PUBLIC ATTITUDE KEEPS DRUG TRADE ALIVE

Police Officers Often Tempted, Frequently Put In Harm's Way

"Good cop and bad cop have left for the day. I'm a different kind of cop."

- -- Vic Mackey

ANYONE who watches The Shield on Global (9 p.m. Sundays) knows who Vic
Mackey is.

For the uninitiated, Mackey is a fictional Los Angeles Police Department
detective who runs an anti-gang squad. Without spoiling your TV viewing,
let's just say Mackey's tactics are "unorthodox."

Mackey and the show is based on real and ongoing events in Los Angeles, the
so-called Rampart scandal. It involves officers from the LAPD's Rampart
Division's anti-gang unit who routinely beat gang members, planted evidence
on suspects, falsified reports and covered up unjustified shootings in the
1990s.

The Rampart scandal is soon coming to the big screen, starring Sylvester
Stallone.

I mention Sly and Vic in the same breath because Canada's largest police
force is now experiencing its own version of Rampart.

Six Toronto police veterans were recently accused of taking the law into
their own hands, purportedly behaving more like the drug-dealing scum they
were supposed to be putting behind bars.

The charges against the six men are the result of the longest investigation
into alleged police corruption in Canada. The six officers are now accused
of committing 22 Criminal Code of Canada offences while investigating the
illicit drug trade between 1997 and 2002.

The officers allegedly lied in court, made up bogus search warrants,
falsified internal police records and fabricated potential evidence.
(Allegations like this have never been made in Winnipeg. Here, an officer
usually only stays in the drug unit working undercover for three years
before he's transferred out. It's said some of them almost need to be
deprogrammed when they're shifted back to uniform, they've walked and
talked the part of an undercover cop for so long).

The easy thing to say about what's happening in Toronto and Los Angeles is
that it's a black mark against all police officers. You can also say it's
likely only an isolated event. It also goes without saying that the men are
innocent until proven otherwise.

The harder question to confront about the Toronto and Los Angeles
experience is why the allegations surfaced in the first place.

The question is, why do otherwise good police officers, who have sworn an
oath to protect the community, pocket drug money or falsify evidence?

The answer can be partly found in an old Cary Grant movie; to catch a thief
you have to act like one.

In North America, through our anti-drug laws, we have asked men and women
in policing to protect us and our children from illegal drugs, drug dealers
and the organized crime behind it.

To successfully do that, police officers have to go undercover to
infiltrate and collect evidence from the players in the drug world. It's an
extremely dangerous assignment. They must dress and act the part. They end
up walking a fine line between right and wrong to get the job done, often
participating in or turning a blind eye to illegal activity for the greater
good of breaking up a drug gang or arresting a drug kingpin.

This police work is unrelenting. Police officers routinely get put in
harm's way and, for the weaker ones, at great temptation.

The drug war goes on because of the huge amount that can be made by
traffickers and dealers. And that money comes from us. We think nothing of
buying cocaine and marijuana for our own personal use, as it's not the big
taboo it once was. Yet we keep sending our police into an abyss to do the
impossible. The war goes on. Vic Mackey is laughing.