TIGHT-KNIT ALBERTA TOWN MOURNS FALLEN MOUNTIES

The slaying of four Mounties yesterday occurred in the unlikeliest of
places. Mayerthorpe, Alta., epitomizes small-town Canada -- it's a
close-knit community where about 10 officers and 1,600 townspeople
know one another's names and bump into each other at local rinks.

And they help one another. Just weeks ago, the local Mounties were
honoured for their work to help a local boy with cancer. The "Mounties
March for Connor" campaign raised $20,000 to help pay the chemotherapy
costs of a nine-year-old boy fighting bone cancer.

The campaign received frequent coverage in the local press. "Eight
RCMP officers took their seats and had their heads shaved by Connor
and his classmates; it was an event marked by a lot of smiles and
joy," the Mayerthorpe Freelancer reported just before Christmas.

Last night, RCMP officers were not releasing the names of the slain
officers pending full notification of their families.

So well regarded are the Mounties that the local newspaper profiles
the arrival of any new police officer, just so the community can get
used to an unfamiliar face.

Last month, the Mayerthorpe newspaper interviewed the latest officer
to join the 11-person detachment -- Constable Brock Myrol, 29, who was
two weeks into his new job as an RCMP officer after finishing his
training at the RCMP academy in Regina.

Raised in Red Deer, Constable Myrol said he decided to become an RCMP
officer three years ago after working as a security guard and
receiving an undergraduate arts degree from Red Deer College.

"I wanted the opportunity to work with people and be able to make a
difference," Constable Myrol said. "Over time, I saw all the good
things you could do for people, and I enjoyed that."

Mayerthorpe Mayor Albert Schalm said his community has never dealt
with anything near this level of tragedy before.

The biggest crime in recent memory, he said, was a gunshot suicide a
couple of years ago. Asked if his town has a crime problem, he said
"nothing visible."

Speaking generally, he said the officers were a tight-knit group. "In
a small community like this one the RCMP are an integral part of the
community," he said. "They associate with people, they go curling,
they play hockey, different things.

"So the community knows them," the mayor explained. "And that's the
biggest grief, it hasn't even set in, but it will."

Mr. Schalm was struggling to explain the shooting, but suggested that
there is a growing market for drugs in Alberta. "It is a province,
that it seems to me, is getting to be fairly affluent," he said. ". .
. the more affluent the province becomes, the bigger the drug problem
becomes."

But drug problems were not a major part of the RCMP detachment's work.
Car crashes and the occasional robbery were more routine.

A few months earlier, one of the Mayerthorpe Mounties put herself at
risk to rescue a woman from a burning car. This past summer, police
met with city councillors to discuss an 11 p.m. curfew for the town's
young people.

The force was stepping up its traffic patrols after a series of bad
accidents along the highways -- armed standoffs were extremely rare,
but not entirely unknown.