SERVING AND PROTECTING

Efforts to Politicize Tragedy of Slain Officers Have Obscured the Real
Issues

In the broad daylight of hindsight, last week's murder of four RCMP
officers at a northern Alberta farm is many things. It is as terrible
a tragedy as Canadians will have to deal with on home soil this year.
It is a cautionary tale of the nature of policework and of police
resources. It is a reminder that Canadian society is not -- for many
reasons -- as safe as we believe it to be. Unfortunately, it has also
been used as a political tool to promote private agendas, especially
during the Liberal Party of Canada's weekend convention.

In short, what happened in Mayerthorpe, Alberta last Thursday morning
was a tragedy, made all the more tragic by hollow attempts to
politicize it. Hot-button issues like the federal gun registry and
decriminalizing marijuana laws have been trotted out into the
convention's spotlight with these four slain officers in the
background. Those who have attempted to score political points this
way should be ashamed.

Liberal MPP Dan McTeague, a strident opponent of decriminalizing
marijuana, argued those who wanted to debate the issue at the
convention following the tragedy were insulting the memory of the
slain officers. Conservatives, meanwhile, have argued the incident
shows just how ineffective the national gun registry has become.

Canadians should look past these issues, first to the facts
surrounding this tragedy, and then to remedies that will minimize the
odds of an incident like this happening again.

First, police are sworn to uphold the law. These four RCMP constables
died while doing exactly that. To judge the fitness of these laws
after their deaths is to diminish their efforts in upholding them.

Police say the constables -- Anthony Gordon, 28, Leo Johnston, 32,
Brock Myrol, 29, and Peter Schiemann, 25 -- were staking out a
property while investigating stolen car parts and a marijuana grow
operation. For their sacrifice, and that of the families they leave
behind, they deserve to be more than mere footnotes in a political
debate.

Second, the 46-year-old Roszko was a convicted child molester, a known
cop hater and a community pariah. He ambushed the four Mounties with
an illegal semi-automatic assault-style rifle -- gunning them down
before retreating and turning his weapon on himself. Roszko was all
about trouble -- his own father called him "the devil," alluding to a
lifetime of his terrorizing family, neighbours, police and the
community in which he lived.

It didn't matter what the Mounties had been at his farm to investigate
or what they did or found while there -- cretins like Roszko, who have
little respect for their communities or the rule of law, can be found
all across the country. RCMP officials stress that the operation that
led to this tragedy was not an uncommon one for a rural detachment.

If anything should resonate with Canadians, this tragedy must be
acknowledged as a political failure to properly equip police in the
fight against such illegal operations. Whether dealing with marijuana
grow-ops or networks trading in stolen cars, at issue is the lengths
to which criminals like Roszko will go to insulate themselves from the
law, and the ability of police to deal with them.

Our hearts go out the families and co-workers of these officers who
died in the line of duty. And we implore officials to debate the
safety of those in the line of duty free of political grandstanding.