Will you march for me?
By Wayne Hebb
I marched through this country
Keeping peace, maintaining the right
For you to be safe and free
Sometimes with a gun or with fists
Scars, maybe one or two
Would not stay in the past
Now, that I am through
My time comes at last
When they play last post,
Sending me home with dignity
The thing I want to know is
Will you, yes you, march for me
I was in the yard a few days ago, digging the flower beds, cleaning up the debris left from the late fall and winter, spreading mulch, just trying to make it look presentable. When I am working like this, I often think about things in my past and roll them over in my mind. Perhaps I am doing the same with my brain as I am doing with the yard. The following story is one that came to light during my tillage of yard and soul. I have changed the names and locations due to the sensitive nature of this matter.
The boy came up to me as I entered the gym of the Carlton Elementary School. A few days earlier, I got a few of the members of detachment to join me for a game of floor hockey with the students at this school as part of the Police week celebrations. The school was in the small town of Carlton which is about a half hour from the RCMP detachment located in the town of Bufferton which is responsible for policing in this area. The boy was about nine-years old and he was smiling at me as he said,
“Hi Constable Hebb. I’m Ronnie. Do you remember me?’
“Why, yes, I do, Ronnie. How are you doing?” I said without hesitation, while I searched my memories.
It finally clicked that he was a victim of abuse I had investigated about two years prior. I got the call on a cold day in March 1986, the day after my birthday. I am a believer that something special happens on your birthday and while this report was not on my birthday, I think the incident happened on it. Ronnie’s mother had cut him with a razor blade. It certainly was not special because of that, rather it was the message or lesson I learned because of meeting this child. The young boy standing before me was shy but had come out of it when he recognized me. He was excited to see me and I do not know why, because when the police were involved in your life, it is most likely not a good memory. We were getting ready to start the game and not knowing what to do, I took off my watch and I gave it to him. I asked him to look after it for me while I played in the game. He looked at the watch and then back to me and swore he would take good care of it. He ran off to the side where the other students were gathering to watch the game. Perhaps I could stop here, and you might think, what a nice thing to do, and then you would include that in your frolics down your memory lane. Unfortunately, I do not know when to shut up when I am ahead, so I will continue.
I started the investigation by interviewing witnesses to gain information and finally I felt I had enough to have some degree of understanding about what happened. The boy lived with his mother and younger sister in an apartment in one of the low-rental housing areas which were nicknamed Section One and Section Two. He and his family lived in Section One. His mother met me at the door. She was a single mother and there was no evidence of even a remote fatherly interest in this little family. She was on social assistance, welfare it was commonly referred as, and the stress of raising two children on her own had driven her to alcoholism as well as searching for love in all the wrong places, to coin an old phrase. She was combative at first, saying that I was not talking to her son without a lawyer, but I talked with her and after a while she reluctantly agreed to accompany me to the detachment office for further investigation. Once at the office, I brought Ronnie and his mother into one of the interview rooms and as they sat down, I could see Ronnie had three small cuts, about an inch in length, on his cheek just below his left eye. Some other members were assisting me, and they updated me with the information they had obtained. The mother was placed under arrest for assault causing bodily harm. She told me that Ronnie’s injury was the result of his getting hit with a snowball and she denied anything about razor blades being used. She was later remanded and placed in the detachment cells to appear in court on the following morning.
Social Services had arranged to have Ronnie’s grandmother look after the children until they could sort things out. While we were waiting for the grandmother to arrive, I gave Ronnie and his sister a drink and some cookies I found in the coffee room, as well as some paper and pens so they could do some drawing. Before their grandmother arrived, they came out to me and gave me their drawings. They both had drawn a house and Ronnie’s was quite big with a small door and too small windows near the roof. No doubt some psychologist or behavioural expert could tell you what mental processes were at work, but I just saw a child’s drawing of a home. They both wanted me to have these drawings and I accepted them with a smile. It was their gift to me, I do not understand why they wanted to do this for me, the man who arrested their mother, but I kept them all these years.
When Ronnie’s grandmother arrived at the office the children were interviewed in her presence. Initially Ronnie had denied the existence of the razor blade, insisting, like his mother, that his injuries were caused by him getting hit with a snowball with ice in it. Now with his mother no longer present, he related he had been hit by a snowball and when he came to his mother for help because his cheek was red and swollen, she used a razor blade on his injury. His mother, in her drunken stupor, got the razor blade by breaking open a disposable plastic razor. Ronnie told us his mother had thrown away the razor blade, but she had put the remainder of the plastic frame in the pocket of her housecoat. A search was conducted of the house and the plastic remnants were found in the house coat as Ronnie had described. I do not remember if the razor blades were found.
The matter went to court and the mother plead not guilty and a trial followed. The star witness for our case was less than stellar on the stand. Very much so. I can definitely say, it wasn’t the only time that I had seen a witness chew gum while giving testimony but it was the first time I had ever seen one pull it out of her mouth and swing it around on her finger. And…she did it more than once. The defence lawyer was able to convince the court that the mother’s actions were not assault but a misguided attempt to relieve, what she thought, was pressure on her son’s injury. I can accept that I guess, the court has to insure it gives the accused the benefit of fairness in assessing the evidence, but I always wonder where that benefit is when it comes to victims, especially children.
Yet, that is it, isn’t it? There are no rules as to what parents you get when you come into this world and there are no requirements for being a parent other than the physical ones. You cannot drive a vehicle without a licence from the government, but you can raise a child, a delicate human being, without any conditions. That is an old thought and I am sure you have heard it before, but it always gives me reason to pause.
Now back to the floor hockey game. We played valiantly against the grade six students, but they outscored us in the end. The children cheered for their fellow students and for the willing losers and it was one of the better memories of my policing life. Except, that after the game, I looked for Ronnie and then he showed up holding my watch out to me and I felt bad. You see, when, I gave him my watch I had this thought that maybe I would not get the watch back. It was only a forty-dollar Timex so I do not know why the thought even entered my mind. Yet, I do. Police officers are suspicious in nature and the more experience you have in policing, the more suspicious you become. This was a child and the only reasons I had this thought was because he was poor and because of his upbringing. It was only brief but so is saying the F-word out loud at a church service.
I thanked Ronnie and patted him on the back in front of his classmates. It was a big thing for him, to have held this watch for the policeman. A lot of young boys back then, (not so sure if that is the same today) had an image of the police as the hero in blue but on that day, I silently trashed that image with a single thought. A thought that has never been spoken or made audible but shame rings inside my skull all the same.
My shame has faded now but I learned a valuable lesson from this little encounter. Everyday, millions of thoughts are processed through our brains and not all are good or helpful, but we are in control. We direct what we act on. We are all imperfect people living in an imperfect world expecting perfection, but that perfection is different for each and everyone of us. Each day we must pay attention to the notions occurring inside our heads. Examine them carefully, for the lazy gardener reaps many weeds.
Suit of Blue
The old man hobbled over to the park bench and sat, leaning his cane against the metal arm rest. He closed his eyes, sighed, and breathed in. Children were riding their bikes, skateboards and scooters and even more children were on the swings and the monkey bars in the playground. He smiled at the sounds of life around the bench where he rested. Trees full of leaves offered shade from the strength of the early June sun. Parents sat or stood watching their children and some scolding the little ones for being a little too active. Music played from the snack bar a hundred feet away from him and folks and their little ones were coming away with a plate of fries, a hot dog or just a big old, double scoop ice cream cone. He felt the sun on his face, and he leaned his head back, awash in the idyllic day.
His eyes still closed, he daydreamed of the past, his past. He had been a cop, a police officer but he liked cop better. It was less formal, more down to earth, but then, who but anyone who had worn the suit of blue, would ever analyze this. He had retired during the summer of 2020 with twenty-seven years. Thirty-one years ago. He would have worked longer but the events of that year were just too much. The bush fires in Australia, the corona virus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and the second wave of the virus, two weeks after the protests, erupting into three million cases in the United States alone and the death toll rose over 300,000. To call it tumultuous would be an understatement.
Tensions rose in early January when an American drone strike killed Iranian security and intelligence officer, Major General Qasem Soleimani, followed a couple of days later by Iran pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal. A Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 was shot down by Iran a few days later and all 176 passengers and crew, 57 of whom were Canadians, died. The possibility of war was on the minds of many North Americans as this played out. It fizzled out by the end of 2020 with a change of leadership in the land of the free. Joe Biden won the US presidential election in November of 2020, but it was March of 2021 before he was inaugurated because the former president, Donald Trump, refused to leave the oval office and relinquish command. It finally took a Supreme Court order served directly by the Attorney General and the presence of armed troops for Trump to realize the time for his rule had passed. Trump supporters rose up in angry protests resulting in the killing of hundreds of people, most of them police officers as they were targeted by the protestors. Targeted because police became the focal point of public hate.
During an arrest in May 2020, a police officer, had knelt on the neck of a black man for almost nine minutes, snuffing out his life while the officer watched with his hands in his pockets. Horrible. The old man shook his head. It was not George Floyd who had changed the world, you could not put that on him. It was this piece of shit, in uniform that was responsible for the change. Not entirely, it had been coming for a while, he was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The job, that everyone knew how to do right except the ones doing it, was becoming obsolete. No one liked to be arrested or to be detained, so often, you had to struggle, to fight, just to earn your pay cheque. Arresting a non-compliant person cannot be made to look pretty by any stretch of the Imagination. Even when justified, it never looked swift and smooth like in the movies, and perception made you the bad guy. People wanted pretty.
The George Floyd incident brought all the recent deaths of black people at the hands of the police to a head. People could not take it anymore and they started protests, protests which were supposed to be peaceful, but erupted into violence, with people and police being killed and injured in the name of peace. There were many who blamed the violence on white supremacists and that might have been true, but it was not all the truth. The truth was never laid out as very few were charged or found responsible for those crimes. Hate smoldered in the eyes of protestors as police were tarred as racists, bullies, liars, and all things negative. Several police officers tried to quell the hatred by kneeling with the protestors in a sign of solidarity and that did sway some in their thinking, but not enough, as ‘defund the police’ surged across the US and other countries. The media reported police brutality was rampant and reported incidents daily to prove this. To stamp it out, to get rid of it, defunding racist law enforcement organizations became the only answer and the only logical next step was to disband the police. ‘We can do it better’, was the slogan on some of the placards the old man had seen while holding the line in front of businesses.
It was shortly after that duty that he put in his retirement papers. It was July 2020. Officers who had retired previously told him the day would come when he would know it was time. It did; but it was not an instantaneous thing that flashed into his head. He had known it for a long time, yet he hung on until, like the protestors, he could not take it anymore. He could not take the hatred, the disdain for a profession which was built on mottos like Serve and Protect. His official date had been October sixth, but he had taken the remainder of the leave he was owed so he finished up on August the eighth. The protests were still happening in many cities but with less looting and violence. That may have been due to the protestors anger being quelled, or it might have been due to many of them getting sick with the virus due to lack of social distancing practises. Either way, he left his gun and badge on his supervisor’s desk, signed his termination papers, and walked out the door. He was done.
Shortly after his retirement it started. Force after force was disbanded in the United States and in Canada until 2030. By then only a few policing agencies remained yet with vastly reduced operating budgets and limited duties. Those in power formed Community Response Teams (CRT) and resourced them with people with education in mental health and social, poverty and gender specialists. Civilianized police organizations, CPO’s, complemented the CRT’s and they were comprised of unarmed, non-uniformed personnel with skills in de-escalation techniques. Police officers were refused applications unless they underwent a six-month decontamination process which supposedly eliminated all previous police thinking. Not many opted to go through this and out of the few that did, most failed miserably and either left or were fired.
The new system was welcomed with open arms by all the civil liberties groups and they were included in the civilian oversight of these new agencies. It was all congenial at first and it seemed even the criminal element was co-operating, or at least holding back to see how things played out. The leaders, despite their strong dislike of Donald Trump, were unrelenting in their Trump-like support of the CRT’s and the CPO’s and how they were an overwhelming success over the old way of policing. Many police officers were out of work and moved on to other things, but some did speak out against the new order only to find themselves and their families targeted with hate mail, vandalism, and violence. Soon they stopped speaking and faded into society. Now, twenty years later, few even spoke of their former careers, while the leaders of the new world of public order, continued to profess how much better things are.
The old man stirred as a gust of wind brushed past his face. An aluminum can clunked its way down the concrete sidewalk. He opened his eyes. Gone were the images of happy children. Surrounded by reality he realized he had been dreaming. The youthful laughter was replaced with silence and the far off swearing of someone, intent of no good. The charred remains of the once bustling snack bar loomed in front of him, the standing walls choked with graffiti. The park, once a haven for citizens, now an overgrown, garbage strewn abandoned lot. He looked for the statue of a police officer and a child that had proudly stood in the center of this wonderful escape and saw only headless figures covered in a mess of paint and garbage. A large spike had been driven through the heart of what was left of the policeman and below it was written ‘Fuck the cops’ in red paint. He stared at this former icon of policing for a long time, remembering. A tear swelled to the edge of his eyelid, then trickled down his cheek.
I would just like to make a note here about this story. Due to the sensitive nature of the incident in the second part of this story I have altered some of the details and gave fictitious names for the locations and persons to respect the privacy of the victim and her family in this matter.
Your birthday is an important day in your life. It is the day you came into being, the day you began this great journey of life. Most of us celebrate this day and we receive a gift or two, blow out the candles on a cake and maybe go to a favorite place for a meal. It is a day that is unique to you. I know we live in a world of almost 8 billion people and there are only 365 days in a year with exception of a leap year, so you are likely sharing this day with millions of people. While that is true, it is also true that each person in this world is unique and the fact your birth occurred on a certain day, marks it as yours.
I have believed for years that something wonderful will occur on your birthday. Sometimes it will be obvious like coming into some money but more times it is something minor. It does happen and if you don’t see it, just be patient it will show up when the time is right. This belief originally started in 1982 which I will allude to later, but I didn’t really think of it as special until after I won a large sum of money in 1987. At the time, we lived in Marystown, Newfoundland and Labrador, a small community of around 5,000 people. I was in my fourteenth year of working with the RCMP and I was stationed at the detachment which was responsible for policing not only Marystown but all the communities from Frenchman’s Cove to English Harbour East. My sons were 8 and 10 years of age at the time and they played basketball at school. As with many school activities there was fundraisers and, in the fall of 1986 both my sons had to sell tickets to raise money for the Newfoundland Basketball association.
First prize was ten thousand dollars, certainly a wonderful prize but as with many fundraisers you are only donating your money because the chances of winning are very unlikely. Our boys only had a few tickets to sell but like most children they weren’t great salespersons. Finally, the time came to turn in the tickets, and they had two left so rather than let them go to their coach empty handed we bought the tickets. The draw date was early in January 1987 and that date came and went so we figured we had made a charitable donation again.
On the morning of my birthday, I was sleeping on the couch. I had worked the late shift and went to bed when I got home. A few hours later, I got up with the kids to get them off to school and when they left, I was still tired, so I plopped down on the sofa. I was awaked by the phone ringing and I answered it. The man on the other end identified himself a being with the basketball association. He explained they had made the draw in January but the person who had the winning ticket could not be found. He further stated the Lottery Licensing Board had advised the association that due to a winner not being found they had to make the draw again and my name had been drawn. He then asked for my mailing address and after a few pleasantries were exchanged we hung up. I had mixed feelings about this as I felt it could be someone from the office playing a trick. I often played tricks on my co-workers so it was not beyond comprehension that they would try to get me back. Sharon got up a few minutes later and she asked who was on the phone and I told her. She started to get excited, but I told her of my suspicions and suggested we wait until we got the cheque before we jump for joy. She told me not to be so foolish, how would your office workers know about those tickets. She was right but the suspicion wouldn’t let go. My suspicions were ended a few weeks later when the cheque came in the mail. The money was a great windfall and it went to pay a lot of bills. We were a young family and had just bought our first house. Money was tight and this was a nice little boost to our financial state. That was probably when I began thinking there was truth to something extraordinary, related only to you, occurred each year on your birthday. However, as I stated previously, this originated in 1982 when a more somber event happened.
The thing with being a police officer is at some point maybe early, maybe late you realize what it is to be a cop. Pretty obvious you are probably thinking and while I won’t deny that, it is something more. Enforcing the law, responding to calls and lots of things come to mind when you talk of policing and the people behind the uniform. These things are part of it but what ‘being’ a policeman or woman is that feeling you get when you ‘get the bad guy’. When you drag their sorry ass to court so they can ride the wheels of justice. Funny thing is, for the most part there are no bad guys just people who made bad mistakes and processing them through the justice system is one way of maybe helping them back to the right side of the law. Sometimes you get this early in your career, sometimes later, and some get more of it but no mater when or how much you get, it is your reason for going in early, for staying late. Unfortunately, policing is not a nine to five job. The criminals don’t quit at five. I say unfortunately, because it is… to you and to your family. When I was working It was a constant internal battle to maintain a balance between family and work. You realize when you are older which one is more important, but I am speaking as a young man now. When you make an arrest on a case you are working on, it is like all is right with the world for just a few moments. You’ve done something that counts, that maybe changes something in some small way. That you have mattered just a little in this big world. I am not the greatest police officer, far from it but I have had this feeling a few times during my working life.
This brings me to my story. I received a call on the 26th of January 1982 regarding an assault in Tudor Harbour however with few details. I had been posted to Shallow Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador since September of 1981. The detachment area covered the communities from Woodsmith to Tudor Harbour with a population spread over these communities of about 7,000. Tudor Harbour is about an eighty-minute drive from the detachment office. When I got there, I tracked down the complainant who advised she was not the victim of the crime and did not know any details. She introduced to me to another woman, a few years older than her. She gave me her name, Marion (not her real name) and I interviewed her. Marion was about twenty-five and somewhat mentally challenged but she was articulate enough that I could understand her. She related that her father, Charles (not the real name) had hit her with his hand in the head. There was no indication of any bruising or marking and she told me that no one was around when this happened. I was not hopeful for any prosecution, but I continued to press her for details. Out of the blue, she said, “I’m lucky cause that’s all that happened to me because my sister, Gwen (not her real name) had a baby for him and the baby died”.
Her remarks stunned me for a moment. A daughter had a baby for her father. I was not unaware of this type of thing happening, but it was the first time I was close to it. Incest was something that would stain on the mind of the victim forever. I gained my composure and I asked for more details, but she could offer little other than she thought the baby had been born in the hospital in Trout Port. I wanted to speak to Gwen but I didn’t want to go to their house for fear I might alert the potential offender pre-maturely so I asked her if she could get Gwen to meet me. It was Saturday and so I suggest she have Gwen meet me by the school parking lot in an hour. There were no cell phones at that time, so I had to roam around the area to kill time until the meeting.
I parked on the school lot about ten minutes before the scheduled meeting and spent the waiting time wondering if this Gwen would show. The hour completed and no sign of anyone coming. I decided to wait for a bit, and I was rewarded for this when I noted a solidary figure approaching on the road. As she neared the police vehicle, I could see she was a petit teenage girl with shoulder length straight hair. Her face showed stress and nervousness as she quietly spoke. “I’m Gwen.” I asked her to sit in and she did obediently. I told her about my conversation with her sister, Marion and asked what she could tell me about this.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice was low and shaky.
“If this happened to you, I can help.” I spoke in a confident tone but inside I wasn’t sure of what I could do.
“I know but I don’t want to talk. I am leaving here soon so it will all be behind me.’’ She said. The tone of her words could not hide that she knew this was untrue.
I asked her if she would come to the office to talk about this, telling her I could get her some place safe to stay. She looked at me with those puppy dog eyes, and I knew the answer before she answered.
“I can’t.”
Desperately, I tried to convince her that I could help but she just looked at me with those eyes. Those trapped eyes pleading for rescue but her voice unable to aid in her escape. I got her full name and her date of birth. She was 18 years old. After a few moments of silence, I wrote down my phone numbers including my home number and gave it to her. She took the piece of paper and stared at me as she opened the car door and left the vehicle. She walked away turning back and looking at me. Don’t give up I seemed to hear in my head and unknowingly I spoke aloud ‘I won’t’.
But I did, I am ashamed to say. Not right away. I did try to get information from the Trout Port hospital regarding this, but I was reminded quickly by the doctor I spoke to that I didn’t have a consent. He was shocked that I would even make such an inquiry. Some investigations don’t give you a lot to work with, so you have to fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. Sometimes it works and like in this case, sometimes it doesn’t. I didn’t let that stop me and I later spoke to a physician friend who unofficially let me know Gwen did have a miscarriage within the past two years. I had something to corroborate the truth of the incident but that was no where near enough without a victim or witnesses. I would maybe interview the father at some point giving consideration first to the safety of his family but at this stage, I had little more than nothing.
Shallow Harbour was a busy detachment and the calls did not stop because you had a serious case in your file load. I got tied up in other investigations for the next few weeks but in the silent times I frequently thought of Gwen and racked my mind for ideas to move forward with this. The night before my birthday our two small sons were in bed and my wife and I were in the living room. She was reading and I was watching TV (we only had two channels back then CBC and NTV and NTV was snowy at best if there was no wind and you had the antenna was in the right direction). I drifted off thinking about this file. It was three weeks old and I needed something to report as the diary date was due but what. At twelve midnight, my wife, Sharon came over to me and gave me a kiss. “Happy birthday.” I came out of my daze, smiled and thanked her, quietly grateful for her and my sons.
The next morning, I can’t be certain, but I believe it was early, the phone rang. I answered it quickly, knowing it was work. A timid voice spoke, “I’m ready, ready to talk.” It was Gwen and I asked where she was, and she told me she was at a friend’s house. She had gone there last night for a sleep over she had told her father which was true, but her motive was much different. I wrote down the address and told her I would be there within the hour. I dressed immediately and told Sharon I would be gone for most of the day. I took a quick peep in the boys’ room where they were still sleeping, and I left the house. At the office, I grabbed the keys to the police vehicle and rushed towards Tudor Harbour. Butterflies invaded my stomach as I turned onto the highway.
I found the friend’s house and Gwen was waiting outside with a small tattered overnight bag. She got in the front seat and I asked if she was okay. She was. We drove in mostly silence exchanging a few pleasantries along the way. I explained what would be happening once we got to the detachment, I would interview her and after I would see she had a safe place to stay. She looked small in the seat beside me, but I could feel the courage she had found. I wrote page after page of her account of the horrifying events she recounted over three hours or so. How her father had made her wash and shave him in the kitchen initially but then moved this to the bedroom. How her father had threatened her, her mother and her sisters with knifes and a shotgun many times over the years. Lining them up in the kitchen while he raged about the wrong, they had done him while threatening them with the shotgun and or the knife. The ‘sex’ started after they moved the ‘washing’ to the bedroom with her father forcing her to fondle him. Sometime later it evolved into intercourse. She was maybe 13 when this began, and it continued for years. Then one day sometime after she turned 16, she was pregnant. She stressed over this, knowing she had to tell her father because soon she would be showing, and others would know. When she did, he blew up and spewed his anger at her for being so stupid to let this happen. A day or so later, he came to her and told her he wanted her to go in the basement and jump off the stairs continually to stop the pregnancy. Fearing reprisal, she obeyed. She was not certain if this did anything but the spring of 1981, she was having pains in her abdomen. When her father found out he drove her to the hospital in Trout Port and she went in. A few hours later she had a miscarriage. She told the medical staff she did not know the father; he was just some guy that she met. They believed her, she guessed and shortly after she was released to go home with her father. It was a silent trip. Her father never spoke on the trip home and thankfully, after that the sexual encounters stopped.
I called Social Services and once I explained what I was investigating, they quickly got a place to stay for Gwen and I drove her to the house they had arranged. I stood with her for a few moments while she met the people of her new abode and then I extended my hand to her. She grasped my hand tightly and looked at me again with those eyes. They were not pleading now; they were cautiously optimistic. I spoke breaking the silence and said.
“Now you got my numbers. Call me if you need anything.” She nodded and I left her on the steps. She was closing the door and I drove away.
___
The next day I called the Trout Port GIS (General Investigation Section) and they came down to assist me. We attended the residence and found the father. He had gotten wind of Gwen’s actions not long after she left the community and he had faked a suicide attempt in order to garner sympathy from the family and of course, Gwen hoping she would reconsider her actions. He had rigged some PVC pipe and some rubber hosing to the exhaust of his truck and then into the cab of the truck. The idea was to gas himself with the exhaust, but it was only an attempt to guilt his family and save himself. The miserable excuse for a human being admitted to having sex with his daughter but said she consented. He wasn’t a very intelligent person but smart enough to know what he did was terribly wrong, yet his warped mind justified his cruel deeds. He would later force this matter to a trial and drag his family through his crap. Despite that he was eventually convicted and sentenced to over four years in jail. Hardly seems like enough, does it.
___
Back to the night that I had left Gwen on the steps of her temporary residence and drove home in the darkness. It had been a long day. As I drove, I felt the rawest emotions that I had ever felt welling up inside me. I pulled in my driveway and parked. I sat with the engine running for a few moments to regain my composure before I went into the house. Packing everything in a little compartment deep within your brain because that what you do, right. I breathed deeply and thought as I walked up the stairs, ‘This day was special.’ The door quickly opened, and Sharon and the boys were there singing, “Happy birdday to you…” Special, more than you could ever know.
They were playing on the front lawn. Two brothers age six and eight years, kicking a soccer ball when the dark coloured car stopped in the middle of the road. The driver, a scraggly haired youth, opened the door of the older model car and stood with one leg out on the pavement.
“Your father is a fucking pig!” He shouted at the boys and then he got back in the car, slamming the door behind him. With a screech of tires, he sped off to the dark, slimy hole that he came from.
Sharon, my wife, listened quietly as Chris and Geoff told her the story of the screaming man. They were upset and wondering why someone would say that about their Dad. Yes, upset but not as upset when she later told me when I came home from work that day. I do not remember my words, but I am sure there were a few angry explicatives, included. If he had said this to me, it would not have mattered. I probably would have laughed and told him he wasn’t the first to call me that nor would he be the last to use that term to describe someone in uniform. But he said it to my sons. That made me angry then and still does when it comes to my mind. I never did find out who this person was, but I often wish to have the opportunity to straighten him out.
When my sons, Chris and Geoff were eight and 10, we lived in Marystown, Newfoundland and Labrador. When we moved to Marystown in 1985, it was their fourth move and their second since starting school. My father was an RCMP officer, so I had grown up moving around. It was easy for me now and in fact I looked forward to moving after four to five years in a place. But, the early days of moving were hard. Leaving good friends and familiar territory to start fresh somewhere new. Trying to fit in was difficult at best but your father being a police officer just added to that. I knew it had to be rough on my sons, but they were good kids and they rebounded quickly making new friends. I did not need to worry but I did.
I served in many small communities in my policing career. Those communities were home to many good souls, and I became friends with some of those good people. However, the relationship with the residents in the places I policed was sometimes like the relationship one has with the boss of a large company. You want to be friendly with him or her yet not too friendly because others may think of you as a suck hole or the boss’s pet. That has something to do with trust, I guess. If you are too close to the police, then you just might be a pipeline of information about the people you live with so people might be careful about what they say or do around you. While I can understand the attitude, it did make you feel on your own at times.
On September 9, 1982, Chris was almost five years of age and Geoff has turned three in May. We lived in Wesleyville (Wesley Bill Geoff called it) on the northern coast of Newfoundland. This was a three-person unit which was responsible for approximately seven thousand people in 16 municipalities spread over approximately 140 kilometres of road. The nearest backup to Wesleyville was from the detachments in Glovertown, about an hour drive away, Gander, 90 minutes and Carmanville, just under an hour. The time frames are relevant to where you were in the detachment area at any given time or if anyone was free to assist you. Often, we had to work alone with your only connection being the telecom centre located (at that time) in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland & Labrador. In the 1980’s the radio communication was not too bad but there were several dead spots throughout the area.
I was working the night shift and around 10:30 p.m. I had the occasion to check a teenage dance being held at the Seagull Lounge. It was an adult establishment, but the bar was closed. It was customary during our patrols to check out these dances to cut down on the consumption of alcohol and perhaps some marijuana. I also used these as opportunities to build rapport with the young people. I knew a few of them through my involvement with the local army cadet corps. I stopped at the far end of the parking lot about 30 feet from the entrance. I spoke to a few young fellows near the entrance and I noted a few empty beer bottles on the ground close to their feet. As I spoke to these youths, a crowd gathered around me. I moved back to the police vehicle and I sat in with the door opened making notes on my night sheet.
Often teenage dances are attended by some who are in their twenties and this night was no different. One such individual Charlie (not his real name) approached me and asked if he could speak to me. I said yes and he asked me when his brother’s things were going to be returned. I had seized some items during an investigation I had been working on. I was in the process of explaining that I had no authority to return these items when Charlie’s other brother, James (not his real name) came to the police vehicle. A crowd had gathered behind him. James was recently home from Toronto, and he had a lengthy criminal record. I asked him what he wanted.
“You’re talking to my brother so I’m going to stay here until you’re finished.” He said loudly. I noted a strong odour of alcohol from his breath as I replied, “He’s talking to me.”
He raised his voice and repeated, “You’re talking to my fucking brother and I’m going to stay here until you’re done!”
I told him to keep it down or I would have to charge him with causing a disturbance, but he said, “I don’t care. I’m staying.”
Charlie tried to get him to leave but he would not go. He began shouting, “What are you going to do with my brother’s stuff? That’s stealing. All that about Ottawa is all shit. Bullshit. When are you going to give it back?” I attempted to tell him I had no authority to give it back to anyone.
“That’s fucking shit.” I again told him to lower his voice or I would have to arrest him for causing a disturbance.
“Who gives a fuck. I know all about you cops. The Toronto cops are assholes but you, you’re the biggest asshole of all.” I again tried to quiet him, but he persisted. “I don’t give a fuck! Charge me, see if I care. I got lots of charges now and one more won’t matter. But I’m going to charge you. You can’t hold those things. His hat, his coat, his money. I’m going to get my fucking lawyer and charge you!” His shouting had reached the level of screaming.
He then said something about losing his finger and he poked his fist in the doorway at me twice. I got out of the car and said, “Come here!” He started to run away but I grabbed him and told him he was under arrest for causing a disturbance.
“No fucking way! You ain’t taking me.” He shouted as he resisted me. He pushed me and I lost my grip, but I grabbed him again. I put him up against the right rear side of the police car. He was still trying to break free when Charlie took hold of my arm. I told him to let go twice. He asked me not to hurt his brother and I told him I would not and if he (James) got in the car he wouldn’t have any problems. He let go of my arm.
I attempted to open the rear door, but James continued to struggle, and he knocked it shut. I made another attempt but was unsuccessful and I wrestled James to the ground. As we fell to the ground, he grabbed my coat and hauled it over my head and was pulling on it. Despite this I managed to get one hand cuff on but could not get the other one on because of his continued resistance. He attempted to bite me as I tried to get the other cuff on. Charlie was in the background saying not to hurt his brother. Finally, I got James to his feet and had him in a headlock. I asked one of the fellows standing nearby to open the rear door for me. He did comply but James kicked it shut. James apparently knew this guy and he told him he would get him. I told this guy to open the door and hold it open. He did so and I put James in the car. James was shouting and kicking the silent patrolman as I closed the door.
“I’ll get you, Hebb. You fucking asshole! I’ll blow your fucking head off. I’ll kill your wife too!” He shouted as I drove to the office. He continued these threats until we arrived at the detachment building. I opened the rear door and I told James to get out.
“If you want me out, you’ll have to drag me out.” He yelled.
I tried to get through to the telecom centre to get some assistance while driving to the office, but I was not successful. I locked the police vehicle and I went to the office door and unlocked it. I opened the door and ensured I had a clear path to the cells. I then returned to the police vehicle.
“I got you now! You didn’t give me my rights. I’m going to get my lawyer and charge you.” He said as I opened the door. He was right. In the struggle I had forgotten to caution him and advise him of his right to counsel. He got out saying, “I got it made now. I got you! You didn’t give me my rights.”
He did not struggle as I put the other handcuff on. I regretted not advising him of his rights, but I was not worried. I would do this once I had him safely in the office. Given it appeared I would not have further resistance from him, I was almost glad at this turn of events. “Yeah, put it on. I got it made.” He said as the handcuff clicked around his wrist.
In the office, I did a physical search of his person as he continued his commentary. “I shouldn’t have said that about your wife. She doesn’t deserve that. But you! An asshole like you I’m going to kill! Yes sir.”
I gave him the police caution as I was searching him and then he started shouting saying that I couldn’t do that. He wanted to see Waterman (Cpl. Bert Waterman the corporal in charge of the unit). I told him Cpl. Waterman was on the mainland. (Mainland is a term used to refer to the rest of Canada.). He then started yelling “You fucking asshole!” and I took him to the cells. I advised him of his rights to a lawyer as we moved toward this area. I advised him that due to his behaviour and his intoxicated condition he could make a call to a lawyer in the morning. He continued yelling and wanted to see Waterman and to call a lawyer. He broke free from my grasp and ran down the hallway. I tackled him. He raised his fist toward me, and I punched him in the face three or four times, maybe more. I machine-gunned him with my fists. I had reached the end of my rope with him. Maybe one punch would have been enough, maybe not. I did not worry about whether I might have overstepped my bounds, I thought I exercised tremendous restraint because I did not want to stop. He was somewhat subdued now and I managed to get him in the cell and locked the door.
e continued to rant through the cell bars. “I’m going to kill you and your wife. I am going to blow your fucking heads off. I can’t wait. I live for it. I’ve got nothing to lose. It’s great to do a cop. I’m going to show this town whose boss. I can’t wait until I get out tomorrow. I’m going to get you, Hebb, and your wife. As soon as I get out of here. I better get some rest because I got a lot to do tomorrow.” He lay on the bottom bunk as he finished the last word. When the local guard arrived and I left the building, he was sleeping peacefully.
The next day, I let James out to make a call to a lawyer, but he was unable to contact one. I brought in a justice of the peace and had him remanded into custody until the 27th of September 1982, when he could be brought to court in Gander to be released on conditions. He was quiet as I returned him to the cells. When I brought him to court on the 27th, he was released on conditions to appear on the 5th of October of this same year. I cannot recall what happened after that. I believe he pleaded guilty because I do not remember a trial. I guess some of you may judge me, say that I used excessive force and perhaps you might be right. There was no Face book or other social networks then but if there had been, I may have been condemned vigorously by gangs of anonymous outraged people.
I did not have any dealings with James after that. He did not charge me with anything. He didn’t show up on my doorstep to blow the heads off me and my wife. It might have just been the alcohol talking or it might have been the look in my eye when I stopped punching him. I do not know. All I knew back then, when I was home sitting on the couch watching TV, with my two boys cuddled between me and my wife, is that, I had no regrets.
Not all who come are dead or at least not that I know about. The teenage girl, raped by her father and impregnated with his child, visits sometimes to replay her story. The story of how he made her jump repeatedly from the basement stairs onto the concrete floor in this attempt to destroy the life within her. The attempts were successful because she later had a miscarriage. A struggling fetus was not the only casualty of this monster who disguised himself in the love of Jesus. It took three weeks after I first spoke with her, for her to come forward, to tell this sordid tale which wouldn’t disappear with the closing of a book. I went and picked her up not far from her home, the scene of her father’s depravity. She talked for hours and then I arranged for her to stay somewhere safe for the night. The next day when she would go to live with relatives in another community. I enlisted some help from the Gander GIS (General Investigative Section) and we arrested the father the next morning. Eventually he was convicted and he was sentenced to four years in prison. I never had contact with her since the trial except in my dreams. When I wake for the day and she fades from my head, I wonder, is she okay, did her life turn out alright? Questions with no answers. But that is a tale for another time.
When I was a young, just fresh from the RCMP training depot in Regina I thought of things rather simply. There were good people and there were bad people and my job was to get the bad ones and put them in jail. That thinking lingered during my initial months at my first posting in St. Lawrence, on the Burin Peninsula in the fair province of Newfoundland. It was a fairly affluent community of about 2500 souls in 1974 when I first arrived. It was a mining town and the main employer was a company by the name of Alcan. The product they mined was fluorspar which was a material which was used in steel and aluminum production as well as production of cooking utensils, and certain types of glass. There was also a healthy fishing industry where the fishers brought in catches of cod, lobster, and crab. Today, the population has dwindled to a little under 1300. The mine has been mostly inactive since 1978 but indications are in recent months that it is due to start up again. The fishing industry still exists but it is only a fraction of what it once was.
There are three things that St. Lawrence is famous for. Number one is the heroic efforts of the towns people during a stormy night in February 1942. Two American warships, the Truxton went aground at a place known as Chambers Cove and the Pollux found a similar fate at Lawn point about two kilometers west of Chambers Cove. When word reached the men in the mining site known as Iron Springs Company, a work site about 3 kilometers south of the town, they immediately stopped work and commenced to proceed to the disaster site which was about a mile away. The North Atlantic ocean is not hospitable during the best of times but in February it is downright miserable. Many of the American soldiers jumped or were thrown into the freezing waters to reach the safety of land, although if you’ve been on the shores of Chambers Cove on a stormy February day you wouldn’t use safe to describe it. The tiny strip of beach constantly under siege of the ocean’s fury and the almost unscaleable cliffs that surround this cove make it a place to avoid in the summer months let alone the middle of winter. Many of the residents of St. Lawrence risked there lives to rescue 186 soldiers and transport them to safety. Many others opened their homes and their kitchens to the survivors during the days following this terrible disaster where two hundred or more soldiers lost their lives.
That is not exactly true. I did ride one on my friend’s farm when I was 11 or 12 but it was only once. Furthermore, that old work horse was far from the sleek and groomed thoroughbreds they ride in the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) musical ride. My nephew by marriage was in the musical ride but that was the closest I got to any semblance of equestrian being part of my 36 year plus career.
Not that I ever aspired to be a part of the musical ride as it was more entertainment than reality for me. Don’t get me wrong, the musical ride has an important role in promoting the RCMP and Canada. When I saw it in St. John’s, Newfoundland a few years back, I was so filled with pride and emotion during the performance that I had to rub something out of my eye on a number of occasions. Yet, it was never something that I wanted to do at any time during my time as a police officer. No, my reason for joining this organization was much less focused during the initial stages.
My father was an RCMP officer for 34 years before he was aged out in 1987. At that time, the age limit was 60 and upon reaching that age you had to retire. He did take it to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and did win a small settlement but he remained retired from the police force. I was starting my first year in a Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Prince Edward Island when my Dad came to me with one of those father knows best talks. He suggested I join the RCMP and start a career. Just think of all the money you could make doing that as opposed to making nothing over the next four years at university. That’s what he said but then that was the thinking then. Jobs in the public service and skill trades were available so get them while the gettin’ was good.
I thought about it over the next few months. I was eighteen and I really didn’t have any idea of what I wanted to do in life and I had no plan for my education other than perhaps treading water so I decided I would do it. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a police officer (I wasn’t sure until years later) but just after my 19th birthday, I filled out the application and wrote the required essay on exactly why I wanted to enforce the law.
I have been thinking about this blog for a while. My purpose is to share some stories about my experience as a police officer and who knows I may even share a dark secret or two depending on how comfortable I get with it. My first little tale will be about one of my first searches and the lasting effect it had on the way I thought about things. I expect to publish that by Monday at the latest.
wh-ebb.com 