CAUSE OF DEATH

The same day four Mounties were gunned down on an Alberta farm earlier this
month, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli rushed to the microphones to
blame it all on the scourge of marijuana grow-ops.

"These are major, serious threats to our society, and they are major,
serious threats to the men and women in the front line who have to deal
with them," Canada's top cop proclaimed.

Three weeks later, Zaccardelli was back in front of the media to perform a
stunning about-face.

At a press conference this past week, the police chief said his four dead
officers were merely the unfortunate victims of a totally unpredictable act
of murder at the hands of an unpredictably "insane" James Roszko.

Did nothing wrong

As for the RCMP, the force did absolutely nothing wrong. Zaccardelli told
reporters: "An ordinary and manageable police investigation took a random
and unexpected turn to the unmanageable and tragic."

It is worth noting that Zaccardelli's latest revised conclusion was based
on an investigation of the RCMP in Alberta by the RCMP in B.C., both of
which, of course, report to him.

Even if you believe the force can reasonably investigate itself when four
of its members have been murdered, too many questions remain to close the
book on this unspeakable tragedy.

The first is, what the heck was Zaccardelli thinking?

It should have been clear from the outset that the slaughter on Roszko's
farm had no more to do with pot production than with the stolen car parts
also found on the property.

When Roszko sneaked into his Quonset hut and shot the four officers at
point-blank range, he wasn't a criminal protecting his illegal enterprises;
he was a maniac killing cops.

Indeed, Zaccardelli's original analysis was so far and obviously off the
mark, we had to wonder if marijuana grow-ops weren't being used as a
diversion from other issues. (If so, it certainly worked: For days after
the shootings, newspapers everywhere, including the Sun, were saturated
with grow-op stories.)

The key question, of course, remains: Were four young police officers
needlessly, if not recklessly, put in harm's way, sent to their deaths in
an ambush by a known cop-hating wing nut?

According to Zaccardelli, the answer is a flat no.

"There isn't a police officer in our force, probably in any force, who
doesn't obsessively think and rethink such situations, only to know that
there is no possible way to plan for, or manage, the insane behaviors of an
individual who has crossed the line from criminal to stalker, from suspect
to enemy."

Maybe. Maybe not.

Alberta Conservative MP Rob Merrifield, for one, says with undeniable logic
that four dead police officers certainly suggests the raid on Roszko's farm
could have been handled better; that there is more to this story than just
a random, unforeseeable act of a madman, as Zaccardelli would have us believe.

Merrifield told one newspaper that the families of the slain policemen
deserve some answers, that they are not willing "to just say this was a
tragic, insane incident."

Cpl. Wayne Oakes, an RCMP spokesman in Alberta, makes a convincing case
that there was no way to predict the massacre.

Oakes was stationed at Barrhead, Alta., some years ago when Roszko was on
parole for sex crimes and had to report to the detachment regularly.
Obviously he didn't attack the police then.

Oakes points out that law-enforcement agencies everywhere have lists of
potentially violent "cop-haters" in their communities, but none has ever
done what Roszko did.

A 27-year veteran of the force, Oakes insists everything was done by the
book, even by the two rookies who died.

"If I would have been there, we would have had a dead 27-year officer."

If the RCMP did everything right, Canadians are left with one nagging
question: Why is the federal force investigating itself, rather than
turning the case over to an independent probe by, say, the Ontario or
Quebec provincial police?

Surely the death of four policemen demands the truth not only be told, but
also be seen to be told.