A TICKING TIMEBOMB

EDMONTON -- Jim Roszko was a child molester. He was a thief. He was
obsessed with guns. He was a paranoid, who believed the world was out to
get him.

He was also growing some marijuana plants in a Quonset hut on his farm near
Rochfort Bridge.

Ever since Roszko shot and killed four RCMP officers last week, politicians
and pundits have been using the murders as a platform to debate Canada's
drug laws. RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, Public Safety Minister
Anne McLellan and Premier Ralph Klein were all eager to connect the murders
to the need for tougher laws against marijuana grow operations.

The tragedy also prompted calls for the liberalization of Canada's drug
laws, with people like Treasury Board president Reg

Alcock arguing that legalizing marijuana would destroy the profit motive
that makes drug trafficking so attractive to criminal gangs.

All fascinating and important public policy arguments, to be sure. But they
have precious little to do with the ticking timebomb that was Jim Roszko.
We do a terrible injustice to the memories of RCMP Constables Peter
Schiemann, Brock Myrol, Leo Johnston and Tony Gordon if we let people
hijack their lives and deaths to score political points.

There are important policy questions to be answered here, chief among which
is, how did a man with a violent criminal record, prohibited by court order
from owning any firearms, end up with a high-powered rapid-fire rifle? But
please, let's stop the tortured efforts to exploit this massacre as an
excuse to debate the merits of the gun registry, too.

The bitter truth is that Roszko was an angry, dangerous man who had
terrified his neighbours for decades. He had a particular hatred for RCMP
officers, whom he stalked and harassed. He had targeted all kinds of
authority figures over the years: school trustees, vets, bailiffs, election
enumerators. When he didn't use a gun, he employed other weapons, from
attack dogs to homemade spike belts.

He didn't shoot these four officers to protect his drug business. Nor did
he shoot them to save himself from jail; he had already fled the property.

Instead, he returned, ambushed and executed the four young Mounties in cold
blood. They were on his land, and he hated them for it.

Roszko wasn't a gangster. He was the quintessential loner. Nor was he
running an elaborate "grow-op," a fact that Zaccardelli belatedly
acknowledged Monday.

When RCMP first arrived at his farm last week, they weren't looking for
drugs at all. They were escorting two understandably nervous bailiffs, who
had a civil warrant to seize a 2005 Ford F350 truck, worth some $48,000, on
which Roszko had failed to make payments. The bailiffs had been run off
earlier in the day by Roszko's Rottweilers.

When they arrived, the RCMP found 20 mature pot plants, about 100 little
sprouts and a barrel of marijuana leaves. Later, after they got their
search warrant, they found about 280 plants, all told. Officers also found
signs of a "chop shop," several presumably stolen vehicles cut up for
parts. They also spotted a generator that matched the description of a
$30,000 generator stolen two weeks earlier.

Yet we're not hearing anybody calling on Ottawa to toughen our laws against
people who default on their car loans or people who steal electric generators.

It's just been easier for people to try to turn this tragedy into a debate
about drugs and organized crime. Tell the story that way and it makes
"sense". If we pretend this is a morality tale about grow-ops and
decriminalizing marijuana, our politicians can all run around sounding like
they have solutions.

But these murders make no sense, because Roszko's actions weren't rational.
And there is no tidy policy solution to the eternal problem of random evil.

In recent days, the media have used all kinds of ugly words to describe
Roszko: psycho, loopy, wing nut, nutbar. Roszko, though, was never
diagnosed with a specific mental illness. We do know that he was a
pedophile with a serious anger management problem and obvious signs of
paranoia. It seems he had a troubled family life. Maybe talk therapy and
anti-psychotic drugs would have made a difference to his behaviour.

Maybe if some chemical imbalance or organic brain injury or profound
childhood trauma shaped his personality, and his actions, he too is a
victim who deserves some of our compassion.

Or perhaps, James Michael Roszko was just a lonely, self-pitying bully with
a grudge against the world, a rage-alcoholic with a twisted moral compass,
unable to accept responsibility for a lifetime of bad choices.

Either way, neither our mental health system nor our justice system seemed
able to handle him. Frightening though he was, there never seemed to be
enough evidence, enough provocation, to jail him for a serious length of
time or treat whatever demons possessed him.

And so, on a morning in March, Jim Roszko's hatred finally exploded,
destroying him, and four fresh, dedicated RCMP officers, sworn to protect
our peace.

Let's not allow people to exploit their deaths to advance political
agendas. Let's tell the story true.