Vancouver man in his basement suite on April 7.
The editorial stated the following: "It's been an open secret that police had one suspect and a not-so-discreet undercover operation going on in quiet local neighbourhoods since the April murder. Some residents enjoyed the cop show, but were relieved when the nonsense ended."
In the first place it wasn't an undercover operation.
It was a surveillance operation.
In the second place, what the newspaper called an "open secret" wasn't known to the target of the operation until his arrest at Five Corners.
So, on the whole, I think I would call it a successful homicide investigation and related surveillance operation, not "nonsense." For that matter, when is any aspect of a homicide investigation "nonsense?"
I think that the editorial insinuated the North Vancouver RCMP were incompetent. Let's check the score: three homicides in a month. Two put down with persons charged.
One, (the North Vancouver woman who immigrated from Korea with her family a couple of years ago and whose family has mysteriously disappeared back to Korea) will continue under the auspices of the IHIT squad with a known suspect which will, in my view, be concluded successfully.
On the whole, I'd have to say that's pretty good police work.
I wonder where the "nonsense" is?
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