MOURNING MOUNTIES

MAYERTHORPE -- "I've been to way too many police funerals."

A weary Harvey Cenaiko took a last drag on a cigarette and flipped it
into the snow.

Alberta's solicitor general stood outside the legion hall in
Mayerthorpe, where RCMP had set up a command post after four officers
were gunned down by a local loon who'd been growing pot on a nearby
farm.

Cenaiko, who spent 25 years with Calgary Police Service, was waiting
for a car to take him to nearby Whitecourt, to meet with the family of
one of the four murdered men. He'd already grieved with relatives of
three of the Mounties who had been based in Mayerthorpe, a town of
2,000 about 130 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Whitecourt had been
home to the fourth.

Cenaiko shook his head. "All of this over a marijuana grow op."

The Legion hall's flag stood at half-mast, as did the flag at the RCMP
detachment office across the street.

The road separating the two had been turned into something of a parade
route by locals driving up and down to check out the dozens of media
camped out.

Throughout the day, families of the dead had arrived urgently,
frantically, summoned to hear the worst.

At times, sobbing could be heard coming from inside the detachment.
There was shock, grief and anger.

One stunned relative made a bee-line for a TV cameraman and slugged
him, hard, in the face.

Minutes later, the same man reappeared and apologized, tearfully.

No charges were pressed, no complaint filed. No harm done, except for
a TV news shooter with a nasty black eye, ruefully philosophical about
the risks of observing the grief of others.

Later, a couple walked to the front of the detachment and placed roses
at the base of the RCMP sign. Mike Stantyk, a retired Mountie from
Mayerthorpe, wanted to pay tribute to the four dead officers. As is
common in small towns where everybody's familiar, he knew the men. He
also knew the shooter.

"I'm not going to dignify him by talking about him," Stantyk
spat.

But in dribs and drabs, a partial profile was emerging of the man
believed to have murdered the Mounties.

He was pretty much the local nut case, townies said, and had been in
trouble with the law before.

The man was something of a recluse -- there was talk he'd
booby-trapped his driveway with spikes so vehicles driving up would
have their tires blown out.

Rumours and theories about how the officers had died were
rampant.

On Wednesday night, police had raided a quonset hut on the farm near
Mayerthorpe, but it's not clear whether anyone was there at the time.

What is absolute is that two of the Mounties who were shot had been
assigned to guard the building overnight. Besides the pot, there was a
bunch of stolen property.

At roughly 10:30 a.m. Thursday, more officers showed up to relieve the
first two.

Shooting started immediately and four Mounties were slain with shots
from a high-powered rifle.

It was a flat-out ambush by a guy who'd gotten the drop on the
officers.

"That could be a reasonable and plausible explanation," said RCMP
spokesman Cpl. Wayne Oakes. "We have every reason to believe he was
not on the premises overnight when the officers were guarding it."

One Mountie got away after squeezing off a few rounds, possibly
wounding the shooter.

The officers hadn't expected trouble.

"They were not going into a potentially armed conflict situation,"
said Oakes.

By 2:30 p.m., a police tactical squad had stormed the hut and
determined no one was alive.

The shooter was also dead, either by his own hand or a police slug. No
one knew for sure.

Too many questions, and way too many dead people.

Some days, reporting on politics just doesn't matter.

With the human drama of four dead police officers, it was difficult to
get cranked up over the inane theatre that question period at the
Alberta legislature too often devolves into.

Cenaiko stood up and delivered a short message in the house, then
headed for Mayerthorpe.

Local MLA George VanderBurg was with him.

"Four local boys are dead today," said VanderBurg. "Everybody knows
each other in a small community. The officers are an important part of
our volunteer organizations, of our communities . . ."

VanderBurg paused, his voice catching. "They just put their heart and
soul into the job."

And sometimes their blood. And too often their lives.