Robert Marshall (Opinion, Winnipeg Free Press) – The Mayerthorpe massacre of four young men was a true Canadian disaster. Four Mounties, full of piss and vinegar, gunned down by the local lunatic, James Roszko, while guarding the scene of the madman’s crimes — some stolen car parts and a petite marijuana grow op.
The Alberta fatality inquiry into the deaths of Peter Schiemann, Brock Myroll, Leo Johnston and Anthony Gordon is winding down. In the months ahead, consideration will be given to how this black spot in history could ever have happened.
Recommendations are expected to help prevent such a future disaster, but the inquiry’s scope is narrow, the witness list small and it hasn’t gone unnoticed that some of those witnesses have testified with a flavour of maintain-the-image-and-cover-your-ass.
Senior Alberta Crown attorney Gordon Wong insisted that Roszko — with just a few convictions to show for the dozens of serious charges he’d racked up over the years, including witness intimidation, assaults, threats to kill, conspiracy to murder, police impersonation and pedophilia — hadn’t fallen through any justice system cracks.
It’s an incredible assertion.
One couldn’t be blamed for believing that the inability to successfully prosecute Roszko on charges of such grand scale, leaving him a minor (on paper) menace free to commit mass murder, reveals a justice system that is one big crack.
Equally stunning was the evidence of RCMP Sgt. James Martin, the dead officers’ boss. There is likely not a Mountie anywhere in the country that feels worse.
Sill, presenting a picture of sleepy Mayerthorpe as some kind of crime mecca sounded like a party line. Eleventh-busiest detachment in Alberta, according to some number-crunching
The sergeant told the hearing the junior officers were anything but green. Under questioning by Rev. Don Schiemann, Peter’s father, Martin was asked if he’d had any reservations about sending such young members to Roszko’s property
“No, not at all,” Sgt. Martin answered.
Martin instead testified that his dead subordinates, specifically Schiemann and Johnston, were excellent shots (although Schiemann was at the scene unarmed and without body armour.) The third officer, Anthony Gordon, had a reputation as a “solid Mountie,” and Brock Myrol, with just 21 days under his belt, had been subject to the rigours of RCMP Depot training.
Green? “No, not at all.”
Incredibly, Martin told the hearing he really didn’t know much about Roszko and that while others had described him as a cop-hating sociopath, “he was not on our radar,” more of an abstract threat.
Reports since the slaughter agree Roszko was a very real threat, the biggest threat in all of Mayerthorpe.
Martin, who has since been promoted, says Roszko steered clear of the RCMP.
Others not called to the inquiry say the RCMP steered clear of Roszko. Some of the sharpest criticism comes from within the RCMP family and is aimed at upper management — the self-adulating group we’ve heard so much about in the last few years, the bunch that Commissioner William Elliott is now unloading.
During Roszko’s 1990s heyday, a now-retired RCMP officer, Mike Statnyk, zealously went after him, building a case of sexual assault. Roszko’s defence was always a strong offence. Complain, intimidate, sue and get under the skin of the RCMP’s brass.
He did all that and Statnyk says he was ordered off the case and it ultimately failed.
Former Mountie superintendent Clyde Kitteringham says the massacre was a case of “negligent supervision,” adding that members inside the force have been told to keep quiet or risk losing their jobs.
A town resident made 30 complaints to the RCMP about Roszko intimidating his family. No response. Eventually, the resident, Cash McMillan, took matters into his own hands and punched out Roszko.
The RCMP charged McMillan.
A man who was scheduled to testify on McMillan’s behalf was reportedly found dead at the bottom of some stairs. That investigation went nowhere.
Kitteringham was clear when he said that Mayerthorpe is symptomatic of a failure of RCMP leadership at the highest levels.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Elliott’s national campaign to deliver openness, transparency and accountability from the RCMP continues but sounds a little hollow against the backdrop of this inquiry.
Bottom line: Roszko is the one responsible for this slaughter and the inquiry is mandated to recommend procedural changes to reduce the odds of future slaughters, but the recommendations can only be as good as the evidence presented.
It’s pretty clear that in some Mountie quarters there remains an adherence to the storybook image of the once-iconic force where the RCMP is a revered entity that sparks fear in the hearts of evil. Perhaps this inquiry can update that thinking.
Nobody should be too surprised if it’s learned that the operation was mostly about securing the evidentiary continuity of a few stolen car parts and some dope, with no consideration given to the danger that a force like Roszko posed.
The inquiry is on hold until next week when the final witness, deputy commissioner Rod Knecht, is expected to talk about RCMP policies at the time.
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Cogent and germane comments Leg. Your point of the needless delay in procuring the necessary documentation is a point that I have yet to see addressed in the inquiry. It remains a scourge to effective police operations nation wide.
I agree with you Calvin on the comments of the supervisor. Your analogy vis a vis the drivers license is most illustrative. To not have any reservations about sending junior officers to any crime scene/event is somewhat disconcerting.
In times past resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer netted you incarceration. Thumbing your nose at the Court resulted in the same. Not so presently. We have the outcome of the nanny mode the legal system is in. A question is, are we going to slide to the state of affairs as the US has, or can saner heads ultimately prevail.
The recommendations of the inquiry will be interesting and hopefully comprehensive.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Supervision and spin aside; did one or more of the ten deadly errors play a part in the killing of the RCMP members? Police officers only have to make one of the errors to be killed or injured. The errors should never be seen as criticizing the police officers. Examining their actions is the goal to prevent similar occurrences.
10 DEADLY ERRORS
1. Taking a bad position
2. Failure to watch the hands
3. False assumptions
4. Failure to recognize danger signals
5 Poor or no search
6. Lack of knowledge about the call
7. Failure to handcuff
8. Sleepy or asleep
9. Tomb Stone Courage
10. Relaxing to soon
The question that I would put to Sgt. Martin is (Would you have done anything differently after reflecting on the outcome of this tragic incident?)
Quote:
“Brock Myrol, with just 21 days under his belt, had been subject to the rigours of RCMP Depot training”
When you get a drivers licence does that make you a good driver? Or do you have to gain experience regarding judgement? Using the above logic, why would need a recruit field training officer?
Quote:
“He did all that and Statnyk says he was ordered off the case and it ultimately failed”.
The name of the person who ordered him off the case should be revealed and he should be required to testify at the inquiry.
Calvin Lawrence
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The RCMP has always encouraged the baseless belief that its members are somehow better trained than other police officers. Young members are indoctrinated from Day 1 in the belief that the RCMP is a superior organization. For years you could actually buy jackets and sweatshirts embroidered with “RCMP Elite” through the RCMP Canteen. Despite the recent consternation about members attending calls alone it is still the case that the majority of detachment members spend the bulk of their shifts riding alone. Sadly, this policy encourages members, of all ranks, in the belief that they and their coworkers are somehow bulletproof.
I have huge problems with Sgt. Martin’s comments about the operational readiness of his subordinates. Being an “excellent shot” is only going to be helpful to someone who is able to shoot first, and Roszko’s history should have suggested he was not going to give the police the opportunity to shoot first. Cst. Schiemann should NEVER have been allowed to go a crime scene without his uniform, including body armour, and sidearm regardless of his service.
I’m also curious where Cst. Myrol’s field trainer was. Cadets are assigned to a more experienced member for a period of 6 months after leaving training for the purpose of assessing the cadet’s abilities and ensuring that they can be trusted to work alone if required. I fail to see how Sgt. Martin, or anyone else, could have accurately assessed Cst. Myrol’s operational effectiveness in a mere 21 days, even assuming he had worked 21 shifts, which is unlikely.
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The secret of any military/police action is in the professional swiftness of its well-planned execution. Anyone with a little police experience will tell you that a successful arrest/seizure is one that is thoroughly done in an expeditious fashion. People that harp back to the good old days when the Mounties did their thing with less screw-ups are half right and half in left field. There were things that also went wrong back yonder because mistakes have always happened and stupidity has no age. There was however a lot less press coverage and the outfit was tight lipped about everything. But, the major stumbling block; the overwhelming problem that police face today resides in another domain.
What I am about to suggest will be treated as heresy by liberal weak-kneed self-appointed defenders of the Charter. You can disparage others, governments, the Press, the Courts, Police or just about anything today, but low and behold, should you suggest Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is at the heart of what ails police work; you’ll be dismissed as sour grapes or an over-the-hill revisionist.
What were those Mounties doing hanging around Roszko’s quonset – they were waiting for the search warrants that needed affidavits the length of which continue to grow one Supreme Court decision after another since the inception of the Charter. How does extending the time frame between finding the illicit goods and their actual seizure change anything in the general picture of criminal investigations? Besides involving lawyers and delaying measures caused by the ridiculous amount of paper work needed to simply get a Justice of the Peace to sign a search warrant, what benefit does the honest citizen gain?
If one was to believe the bleeding-hearts, Canada before the Charter was the Wild West where police ransacked honest citizen’s homes with total disrespect of the law. Hogwash; police went to the same Justice of the Peace and in a few paragraphs or less explained the situation and as today, the JP’s signed the search warrant. In a matter of minutes, the operation continued, police gathered the needed evidence, made the appropriate arrests if necessary and were gone. Heck, some JP’s showed up at the scene to expedite matters.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a misnomer or at least lacking in words to properly describe its purpose. The Charter does not protect 90% of honest Canadian citizens; it protects Canadian and foreign criminals and opened a floodgate of work for lawyers. Properly described, it should be known as the Charter of Rights of Criminals and Freedom of Lawyers.
The application of the Charter killed those young Mounties – without it, they would have been long gone and Roszko would have returned to an empty shed. What happened was caused by conditions that prevent the application of elementary rules of military/police strategy that have been disrupted and changed in favour of the opposite side; should we say the wrong side of the law. In today’s Canada, that term, ‘the wrong side of the law’ now applies to those who challenge the Charter to support law abiding citizens.
Remember, police obtained search warrants and acted properly prior to the Charter. There was no need for the Charter – the courts were already policing law enforcement’s actions. The Charter protects nobody from rogue cops, they existed prior to the Charter and they sure continue to rear their ugly heads today. So, stop complaining about the activities of a few incompetent officials and instead support major changes to the Charter. Oops, that entails opening the Constitution and of course, the lame ducks are much too cowardly to allow the fox into the chicken coop.
We prefer to look the other way, all the while continuing to hypocritically criticise the lack of vigour in the application of criminal justice.
Maybe someday, the people of Canada – you know, those 90% of honest law abiding citizens, will have endured enough and like the people of Tunisia and Egypt take to the streets to demand real Justice.
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