RCMP BOSS SPEAKS HIS MIND

Prince George's Top Cop Talks A Blue Streak On The Topic Of Policing.

Crime Prevention Week in Canada gives RCMP Supt. Dahl Chambers open
season on the topics of crime in the city, the state of law
enforcement and what he sees in the future.

"I strongly disagree that some officers only consider it a job," he
said in an interview Thursday. "What people have to bear in mind, when
an officer comes to attend to your stolen purse or your vehicle
incident, is that before they arrived to see you they may have been
sworn at, spat at, had to chase someone down, dealt with vomit or
blood or had to knock on someone's door and tell them their beloved
child was just killed in a car crash. I think police officers don't
see the best part of society on most days. Over time that takes a
personal toll but I would say all police officers feel they do the
best they can to make people safe and that it is effective work."

Chambers is outwardly frustrated at ongoing public discourse that says
downtown Prince George ought to be cleansed of certain people -
panhandlers, prostitutes, street people and the like, and the RCMP
should be an instrument of that change. Chambers uses that frustration
as motivation to demonstrate how everyone is responsible for the
community's care, including those less fortunate people.

"I'm responsible for the public's safety. That includes down your
street, and down the back alley where someone just got rolled for the
$20 they owed some drug dealer. I am responsible for that person's
safety, too," he said. "The expectation that the police should clean
the streets cannot happen and will not happen. It is only a
co-operative effort that will clean up the streets. You can't just
disregard sex-trade workers as lesser people, you can't write off
johns as lesser people, or the people addicted to crack. I'm not
saying there aren't bad people around here, there are and I'm happy to
send them to jail for the public's protection, but no person is less
of a human being than another and deserves my service any less than
you do."

Chambers says one of his goals when he became superintendent last
September was to build the co-operative spirit between police and
community partners to levels never seen before. That includes the
on-premises integration of police staff and municipal government staff
on one level, and the relationships between RCMP and social agencies,
the business community, various government departments, the general
public, the school district, etc., on the broader level.

"It is not just a police issue, it is not just a courts issue. If we
don't, as a local society, start mentoring our children and taking
care of each other, we will continue to fill the jails and people will
continue to fall under the influence of addictive substances. There
are people out there who might say what goes on outside their own home
is none of their business, but it is your business. The effects of
crime and addiction and broken families are felt by us all."

The more public involvement there is in general society, especially as
pertains to preventing crime, the more effective the RCMP can be,
Chambers says. It is already a monumental task to do the things like
convict sex-trade participants, or bring down a drug house.

Chambers points out a list of obstacles the RCMP have to overcome to
hit the criminal element where it will hurt them. It isn't that police
are slow or apathetic, it is that they have to be perfect in their
investigations or the crooks walk away free.

"It may take hours to get a search warrant for a known crack house,
then it takes hours or days of court-prep time," said Chambers. "You
have to be able to defend the warrant in court or it gets overturned
and the evidence is excluded. It is justifiably difficult to get a
warrant, because I know I don't want people just walking into my
house. But when one is necessary, we have to really be sure and ready
and able to handle the legal challenges we know will come."