Give back flood victims' guns

[my5cents]

Everybody wants it both ways, Police go into search during a disaster when people are evacuated. Their assumption is to secure the area. If guns are left out, and not picked up, then a looter comes in and later uses that gun in the commission of a crime, who gets the blame? The police. If they are registered, the owner should be able to come and pick it up. My hunch is,,, there were probably a lot of unregistered firearms and these folks have no recourse. So the outcry. You can't have it both ways.

Read the accounts of what took place, that's not how it went down.

If you read the first few pages I think you might get a better understanding of the concerns.

The simple indicator of police wrong doing is, after they were confronted as to what they did, they lied.

I expect this will be swept under the rug and whitewashed.

[A_Britishcolumbian]

Blanked out RCMP documents speak volumes

BY LORNE GUNTER , QMI AGENCY
FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2014

It often helps to go over your research more than once. It helps, too, to have an extra set of eyes.

That’s the case with documents regarding last summer’s gun seizures in High River, Alberta, obtained from the RCMP through access to information.

To be fair, reams of documents have been released. Many are mundane. Plenty have large portions blanked out.

It’s easy to miss the significance of what isn’t there. Which is exactly what I and an independent firearms researcher did – we missed the importance of a blank column on a Mountie spreadsheet listing the firearms taken following last June’s flood.

Thankfully a private citizen looking at the same data clued into what we had overlooked.

In an item-by-item detailing of the hundreds of guns seized, Mounties have blanked out the column “Location Where Recovered.” That means the location within each home where they found the gun or guns they confiscated.

Why is that important? Because Mounties have insisted all along that they took only those firearms they found in “plain view.”

And that is significant because even if they were in homes legally under emergency powers to search for flood victims, they are still prevented from taking evidence of a crime (such as unsafe storage of a firearm) unless they can see the evidence plainly from their rescue position.

If they open a sock drawer and find a handgun or peek behind boxes and find a rifle in a space too small for a victim to be hiding, that would not satisfy the “plain view” doctrine in court.

A source with intimate knowledge of RCMP evidence collection procedures told me Mounties would never blank out such info from their reports if they were taking a criminal to court. A judge would immediately invalidate the evidence since there is no way of knowing if it was legally obtained.

Perhaps Mounties think they are merely preserving the private info of High River gun owners. But blanking out the details of where they found guns in flooded (and unflooded) homes calls into question their “plain view” explanation.

Handwritten officers’ notes from High River also call into question their need to kick in hundreds of doors.

Even long after the raging waters of the Highwood River had subsided and the immediate emergency had passed, the RCMP kept forcing their way into residents’ homes.

They were doing some good during these violent entries. One Mountie’s notes show “cat removed by Animal Services. 1 rabbit fed, watered. 1 lizard, fed.”

“1 cat, 2 chinchillas, all fed and watered.”

“Evidence of a cat, not located, Food water left out.”

He and his fellow officers fed salamanders, bearded dragons, snakes and birds. They found fish in tanks and sprinkled food into their aquariums before leaving.

Nice.

But in nine of the 19 homes they searched in under an hour, they kicked in doors and damaged frames, often to the tune of several thousands of dollars. And this happened from June 25 until July 10, long after the rising water posed a threat to life and limb.

Did they really need to smash in doors to feed pets? Couldn’t they have waited for locksmiths? Or was their real purpose to search for guns while putting out the kibble?

This was Mounties’ second time at most of these homes. RCMP now claim they went back to make sure there were no gas leaks. But random houses weren’t blowing up all over town, so was such forceful intrusion into private property truly justified?

Maybe this wasn’t a gun grab (although it sure looks like it). But it certainly was an excess use of police power on a grand scale.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/10/07/bl ... ak-volumes

[wanderingman]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office is urging the RCMP in High River, Alta., to focus on "more important" tasks and to return the guns officers took from homes while searching for victims in the evacuated flood zone

so? does anyone know if this actually happened after the supreme leader of Canada requested it or did the pigs simply do their own thing with the normal no accountability deal as per normal in canada

[my5cents]

The RCMP's action was not just a breach of the Charter, it was illegal. Forget, "focus on more important tasks and to return the guns". Heads should roll.

Some of the accounts of houses that were visited multiple times, searched for second time the day before people were allowed back, is outrageous.

This type of action is like a cancer on police/public relations.

[johnp3]

The RCMP should have a fund set up for their pensions and when they have to go to funerals, and when they pull this kind of BS then everyone involved should be able to sue them for huge dollars. All the RCMP's pensions should be in the fund that way they might start to clean up their act, when a police officer beats on a person then the person involved should be able to designate someone to beat on the officer, If you take away their exemptions they might think twice about say kicking someone in the head, like happened in Kelowna.
They get all kinds of exemptions, taking away there exemptions is the only way to clean up their actions.
eye for an eye works for me!

[A_Britishcolumbian]

and it is in.

a bit of a long read, but fully worth it. supporting documentation linked to within.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/67027

Who authorized RCMP to make warrantless entires into High River homes during the 2013 flood?

This précis examines one of the more recent claims from the RCMP - that they were carrying out warrantless searches for stranded people and pets under lawful direction given to them by the High River Emergency Operations Centre; likely the Director of the Town of High River Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) and/or the RCMP High River incident commander. Regardless of their long titles, these persons, and anyone else who was part of the Town’s EOC, must act within the law. On that basis, it turns out this latest justification for their action doesn’t quite hold water.

My friend, Dennis Young, has obtained a copy of officers’ notes taken during the RCMP’s door- crashing campaign. We have carefully reviewed all of those notes. There is not a single mention of a rescued person, although the feeding pets is recorded. This discrepancy has also been reported by Lorne Gunter of SUN News. Therefore, the RCMP claim that 754 High River homes were forcibly entered, resulting in approximately 2,000 damage claims submitted by residents and that a total of 4,666 warrantless entries were made (with some homes entered more than once) for the principal purpose of rescuing persons rings hollow. After reviewing hundreds and hundreds of pages of RCMP documents obtained through Access to Information Act requests, RCMP notes do not record a single person rescued in that door-crashing campaign. Not one.

In summary, it is hard to understand how leadership in the RCMP could have truly believed in the summer of 2013 that their officers could legally crash down doors to High River homes in search of possibly stranded pets; it is utterly impossible to understand how that justification can be advanced a year later.

When one recalls the blithe answer of an RCMP spokesman at that first news conference which questioned these entries and gun seizures, concerns are amplified. Recall also that the RCMP spokesman said that such actions are “not remarkable for us.” That may be, but such police actions are certainly remarkable for the rest of us.

At the the of the day, why do we need take a hard and unflinching look at this disturbing episode in Alberta’s and Canada’s history? Most of the answer is simple.

Tyranny is like a bad cooking odour. It is always easier to smell in someone else’s house.

Note: Thanks and appreciation are due to my friend, Dennis Young, a retired RCMP member, for his tireless work in getting to the bottom of what really happened in High River. That important effort continues.

Rick Hemmingson is a published author whose legal experience ranges through various litigation matters to a variety of solicitor’s work including estate planning, probate, corporate, partnerships and real estate development; with a special interest in matters related to the Firearms Act and regulations. Rick is a past member of the Board of Governors of the Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association. He graduated with distinction from the University of Saskatchewan in 1988 and is a Member of the Bar in both Alberta and British Columbia.

[zzontar]

Wow that's a whole lot of guns... I wonder how many they didn't get? High River... Canada's Texas.

[Fancy]

But the second-in-command of the EOC confirmed Harrison’s comments.

“It is definitely not a decision of one person,” said Len Zebedee, fire chief for High River and the deputy director of the EOC. “It is a decision of a lot of people that sit down and say, ‘What are our priorities? What are our objectives.’ And No. 1 is the safety of our responders and residents.

“It frustrates me to hear the RCMP put down like they were because they were here to do a job and that was their job,” said Zebedee.

The EOC made the request after an early morning planning session on June 21, after the town had declared a local state of emergency.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/alber ... story.html

[wanderingman]

canada bound wrote:
Everybody wants it both ways, Police go into search during a disaster when people are evacuated. Their assumption is to secure the area. If guns are left out, and not picked up, then a looter comes in and later uses that gun in the commission of a crime, who gets the blame? The police. If they are registered, the owner should be able to come and pick it up. My hunch is,,, there were probably a lot of unregistered firearms and these folks have no recourse. So the outcry. You can't have it both ways

I seriously doubt that this is a the main issue or hardly a issue at all

[A_Britishcolumbian]

fancy, did you miss these passages from Hemmingson's abstract?

Do any of these legal instruments permit the Council or someone at the Town’s EOC to direct the RCMP to make warrantless searches, as the RCMP have claimed? On the basis of the documents I have reviewed and the plain wording of Alberta’s Emergency Management Act (“EMA”), I don’t believe so.

Bylaw 3843/96 plainly required that the authorization for warrantless entries must be “in the operation of” the MEMP or related plans and programs. The relevant passage of Section 12 of the Bylaw reads:

12. Subject to Section 15, when a state of local emergency is declared, the persons making the declaration may

...........
(g) authorize the entry into any building or on any land, without warrant, by any person in the course of implementing an emergency plan or program;
.......
(k) authorize any persons at any time to exercise, in the operation of the Municipal Emergency Management Plan and related plans or programs, any power specified in Paragraphs (b) through (j) in relation to any part of the municipality affected by a declaration of a state of local emergency.

Under the High River Bylaw, it appears that only one of these persons can authorize warrantless entries: (a) the person making the declaration, or (b) some other authorized person who is exercising such power “in the operation of” the Municipal Emergency Management Plan. Let’s examine each of those possibilities in turn.

Local politicians made the declaration of a state of emergency. The RCMP has not claimed they were delegated warrantless entry powers by the Mayor or Councillors. In fact, in a letter to the Alberta Property Rights Advocate, the RCMP Commander of K Division (Alberta) denied that such direction came from politicians. The High River Town Council has not admitted to giving that direction. We can conclude that there is no claim that such authorization was given by the person(s) who made the declaration of emergency.

whereas you fancy present us with zebedee saying "“It frustrates me to hear the RCMP put down like they were because they were here to do a job and that was their job,” well i wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be just another dirty fire fighter with a yard full of stolen goods with that loot and pillage perspective.

[Fancy]

I expect he's a person of high morals and a good work ethic

whereas you fancy present us with zebedee saying "“It frustrates me to hear the RCMP put down like they were because they were here to do a job and that was their job,” well i wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be just another dirty fire fighter with a yard full of stolen goods with that loot and pillage perspective.

And he was there.