Alan Ferguson (Vancouver Province) – Given the flak they’re taking, you can’t blame the Mounties for putting the best face on a bad situation.
A news conference in Vancouver Monday was a masterful example of media spin. Assistant Commissioner Al Macintyre bared his soul about the Mounties’ “troubling times.” If he thought eating humble pie would lend conviction to his words, he certainly got the headlines he wanted: “RCMP boss suspends cop, orders shooting death probe.” But the suggestion that the Mounties are moving with alacrity to resolve a troubling issue is thoroughly misleading.
The cop in question is Const. Ryan Sheremetta who, as a 22-year-old rookie, killed a drunken Kevin St. Arnaud, 29, in Vanderhoof on the night of Dec. 19, 2004.
The shooting was investigated — by the RCMP itself, of course — and the Crown decided against charges.
But at a coroner’s inquest in Dec. 2006, disturbing evidence emerged. Sheremetta claimed he shot St. Arnaud from flat on his back after he slipped and fell. But witnesses, including fellow Const. Colleen Erickson, testified he fired from a “combat stance.” Sheremetta said he feared for his life because the victim came at him with his right hand in his pocket. Other witnesses said St. Arnaud had his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
These revelations did not go unnoticed by Paul Kennedy, chairman of the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, who in March 2006 had launched his own inquiry into the affair.
Kennedy subsequently added to his original complaint the allegation that “members of the RCMP failed to conduct an adequate investigation” into the shooting. The commission was already concerned whether the RCMP had “improperly entered into a situation” that resulted in St. Arnaud’s death, and whether Sheremetta “improperly discharged” his weapon.
These are weighty matters, but they’re not why Sheremetta was suspended this week. That happened because he’s alleged to have exaggerated to the coroner’s jury his experience of disarming suspects.
The charge, if proven, may get him fired. But it’s a trifling, inconsequential matter compared to how St. Arnaud died, however much the RCMP tries to hype it. Anyway, what took so long? The suspension comes a full year after the inquest — and as a result of Kennedy’s urging, not some internal RCMP initiative.
The RCMP has yet to respond to the far more compelling questions raised in Kennedy’s complaint.
Macintyre, as if implying some new resolve, announced Monday that a senior cop from Toronto will begin a “top to bottom” review of the case. Only now? Almost two years after Kennedy’s initial complaint? The new probe further delays the commission’s work, which a spokesman told me has already taken “far too long.” It begs the question: Do the Mounties really want the truth of St. Arnaud’s death known?
Very well said;
There’s allot more to this than these few cases. It’s a Major Crime to see the extent of what our elected & appointed Justice system has come to and how men and woman are being trained and raised up to do.
If I was this member I would not have opened my mouth at this time it only shows how serious this really is.
Action is needed not more spins to make themselves look like they are still an honest force, that went along time ago in individual lives that passed through that force, inside and outside and now lately as a whole across Canada.
What an embarrassment
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