Cigdem Iltan (Edmonton Journal) – Two RCMP officers were taken to hospital after they were swarmed and robbed of a Taser when they responded to reports of a fight at a northern Alberta home early Sunday morning.
When the officers tried to arrest and remove the man said to be causing problems, other people in the home swarmed the two officers in a “very aggressive altercation,” RCMP said in a news release.
Police believe both officers were punched and kicked as they tried to defend themselves using pepper spray, a Taser and physical force. After the officers called for backup, it’s believed brass knuckles were used against them, RCMP said.
At one point, the attackers took the Taser from the officers and tried to take their service pistols, RCMP said.
The officers eventually escaped and waited for backup.
Emergency medical services took the two injured officers to the Peace River Community Hospital, where one man with two years of RCMP service was treated for cuts, abrasions, swelling and a broken nose before he was released later that morning.
A woman with one year of RCMP service was taken by air ambulance to hospital in Edmonton with broken facial bones and other injuries. She is in serious but not life-threatening condition.
Patrick Ramsey Carifelle, 30, Keith Roland Carifelle, 22, and Clinton Miles Carifelle, 19, all of Cadotte Lake, have been charged with a number of assault-related offences. Each of the men faces two counts of assaulting a police officer, aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, disarming a peace officer, attempting to disarm a peace officer, two counts of choking to overcome and theft under $5,000.
Clinton Miles Carifelle has also been charged with possession of a prohibited weapon and use of a weapon in the commission of an offence.
The men have been remanded in custody and will appear in Peace River provincial court on April 12.
Cadotte Lake is about 500 kilometres north of Edmonton.
Good points Turner. Also training back in the old days fostered getting the job done and teamwork. In recent years it has been about covering your behind and I/me.
For a long time now cops are more afraid to do their job. Whether it is the training or the calibre of hires. Everyone nowadays just hides behind the Charter and with the new corporate style everybody is afraid to stand out above the crowd. The tall poppies get cut down and the nail that sticks out gets hammered.
Yes, same old circumstances as from 35 years ago but a different breed of cop being hired today — as mentioned — due to gender-bender and racial hiring quotas that now trump old fashioned merit-based qualifications that somehow managed to get the job done without p.c. interference.
The differences in calibre was clearly illustrated, at least to me, when the young Canadian passenger was murdered and decapitated on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba.
To “protect and serve” only seemed to apply to the murdering Chinese immigrant who protected his corpse while he served himself to body parts while still on the bus surrounded by the RCMP for several hours.
If this incident had taken place in the era mentioned above, I believe that a couple of good cops with cojones would have quickly assessed the risk, drawn their weapons, and confronted the assailant face to face on the bus, all within a matter of minutes after arrival.
Instead, we had a wait and see situation, while the assailant dined on the man he just murdered and decapitated.
I wasn’t there at scene and don’t have all the facts at hand, but those cop’s shining moments in the annals of good police work did not burst forth — from my perspective.
That was a good list you put up Calvin, here is #11
-Being forced to work with members that are gutless and useless. The walking politically correct hinderance on two legs. The kind that jump back in the cruiser, lock all the doors and drive away when her partner is taking a thrashing from a gang of people.
There is an approach to officer /violator contact that some police officers take that is unfortunately all to common.
This is an approach to an incident where the police officers puts themselves in a position where they have to immediately act or get injured or killed. They have taken away the time to make other choices by their own actions. This would be called Tomb Stone Courage. The proper term is Officer Imposed Jeopardy.
I cannot say that it happen in this incident but it is possible. It did happen in the shooting of the Nova Scotia man by the RCMP member. Being told not to enter aside; by entering the house he limited his choices when there was no reason to so. There are times when a police officer has no choice but to make quick decisions under pressure.
There are a number of police shootings or police officers being killed or injured where this was the case.
There are Ten Deadly Errors that police officers make that will result in injury or death.
They only have to make one of these errors.
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
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
This mourning I was thinking about this incident and how differently this would have been handled 35 years ago. Then I remembered a story I once heard about a similar case, except it was a member working alone that got swarmed.
That night, the “Who’s Who” of detachment heavyweights were called in off duty to deal with this situation. There was a golden glove boxer (someone other than Calvin Lawrence), a couple of farm boys and a couple of guys who grew up working in the woods. Every one of them had brute strength -that heavy manual labour strength you don’t see anymore. Guys, that nowadays you couldn’t find in an entire division, let alone a detachment and willing to come in for no compensation to avenge the injury of one of their own.
Well, one by one, everyone involved was given a thrashing and they never had a problem ever again from these losers. That was the code back then. You mess with one of our smaller guys, you will have the heavyweights to deal with. This is what made it possible for the smaller guys and especially your token women to go out and do the job. The best part was, none of these guys showed up waving pepper spray or tasers around like little girls.
Nowdays, the force and the courts forbid this type of retaliation and on average the criminals are now tougher than the members. Even if the organization wasn’t so saturated with politically correct hires, members today like to eat their own and don’t have the solidarity to help each other like this.
So if there is no respect for the police anymore, all of these reasons are a good part why….
The unfortunate part of this situation is yet to unfold. The view of the courts is presently biased away from upholding the law and those that bear the responsibility to do so. After the hand wringing and mewling by counsel for the defense, the perpetrators will be misunderstood, alcohol driven, waifs that made an error. They may even find fault with the efforts to keep the peace. Perhaps the officers were not polite enough.
What the courts also fail to realize is that an attack on the police is an attack on the community, the system and the courts themselves. Time after time, with few exceptions, they have proved utterly inert in preserving some semblance of order. Its no wonder there is little or no respect.
The law of unintended consequences is slowly opening its arms, feeding on such inanity. The next time the officers are faced with a similar situation, remembering the non support and physical abuse, I would not blame them for ignoring the complaints.
Good point, onegin! I just read another article besides this one that mentioned that there were 20 people there.
Yeah, this was a volatile situation, but I have to question the ability of these officers to effectively command respect from this group…. Obviously there was no respect.
Flaw in your logic, JohnnyG. Just because only 3 people were charged doesn’t mean that only 3 people took part in the swarming.
Hmmmm, Negotiation skills, Guns, Baton’s, Pepper Spray, Fists and Tasers…. and they still took a thrashing when only outnumbered by one guy.
I hope Senator Kenny is reading this and realizes that this is what happens when you employ gender based, politically correct hiring practices.