After reading Marshall's sentimental meanderings about his cop buddies, we are all treated to the following insightful critique:
A switch to a Conservative government has brought strong efforts toward a long-overdue shift. Changes that would put some teeth and guts back into our jelly-like system.
So where are those changes today? Where else? Held up by parliamentary committees and hindered by opposition parties that won't support them. In their zeal to get elected last time around, Liberals and the NDP promised the moon and pledged a new era of "get-tough," but as usual instead of stepping up to the plate, they've withered.
What does that even mean? I read that and I have no idea what this ex-cop expects us to do. It sounds like a call for vague "get tough on crime measures" such as mandatory minimum sentencing. But I looked for an explanation as to how our system is jelly-like and what we are supposed to do about it and I didn't find one.
This story is about alleged drug dealing that was ongoing from the comfort of a home in an average neighbourhood, where legal consequence translated to "who cares." And ends with a will to kill in the name of protecting the business. A shotgun ambush.
Lots of meaningless inflammatory rhetoric but no substance. We haven't finished the investigation and we still haven't determined what happened during this raid. For all we know this is a case of a terrified kid that thought he was defending himself from home invaders. Maybe the police followed the standard operating procedure for drug busts to a tee. I do not think it matters either way.
Why don't I blame the police or the shooter? I said it before but I will say it again. The drug war is to blame. Make no mistake, every single drug raid has the potential for violence. If we are going to send police officers into potentially dangerous and deadly situations, then we have a responsibility to make sure that the potential loss of life and limb is worth it. The whole concept of drug raids is the problem. We need to legalize and regulate drugs, especially marijuana, in order to stop police officers from being killed or injured unnecessarily. If drugs are legally available, there won't be a need to do any drug raids.
I am sure that is what the author of this article meant when he said:
The injuries sustained by our officers are life altering. For them, their families and their squad.
Winnipeg is bigger than Mayerthorpe. We should be able to make more noise. Penner, Murray and Cull should hear that noise on their long painful road of recovery. And it should be heard all the way to Ottawa.
At least the vague calls to arms weren't the only opinions put forth about the Winnipeg shooting. There were some rather interesting LTE's and a statement from Winnipeg's Chief of Police.
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