IT WASN'T ABOUT ARMS AND DOPE

THERE is still much about the terrible events near Mayerthorpe,
Alberta, last week that we do not know.

The investigations of the murder of the four young RCMP constables
seems to be proceeding very slowly, which may reflect nothing more
than the fact that the RCMP, investigating events in which they
themselves are involved, no doubt feel under very particular pressure
to do it right and get it right.

This is particularly true when questions are now being asked as to
whether the four constables were placed by their superiors in a
dangerous situation for which they were inadequately equipped or
whether they were otherwise ill-prepared for an encounter with Jim
Roszko, the man who ultimately killed them.

If there are, indeed, a number of things about the murders that remain
unclear, there are a few collateral issues upon which there is
considerable clarity. Two of these matters have been rather
disheartening and, perhaps not surprisingly, both have political
dimensions. The first touches on the matter of marijuana.

The discovery of a large marijuana grow operation was originally cited
as the reason for the RCMP being staked out on Roszko's property to
begin with. This report was wrong in at least two respects.

The RCMP came to be there because an attempt to seize a truck, on
which Roszko had failed to make payments, had led to the discovery of
stolen automobile parts. This discovery immediately transformed the
issue from a civil to a criminal matter.

Once there, the RCMP also discovered that Roszko was growing
marijuana.

The suggestion of a major marijuana operation provided instant fodder
for the media, which engaged in speculation as to the impact that
marijuana-related murders would have on pending federal legislation
which would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot, while
increasing penalties for large-scale growers.

Not surprisingly, the media found politicians willing to buy into the
proposition -- or, at least, the implication -- that the murders of
the RCMP constables were somehow dope-driven. For Conservative
politicians already opposed to decriminalizing marijuana, this
connection was manna from heaven and proved, of course, that they had
been right all along.

Anne McLellan, the deputy prime minister, who represents an Edmonton
riding in the House of Commons, was equally quick to leap to a dubious
conclusion. She commented that large-scale grower operations were of
particular concern to the government and that the legislation, so far
as it dealt with that matter, might have to be reviewed in light of
the events at Mayerthorpe. She did not let the facts -- or their
absence -- get in the way of this opinion: The facts were that this
was no large-scale marijuana operation; the police operation was not
mounted as a drug bust; and the murders had nothing to do with drugs
or the growing of them. McLellan's rather lonely position as an
Alberta Liberal in a Conservative sea is no doubt awkward.

She does not, on a great many issues, share the opinions or the
prejudices of many others in Alberta, and political survival for her
is always dicey.

Yet, it must be said, her immediate response to the Mayerthorpe
murders was little short of pandering to knee-jerkers making
connections where none existed.

Given the authority she exercises, this lapse of judgment is quite
striking.

If dope was the issue for some, others focused on the fact of Roszko's
having possession of a high-powered rifle.

That he was able, thereby, to murder four police officers was quickly
cited by some as demonstrating the failure and futility of the federal
gun registration law. On the face of it, the fact that a man with
Roszko's history and temperament should have possessed such a weapon
might seem to validate the argument that, under a system of gun
registration, it will be criminals and others with serious personality
disorders who will end up owning guns. The whole gun registration
regime has, no doubt, been mightily flawed but, if memory serves,
there was a point when, as a measure of his contempt for the gun
control law, Ralph Klein proclaimed that he had no intention of doing
anything to enforce it in Alberta. Personally, I'm not convinced that
even an effectively enforced gun law would guarantee that the Roszkos
of the world would never own guns; on the other hand, in the face of
opposition from several provincial governments, there may be
relatively less basis upon which to claim that, in this instance, the
gun law was tried and -- demonstrably -- found wanting; it might
equally be argued that it was wanted but not tried.

The real problem here, as has become clearer with each day, is that
this community lived with, was intimidated by and, in some cases,
terrorized by a sociopath widely known to be a danger to the public
peace.

Roszko was a man who had been charged, convicted and released but who,
at liberty, remained an offender or potential offender and a dangerous
one.

The real question that needs answering, therefore, is not about pot,
or even about gun ownership: It is about whether the police and the
justice system had the power, and did everything within that power, to
prevent Roszko from posing a threat to those around him. Indeed, the
question is at least equally about people like Roszko, for if this
could occur in an apparently peaceful, out-of-the-way place like
Mayerthorpe, it seems naive to suppose that something like this could
not occur in many other places across this country.