DISBELIEF GRIPS FORCE IN WAKE OF RCMP MASSACRE

Edge of Reason

Wetaskiwin Times Advertiser -- This doesn't happen in "small town" Alberta.
It's not supposed to.

Last week, the nation was transfixed to the small community as the
realization four RCMP officers had been gunned down while in the line of duty.

In Wetaskiwin, a solitary wreath from the Royal Canadian Legion, now sits
in the detachment's foyer and bears four poppies representing those lost
officers.

It was a dark day for the force, perhaps one of the darkest in its history,
and speaks of a growing uneasiness when even one of the world's most
recognized and respected law enforcement agencies can find itself the
target of a madman.

As greater pressures are placed on such illicit operations in large urban
centres, such operators are finding anonymity in rural Alberta. In our once
quiet backyards.

With them, comes all of the societal woes many of us thought to avoid from
the big city.

In other words -- they have brought the war to us.

What happened last week was something completely unforeseen, something even
the most experienced police officer could never be prepared for.

It is a tragedy of epic proportion because it just isn't supposed to happen
here.

But four officers gave their lives in what can only be an incomprehensible
act of violence.

Grow ops are a plague in our communities compounded by meth labs and crack.
Sadly, the politicians have already leapt to their pulpits to speak about
changes to the country's drug strategy and even talk the legalization of
certain substances would have prevented this massacre. Nonsense.

Now is not the time. Now is the time to mourn. To let them bury their own.

There will be time enough to deal with the woes of society.

No words can describe the loss the families of these officers are facing,
but a nation mourns with them.