MURDERS A TRAUMA FOR ALL OFFICERS: SUDBURY POLICE

Police officers in Sudbury were still reeling Friday over the loss of
four RCMP comrades in a shootout Thursday at a drug grow operation in
Alberta.

"Whenever an officer is lost, there is always a demoralizing effect
and a sense of loss. When four members are lost, it has a traumatic
impact. We are all feeling it here," said Insp. Susan Evans of Greater
Sudbury Police.

Police officers "know when we sign on there is an inherent risk. We
are performing a function that, although socially critical, is not
necessarily applauded by some segments of the community," said Evans.

"When we lose members through job actions like this, the loss is
there. The sense of dismay, the sense the traumatic effect is there.

"But, by the same token, it reinforces how necessary our function is
in society."

Frank Elbers, a detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police
and the deputy director of the service's drug enforcement section,
said anytime an officer is killed, "you sort of sit back and look, but
to have circumstances where four police officers are killed, it is
mind-boggling."

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of the four officers, at an
illegal drug grow operations, illustrates the inherent difficulty of
drug enforcement work, said Evans.

No matter how much information police have before a drug raid, there
is never a guarantee they will not encounter the unexpected, she said.

"We are well-armed, we are well-equipped, we do the background first
to see who we are dealing with, what other kinds of incidents an
individual might have been involved in so we have some sense of who we
are dealing with and what we are dealing with.

"We do what we can and prepare to the extent we can based on our
intelligence and what we have shared and learned from other
organizations. But you still will never be fully confident that you
have been able to anticipate everything that might or could happen,"
she said.

No policy or procedural manual can ever prepare an officer for
everything, said Elbers.

The tragedy hit particularly close to home for one man, a relative of
one of the Mounties killed Thursday. For a long time, Peter
Christopher Schiemann talked about making the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police his career, says his uncle Elmer of Sudbury.

But this week, that career came to an abrupt end, when Schiemann was
gunned down.

Schiemann had only been on the jobs a few weeks when he was
murdered.

"He was quite new on the force, but he loved it. He just loved it,"
said his uncle.

His family was devastated to hear of his death, said Elmer, who
received the news from a sister in Ottawa.

Peter's part of the family has been living in western Canada for a
number of years, said Schiemann.

"They were quite young when they moved out west. I haven't seen him
for about 12 years."

Peter is just one of a number of family members who belong to the
RCMP.

"I got a bunch of relatives that are in the RCMP, five of them I guess
all together."

Schiemann said he has not yet heard of funeral arrangements for his
nephew.

In the last year, the OPP have conducted 1,822 search warrants at both
indoor and outdoor grow operations. Seized during those raids were
1,938 weapons, said Evans.

Grow ops "are definitely a dangerous place to go into because you
don't know what is waiting there for you," said Staff Sgt. Claude
Faucher of the Sudbury RCMP detachment.

But he is not sure drug enforcement is any more dangerous than other
police work. He sees it as "the same as doing a traffic stop on the
highway.

While the details of funeral or memorial services for the four slain
officers have yet to be finalized, all three officers said their
respective services will have a presence at those services.