AS PUSH COMES TO SHOVE, COPS AND POLITICIANS RUN FOR COVER.

A bunch of baddies are busted and quickly released, sans outrage. Sleep
tight

Yessir, we get it now. When the circus comes to town, the city cop
brass won't say stink if their mouth is full of it.

When nobody is around and all the chatter is pie-in-the-sky, they and
the pretend tough politicians are all mad about how bad guys get
caught and are then released.

But when we have a real case of all kinds of bad guys arrested and
back on the street, including full-blown gangsters, you don't need to
have the B.S. detector on very high to catch the butt-covering gibberish.

How many times has city police Chief Rick Hanson slammed the revolving
door of what pretends to be a criminal justice system and yet,
yesterday, one of his top guys won't say boo since ... golly gee,
golly whiz ... there's a prosecutor in the back of the room, looking
stylish and wearing a puff in his pocket. Some tough guys.

The misplacing of backbones begins when the cops invite the press to
their HQ and they lay out the drugs and the guns and the ammo and tell
us about their big bust, tons of criminal charges, 34 people charged,
the investigation of four shootings wrapped up.

According to the cops, 12 of those charged are biggies but ... guess
what ... eight are already back out on the street.

You don't say.

As for the lesser 22 baddies, a whole 20 are legally not behind bars.
The other two didn't wait for a judge. They're on the loose.

We're talking people legally on the street with attempted murder
beefs, gun charges, drug charges, failure to comply with orders of the
court, including bans on possessing guns they possess.

We're talking individuals facing 19 offences, 18 offences, 14
offences, 11 offences and on they go.

And what does Insp. Shaun Gissing have to say, on behalf of the
Calgary Police Service? It ain't pretty.

"Well, it's always a concern when we find a violent individual, lay a
charge and ultimately for some reason they're released," says the inspector.

"We are very careful to attempt to detain people who we feel are going
to be a problem on our streets and, if that's not possible, for a
variety of reasons, we ensure we have strict conditions upon their
release."

Here we go. Keep shovelling.

The inspector drones on about "very careful partnering with the
prosecutor's office on what form of release these people would go out
on and a very close joint consultation on the release of each
individual."

It is really tough to listen to this drivel.

"Each case is different. It is not possible for me to give a blanket
statement. Each one is looked at carefully and our partnership with
the prosecutor's office allows us to carefully dictate the
circumstances of how individuals are dealt with." Enough.

This columnist asks a simple question. Wouldn't it have been better if
those charged were behind bars and then you really could dictate the
conditions as the police chief says he wants?

By then, Insp. Gissing is clearly not happy. He resorts to offering up
a little lesson from Law 101.

"Each individual is subject to a trial and, at the end of his trial,
if he's found guilty he may be subject to time behind bars, as you
say."

Not exactly Dirty Harry.

The inspector does remind us they have some people behind bars. Yahoo.
And then, read this line carefully. "I suppose I would be concerned we
may lose an individual to flight."

Talk about making folks feel snug in their jammies.

The inspector tells us he believes these people are not small players
in gangland, causing problems in our city and shooting people while
carrying out personal vendettas. He figures they came from Ottawa
because they felt they could deal drugs here more freely.

But it's all right if some of those charged are on the street and that
includes from the Top 12 list: Jibril Adam, Hassan Nur, Hassan Hassan,
Feyesel Mussa, Egal Adam, Yasin Ahmed Mohamed, Mustafa Ahmed and
Devron Brown.

The politicians, meanwhile, talk loudly and carry no stick. They tell
you what they think you want to hear.

Alison (Catch and Release) Redford, Alberta's justice boss, vowed
prosecutors would get tough, but the hug-a-thug wimps obviously got to
her.

Stephen Harper talks about his crime-fighting credentials through more
than one change of a sweater vest. But what do Ottawa's no-bite legal
beagles do while the boss is off doing important stuff, like sucking
up to Quebec?

Liberal, Tory, same old story.

Meanwhile, Premier Ed is in B.C. asking them how they deal with drug
dealers in Vancouver.

Answer? They don't.

Ed, where are you going to go next, San Francisco?

The mayor and the police chief still want more cops, no doubt to
babysit all the pukes.

And will yesterday's arrests reduce gun play?

The inspector hopes so.

I wouldn't advise anyone holding their breath.