1347 words – MR
LETTERS >>> January 2016 >>>
Morley earlier in the year you were so kind to feature (and to make enhancement suggestions) for our “through the wall” car front project in an edition of
Well now for the rest of the story.
Encouraged by the positive feedback received from Blue Line readers and from visitors to our office, we have now added the rear deck of one of our parked Dodge Charger’s to the opposite side of this wall, which is at the back of our briefing room.
Our vehicle equipment installer, as he did for the front end, has ensured that the lights are functional. Young office visitors can press buttons for tail lights, brake lights and back up lights. One of the more noticeable features of Dodge Chargers is the distance away that you can see the rear tail lights.
As to what’s next, we will await the feedback! But, in the mean time, the office joke is that our interview room is between these two displays. We are ready for back seat confessions.
Bob Bruce
Miramichi Police Service
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A salute to our comrades in France
The attacks on Paris were an attack on all freedom loving, civil minded peoples of the world. This terrorism was a cowardly attack on the bastion of civil rights, a city that has welcome, embraced, and included people from around the world. A city and culture that shares its love, passion, and beauty for all that is good and humane with the world. This was the act of those who subscribe to a narrow minded view of life, liberty, and faith, and one that symbolizes the failure of an ideological pursuit which cannot survive the egalitarian, pluralistic values which civilized peoples around the world hold supreme.
The attack is a confirmation of the supremacy of civilized society, our values of tolerance and law, over those who would suppress their weak, vulnerable, or different. They abhor our love for diversity, tolerance, generosity to others and love for humanity. They would kill, maim, rape, enslave, and destroy their own fellow citizens, annihilate art, museums, literature, and devastate the nobility of a civilization that has so much to be proud of. No these are not the men of faith or courage, these are the children of hate, the offspring of intolerance, and only capable of delivering hatred and animosity. Their intolerance extends to everyone, even amongst themselves, and is not capable of sustaining even the limited diversity they for the moment share with their malevolent recruits from around the world. Their predisposition to otherize anyone different from themselves is the very thing that will destroy them and any vestige of their values as part of the human family. While these fanatics, extremists and terrorists would have us fear and force us to temper our value; this is impossible.
We are the product of the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Ours is a civilization built on the tradition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ours is a civilization built on the principle that no free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor that we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
Ours is a civilization built on the struggle of justice over tyranny, on the inalienable rights of all citizens, on values that cannot be debased by tyranny; a world wherein all people can have before their eyes the foundations of their liberty and their welfare. We are the defenders of all that is noble, just and humane. We will forever remain joined and committed in the liberty, equality and fraternity with the citizens of France and all peoples of the world. We will never, in any way, compromise our values to extremism, but rather remain focused in our pursuit and defence of a peaceful world, one in which all are equal and all stand shoulder to shoulder against anyone who would inflict pain on humanity anywhere.
A heartfelt salute from all of us in Canadian security services to our comrades in France.
Anil Anand, BPHE, LL.M., MBA
Toronto ON
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Beyond The Line of Fire
There is a segment of society that goes to work every day to do things for the good of all the people and their society. These people are practically invisible until there is a problem that no one else can or will deal with; among these people are police officers.
This next statement may sound cold and harsh but never the less it has to be said. After an officer is killed in the line of duty, his family will be looked after for a short term but will eventually be put aside by the police community until the next time an officer is killed. At that time there will once again be a short reaching out to the families of the slain officers.
This occurs due to the nature of the job these people perform. The role of a police officer requires them to face and do things that most people could not imagine in their worst nightmares. In order to perform a lot of these duties, officers must be able to put aside their personal feelings, shut down their emotions, face their own mortality and plunge deep into situations that would make other people not only cringe but run. When an officer is killed, it is a blatant reminder to all officers of their own mortality. This is one of the biggest reasons they unconsciously push the reminders of fallen officers and their families aside.
This is also the case for officers injured in the line of duty. They will be “looked” after by their respective departments in the manner set out by individual department policy. Some are far better cared for than others. Regardless though, and depending on the severity of the injury, the officer in question will be ostracized at some level. If able to return to duty they will be welcomed back into the fold. If the injury allows them to perform light duties, they will be back but usually in a less visible role, again so other officers will not have the constant reminder of their own vulnerability.
Severely injured officers will be shunned and more often than not, treated as a pariah. These particular injured officers will find it very difficult if not impossible to remain active in the police community. Policing is a way of life, with a strong feeling of camaraderie amongst all police officers worldwide. Considering the severity of their injury plus the stress created by the treatment/feelings that they no longer belong, the likelihood of them finding any fulfilling employment is poor at best.
This is just my opinion but given the fact that I am the son a police officer that was killed in the line of duty and then later on in my own police career I was injured in the line of duty, I’ve experience this first hand. An injury that not only cost me: my career, my mobility, my benefits, my pension but worst of all my ability to earn a living to support my wife and children.
I know the importance of keeping your edge on the streets; it is detrimental to self preservation. This was not written with the intent to criticize how officers face their mortality, but better to help others understand why it is treated in this manner. As much as this may be unusual and unfair it is the way things are and will most likely remain in order to protect the active police officers still serving.
Mike Irwin
Wilberforce, ON
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