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Active Shooter In NS. April 19 2020

Policing in Canada has a problem, that maybe this thread isn't the place to discuss, but police have lost the "average person". When working class "peace, order, and good government" people question the motivations and decisions of the RCMP perhaps the most open and honest possible discussion is what is needed.

The more the shooting inquiry is seen as compromised, or "hiding something", the more people will question the police.

Imo policing in Canada lost the average person because of continuous scandals coming to light. Seeing police often getting off with crimes or getting a wrist slap. Add that to many stories of people who get charged with assault when defending themselves or their property, while the criminal gets nothing.

When David Chen made a citizens arrest of a thief he was charged with kidnapping. I was truly amazed that he was found not quilty, if not for public outcry I don't think he would have been. How did we get to a place where criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens? The police are the ones that decide to press the charges, they can also decide not to press charges if they don't think they are warranted.

I grew up in Summerside P.E.I. and many people I knew believed the RCMP were much better than the city police. I was there for the whole Dave Griffin case and general consensus was Dave was the good guy who was being railroaded by a shady chief and mayor who were afraid his backroom dealings would be exposed.

I now live in Ontario where I have heard the OPP called "the biggest biker gang in Canada"

My first time dealing with OPP was a fraud case where my dump truck driver was falsely accused of dropping a big rock on the road and the supposed victim had expensive damage to her car. The story had more holes in it than the titanic and no rock was ever found, however the responding officer charged my driver with failing to secure his load (which was properly tarped). I truly believe the officer was involved and got a share of the insurance money for the fake damage. Jokes on them because I got the charge dropped and i think my insurance company pulled back the payout.

I believe there are good cops out there, I think they keep really quiet though as they are surrounded by shady and down right bad cops. I am not alone in this belief. A lot of the good ones in some cities resigned lately which is very bad for those cities futures.
 
Inside the articles
Imo policing in Canada lost the average person because of continuous scandals coming to light. Seeing police often getting off with crimes or getting a wrist slap. Add that to many stories of people who get charged with assault when defending themselves or their property, while the criminal gets nothing.

When David Chen made a citizens arrest of a thief he was charged with kidnapping. I was truly amazed that he was found not quilty, if not for public outcry I don't think he would have been. How did we get to a place where criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens? The police are the ones that decide to press the charges, they can also decide not to press charges if they don't think they are warranted.

I grew up in Summerside P.E.I. and many people I knew believed the RCMP were much better than the city police. I was there for the whole Dave Griffin case and general consensus was Dave was the good guy who was being railroaded by a shady chief and mayor who were afraid his backroom dealings would be exposed.

I now live in Ontario where I have heard the OPP called "the biggest biker gang in Canada"

My first time dealing with OPP was a fraud case where my dump truck driver was falsely accused of dropping a big rock on the road and the supposed victim had expensive damage to her car. The story had more holes in it than the titanic and no rock was ever found, however the responding officer charged my driver with failing to secure his load (which was properly tarped). I truly believe the officer was involved and got a share of the insurance money for the fake damage. Jokes on them because I got the charge dropped and i think my insurance company pulled back the payout.

I believe there are good cops out there, I think they keep really quiet though as they are surrounded by shady and down right bad cops. I am not alone in this belief. A lot of the good ones in some cities resigned lately which is very bad for those cities futures.
no. If you think really hard- you’ll come up with a handful of examples coast to coast over ten years. Tens of millions of interactions with police.

What has changed is the ability for a story that should be local can be national news depending on the politics of who wants it to be news.

Don’t hide behind- “there are good cops”. Just say you don’t like them. They are not outnumbered and surrounded by bad ones, that’s complete and utter nonsense.

What you should look at is your company if you hang out with people that routinely find themselves in situations where they have to talk about who the biggest gang is.

Your example of some bizarre insurance scam where the police officer was taking money- with no evidence, no complaint, no follow up says lots about you. That THAT is the conclusion you came up with.

It is the correct course of action to show up where there was a load, something damaged a car, and looking at the load it’s possible to write a ticket. It’s also entirely reasonable that it won’t be convicted in court. With all the evidence at the scene, and given the variance in what is expected based of a provinces insurance practices, that you would take statements and then let the court decide it’s merits,

Or you could live in bizarro world where the Canadian police officer is involved in elaborate insurance scams.
 
Inside the articles

no. If you think really hard- you’ll come up with a handful of examples coast to coast over ten years. Tens of millions of interactions with police.

What has changed is the ability for a story that should be local can be national news depending on the politics of who wants it to be news.

Don’t hide behind- “there are good cops”. Just say you don’t like them. They are not outnumbered and surrounded by bad ones, that’s complete and utter nonsense.

What you should look at is your company if you hang out with people that routinely find themselves in situations where they have to talk about who the biggest gang is.

Your example of some bizarre insurance scam where the police officer was taking money- with no evidence, no complaint, no follow up says lots about you. That THAT is the conclusion you came up with.

It is the correct course of action to show up where there was a load, something damaged a car, and looking at the load it’s possible to write a ticket. It’s also entirely reasonable that it won’t be convicted in court. With all the evidence at the scene, and given the variance in what is expected based of a provinces insurance practices, that you would take statements and then let the court decide it’s merits,

Or you could live in bizarro world where the Canadian police officer is involved in elaborate insurance scams.

I can come up with a bunch more examples without thinking hard at all. If you anonymously polled people across Canada you would have countless examples.

There was no damage to the car, the lady showed up on scene 5 minutes after my driver pulled over for another matter (I had a witness to this). The load was properly tarped. My driver tried to help the lady find the rock. Where did it go. A rock big enough to do the damage claimed does not dissappear. No other cars were damaged. When the officer phoned me she was very evasive on details. She claimed she didn't trust my driver's story even though he was very well liked by all our customers and proved trustworthy to me during two years of service. However no evidence to back up her story existed.

The crown offered my driver no fine and no record to plead guilty. Thankfully he didn't take it and charges were dropped 1 minute before court started.

I have no doubt it was insurance fraud. I suspect the officer had a part in it put no way to prove it.

My dispatcher had around one driver a month involved in similar fraud events.

The quote of the biker gang came from a top tier mechanic co-worker at a top heavy truck dealership in Cambridge. He was a very law abiding person who I worked alongside for four years.
 
I have to agree with their new Union on this one. They've already got the information, so why insist these Officers testify publicly as well?

N.S. mass shooting inquiry: RCMP, police union resist calls for officers to testify​

The RCMP and a police union are resisting calls to have officers who responded to the worst mass shooting in Canadian history be compelled to testify at the public inquiry investigating the tragedy.

All 18 officers who responded to the killings that left 22 people dead over two days in April 2020 run the risk of being re-traumatized on the witness stand, the lawyer for the National Police Federation argued Thursday.

Nasha Nijhawan told commissioners they must consider the inquiry's mandate to be "trauma-informed" in dealing with witnesses.

In addition, Lori Ward, the lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada, which represents the RCMP, said the families' lawyers must realize the public inquiry is attempting a "brave new world" in terms of its format.

"We hear the frustration from lawyers used to a trial-style approach to gathering evidence, but that doesn't mean other methods or alternate methods of evidence aren't meaningful," Ward said.

Most of the RCMP officers who responded to the killings have already provided extensive, unsworn interviews to commission counsel, she said, adding that unless it's clear something is missing, that should suffice.

Lawyers for family members on Thursday asked the inquiry for constables Stuart Beselt and Vicki Colford to testify under oath about the early hours of the attacks in Portapique, N.S., the community west of Truro where the shootings began on April 18, 2020.

Beselt was an acting corporal who was among the first four RCMP members to respond to 911 calls after the killer began his shooting spree.

Michael Scott, a lawyer representing 14 of the 22 victims' families, said, "We need to hear from these officers for the simple reason: they were there. We need to know what the officers heard and saw and did.

"We haven't heard from any witnesses and at this point in the process, we've moved very quickly through one of the central timelines."

Steve Topshee, a lawyer who represents two of the victims' families, noted that Beselt was the first to arrive and within minutes encountered Andrew MacDonald, who had been shot and injured, and MacDonald's wife, Kate MacDonald, as they were exiting the community.

The inquiry's summaries, released earlier this week, indicated that it was Beselt who determined that there was a mass shooting underway and decided to advance on foot with his body armour and carbine, along with constables Adam Merchant and Aaron Patton.

Colford, meanwhile, remained at the main entrance to the community, assisting the MacDonalds and relaying information to other officers.

"It's not to put him (Beselt) on the stand to cross-examine him, it's to get to the truth and get to the facts," Topshee said. "It's not a blame-seeking situation. It's an inquisitorial and fact-seeking situation."

He noted that as Beselt prepared to enter the community on foot, rather than continuing in his patrol car, he talked about the Moncton, N.B., shooting of five RCMP officers in June 2014. During an interview Beselt gave to the commission before hearings began, he told investigators that the Moncton shootings had taught officers that it was riskier to be in a car during a mass shooting than on foot.

"What is he talking about? That has to be explored," Topshee said. "That has to be looked into."

Topshee said he wanted to ask Colford, who has retired from the force, questions about information she had relayed to officers on April 18, 2020, about a possible escape route the killer could use.

The commission has published transcripts in which Colford radioed to her colleagues that she had heard there was "kind of a road that someone could come out," after she spoke to Kate MacDonald. The commission has said that the killer likely escaped through a rough road that wasn't being monitored by the RCMP.

Ward said Beselt and Colford had addressed key issues in their interviews, and she said it's unclear further testimony is needed. She also suggested questions could be submitted in writing.

Lawyers for the police union and RCMP argued that the questions victims' families have about the killings have already been answered and can be found in the written transcripts of pre-inquiry interviews.

Commission lawyer Gillian Hnatiw didn't advocate for having any of the officers testify. Instead, she said that some police officers, including Beselt, would participate in "a series of roundtables" composed of firefighters, paramedics and police that are scheduled to take place during the inquiry's second phase later this year.

However, Scott said this wouldn't address the questions families have about the police response on April 18-19, 2020, during the 13-hour manhunt for the perpetrator, who was driving a replica police vehicle.

"We are extremely frustrated at the prospect of having to justify seeking facts in a fact-finding process," he told the commission.

I was (very) peripherally involved in a commission of inquiry, and it was quite an eye-opener. First, everybody was lawyered-up and all costs were covered by the government (I don't know for certain if this is the case in NS). When everybody involved has been given a blank cheque to represent the interests of their clients, those interests can become 'elastic' and issues such as expediency or focus tend to slacken. Commissions are given terms of reference or a mandate; how well they stick to them depends on the the Commissioner and Commission counsel. They may be reluctant to take a firm line so as to not be accused of limiting a proper 'exploration'.

I can pretty much predict how it will go down if/when the first responding members are called to the stand. They will, moment-by-moment, be led through their actions that night (the same information available in the interviews). They will then be 'explored', in turn, by every single lawyer in the room, who will focus on the minutiae of actions or decisions made on that dark and stormy night, and 'explore' anything that is described differently during testimony vs. the interviews. They would then do the same process with every other member, even the ones standing right beside the first one.

Some will 'explore' other areas. This exchange said a lot to me on how the inquiry would progress if allowed to:

"He noted that as Beselt prepared to enter the community on foot, rather than continuing in his patrol car, he talked about the Moncton, N.B., shooting of five RCMP officers in June 2014. During an interview Beselt gave to the commission before hearings began, he told investigators that the Moncton shootings had taught officers that it was riskier to be in a car during a mass shooting than on foot.
"What is he talking about? That has to be explored," Topshee said. "That has to be looked into."
It may not be directly part of the Inquiry's mandate, but everybody wants to know what went wrong and who played what part in the wrong, or series of wrongs - it's human nature. How 'wrong' is defined can vary widely, but when you sitting in the stand, you know you are part of the wrong.
 
I can come up with a bunch more examples without thinking hard at all. If you anonymously polled people across Canada you would have countless examples.

There was no damage to the car, the lady showed up on scene 5 minutes after my driver pulled over for another matter (I had a witness to this). The load was properly tarped. My driver tried to help the lady find the rock. Where did it go. A rock big enough to do the damage claimed does not dissappear. No other cars were damaged. When the officer phoned me she was very evasive on details. She claimed she didn't trust my driver's story even though he was very well liked by all our customers and proved trustworthy to me during two years of service. However no evidence to back up her story existed.

The crown offered my driver no fine and no record to plead guilty. Thankfully he didn't take it and charges were dropped 1 minute before court started.

I have no doubt it was insurance fraud. I suspect the officer had a part in it put no way to prove it.

My dispatcher had around one driver a month involved in similar fraud events.

The quote of the biker gang came from a top tier mechanic co-worker at a top heavy truck dealership in Cambridge. He was a very law abiding person who I worked alongside for four years.
Receipts or just stop. It's just a story, and one side of it. Same with all this anonymous polling info on "do you like cops" you want to run with.
 
I'm not naive enough to believe that any organization the size of the OPP (or RCMP or TPS or CAF) doesn't have any bad apples. A couple are currently under investigation in relation to the towing industry. Facebook has OPP 'fans' page and, for want of a better term, a not-fans page, maybe more than one. No doubt other large services have the same. How any of this relates to the events in Nova Scotia escapes me.
 
Do you have a source for that?
C'mon. Do you want us to believe you haven't already searched everything up on the topic, drawn your conclusions and have a dozen links loaded into your mag, ready to drop as soon as an answer is given? Why don't you just save us the suspense and publish your rebuttal now?
;)
 
Policing in Canada has a problem, that maybe this thread isn't the place to discuss, but police have lost the "average person". When working class "peace, order, and good government" people question the motivations and decisions of the RCMP perhaps the most open and honest possible discussion is what is needed.

The more the shooting inquiry is seen as compromised, or "hiding something", the more people will question the police.

Luckily, I've had no direct involvement with the Police in Canada in their course of their 'professional duties', but I've had extensive experience working with the RUC in Ulster, who are very similar to the RCMP in many ways. Not least because the latter were modelled on the former when created many years ago.

Some cops in some Divisions were unreliable, untrustworthy and disorganized to the point where we avoided engaging with them as much as possible.

Others were fantastic, and a real pleasure to work with. For these types of cops the common denominator, we decided, was good leadership - usually at the Inspector level and above.

Where the cop on the beat believes that they'll be hung out to dry by their bosses, who generally hide in their offices further their own careers and never get out on the ground to connect with the troops, you'll always get bad performance from the police...

... or the military, or just about any other human organization IMHO.
 
A couple are currently under investigation in relation to the towing industry.

Others have been caught in insurance scams. @Dana381 's story may be improbable but it's not impossible (or unheard of)

Police officer charged with insurance fraud

Const. Ronald Joseph, 48, was charged with over a dozen new offences, including four counts of fraud over $5,000 and two of attempted fraud over $5,000, CBC News reported. The charges come as 12 other people were arrested and charged with fraud-related offences in connection with the same case.

Authorities alleged that Joseph and the suspects made fraudulent insurance claims for false or staged collisions between April 2018 and May 2020. This was reportedly made possible through a vehicle rental company owned by Joseph.

There's over 100,000 police officers in Canada. Like the military, there's bound to be bad employees.
 
I grew up in Summerside P.E.I. and many people I knew believed the RCMP were much better than the city police. I was there for the whole Dave Griffin case and general consensus was Dave was the good guy who was being railroaded by a shady chief and mayor who were afraid his backroom dealings would be exposed.

That started over Grimes, the ex meathead who drew on a guy for (slightly) speeding down the hill towards Reeds Corner. Grimes was a moron, Griffin didn’t think he needed to follow orders. The general consensus wasn’t Arsenault and Stewart were “shady”. I don’t know where you came up with that.

Griffin didn’t do exceptionally well after retiring from the SPS. He was involved with MADD and got caught driving impaired. Did a week on the other side of the bars in the jailhouse.

Worst cop Prince County ever saw? Bill Maxwell when St Eleanor’s had its own police. He used to sit on Pope Road on Sunday, near the corner of Greenwood drive (it changes from a 70
to a 50 zone there) on Sunday morning pulling people over on their way home from church. He was right out of er; after he retired he was caught fishing out of season with no license. I don’t think the DFO Officer gave him “a break”.
 
Continuing the tangent, there are two Ottawa PS officers who had a drug bust tossed for a wild and wonderful situation where another police force contradicted them on the stand and alleged that they planted a gun on the scene, where their testimony that other OPS officers were present was disproved, and the well known to police subject they arrested is now suing them and the OPS for allegedly stealing $50k of his cash.

Ottawa police (municipal) are a whole other level...
 
WPS has an entertaining history some of it is hilarious some horrifying and some sad and still others that have you going , "what is your F**king problem ? Seriously get help.."
For example around here it's not drinking and driving if you're a cop . There's been at least four noticeable examples of that in last couple of years.
My favourite goes back more then few years but it was really impressive .
Two cops turned out to be running one of the largest stolen property rings in the city's history.
One of the things they recovered was a Thompson SMG stolen from the WPS arsenal. And apparently no one had noticed that it was missing. They also killed one of the members of the ring ,he was the Brother in law of one of the cops.
Yeah, life's interesting in the 'Peg.
 
WPS has an entertaining history some of it is hilarious some horrifying and some sad and still others that have you going , "what is your F**king problem ? Seriously get help.."
For example around here it's not drinking and driving if you're a cop . There's been at least four noticeable examples of that in last couple of years.
My favourite goes back more then few years but it was really impressive .
Two cops turned out to be running one of the largest stolen property rings in the city's history.
One of the things they recovered was a Thompson SMG stolen from the WPS arsenal. And apparently no one had noticed that it was missing. They also killed one of the members of the ring ,he was the Brother in law of one of the cops.
Yeah, life's interesting in the 'Peg.
I recall that theft ring. Definitely not one of their finer moments.
 
Back on topic, there is little to no trust that the GoC will get this right. In typical knee-jerk fashion, Blair has already banned the sale of surplus federal police vehicles (impacting taxi companies nationwide). Trudeau and Blair have banned a billion dollars worth of legally owned guns despite that this killer smuggled some of his into Canada and was unlicensed. The police failed to act on multiple reports he was violent.

The likely outcome will be heartfelt apologies, a promise of institutional reform and to do better followed by more gun laws.
 
Continuing the tangent, there are two Ottawa PS officers who had a drug bust tossed for a wild and wonderful situation where another police force contradicted them on the stand and alleged that they planted a gun on the scene, where their testimony that other OPS officers were present was disproved, and the well known to police subject they arrested is now suing them and the OPS for allegedly stealing $50k of his cash.

Ottawa police (municipal) are a whole other level...
News article:

 
Back on topic, there is little to no trust that the GoC will get this right. In typical knee-jerk fashion, Blair has already banned the sale of surplus federal police vehicles (impacting taxi companies nationwide). Trudeau and Blair have banned a billion dollars worth of legally owned guns despite that this killer smuggled some of his into Canada and was unlicensed. The police failed to act on multiple reports he was violent.

The likely outcome will be heartfelt apologies, a promise of institutional reform and to do better followed by more gun laws.

Not that I know all the facts, but re: the bolded piece; what didn't they do that they could/should have done?

Gun laws are effective at keeping illegal, unregistered firearms out of criminals hands...didn't you know that? 😁
 
Not that I know all the facts, but re: the bolded piece; what didn't they do that they could/should have done?
There were several post-incident media reports that his violent and threatening behaviour and his cache of illegal weapons went unaddressed by police.
Gun laws are effective at keeping illegal, unregistered firearms out of criminals hands...didn't you know that? 😁
I do now. I guess I was wrong all along.
 
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