Crime
Red Deer RCMP disarm man making ‘funny’ video
Photo from Facebook page of Red Deer News and Area
News Release from Red Deer RCMP
Red Deer RCMP respond to disturbance in Riverside Meadows
Shortly before 6:30 p.m. on March 30, 2022, Red Deer RCMP received a report of a male chasing another male with a weapon in the Riverside Meadows neighbourhood.
Members attended and located two males sitting together matching the descriptions provided. When the officers approached the men, they stated that they were making funny videos and that there had been no intention to harm each other. The responding officers explained that this incident had caused concern from nearby residents and that the weapon would be seized.
When one of the men refused to comply with police commands, one of the officers removed their Conducted Energy Weapon and repeated his command. The man dropped the weapon and was placed under arrest. Police provided him with a warning and released him without charge. The weapon was later disposed of by police.
“We would like to warn the community that information being shared online as to the nature of this call and its outcome is misleading and encourage the public to use caution when reading information on social media,” says S/Sgt Jon England, Red Deer RCMP.
The Red Deer RCMP thank the community for reporting suspicious activity in their neighbourhood and encourage citizens to continue to do so. “Regardless of the outcome, we appreciate that the public took the matter seriously and called it in,” says S/Sgt. England.
Alberta
Principal at Calgary Elementary School charged with possession of child pornography
News release from the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT)
Calgary school principal charged
A Calgary school principal has been charged with offences relating to child sexual abuse materials following an investigation by ALERT’s Internet Child Exploitation unit.
ICE charged Bruce Campbell on April 16, 2024 with possessing and accessing child pornography. The 61-year-old man was employed as a principal at Sacred Heart Elementary School in Calgary.
“Currently we believe these offences are solely related to online activities, but can appreciate how parents and students would be shocked and concerned about these charges,” said Staff Sergeant Mark Auger, ALERT ICE.
Campbell allegedly uploaded child sexual abuse materials via Skype and ALERT was notified via the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre in January 2024.
Campbell’s Calgary home was searched and a number of phone and computers were seized. A preliminary forensic analysis of the seized devices found child sexual abuse materials on his work-issued cellphone.
While the investigation and charges are related to online offences, the nature of Campbell’s employment placed him in a position of trust and authority. ICE is encouraging anyone with information about this case to come forward and contact police. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact local police or Crime Stoppers (1-800-222-TIPS).
Campbell was released from custody on a number of court-imposed conditions, and is awaiting his next scheduled court appearance on May 10, 2024 in Calgary.
ALERT was established and is funded by the Alberta Government and is a compilation of the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources committed to tackling serious and organized crime.
Addictions
Why can’t we just say no?
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Drug use and violence have become common place in hospitals. Drug-addicted patients openly smoke meth and fentanyl, and inject heroin. Dealers traffic illicit drugs. Nurses are harassed, forced to work amidst the toxic fumes from drugs and can’t confiscate weapons. In short, according to one nurse, “We’ve absolutely lost control.”
“Defining deviancy down” is a cultural philosophy that emerged in the United States during the 1990s.
It refers to society’s tendency to adjust its standards of deviancy “down,” so that behaviours which were once unacceptable become acceptable. Over time, this newly- acceptable behaviour can even become society’s norm.
Of course, the converse must also be true — society looks down on those who label social behaviours “wrong,” deeming them moralistic, judgemental or simply out of touch with the realities of modern life.
Thirty years later, this philosophy is entrenched in British Columbia politics and policies. The province has become a society that cannot say “no” to harmful or wrong behaviours related to drug use. It doesn’t matter if you view drug use as a medical issue, a law-and-order issue, or both – we have lost the ability to simply say “no” to harmful or wrong behaviour.
That much has become abundantly clear over the past two weeks as evidence mounts that BC’s experiment with decriminalization and safe supply of hard drugs is only making things worse.
A recently-leaked memo from BC’s Northern Health Authority shows the deleterious impact these measures have had on BC’s hospitals.
The memo instructs staff at the region’s hospitals to tolerate and not intervene with illegal drug use by patients. Apparently, staff should not be taking away any drugs or personal items like a knife or other weapons under four inches long. Staff cannot restrict visitors even if they are openly bringing illicit drugs into the hospital and conducting their drug transactions in the hallways.
The public was quite rightly outraged at the news and BC’s Health Minister Adrian Dix quickly attempted to contain the mess by saying that the memo was outdated and poorly worded.
But his facile excuses were quickly exposed by publication of the very clearly worded memo and by nurses from across the province who came forward to tell their stories of what is really happening in our hospitals.
The President of the BC Nurses Union, Adriane Gear, said the issue was “widespread” and “of significant magnitude.” She commented that the problems in hospitals spiked once the province decriminalized drugs. In a telling quote, she said, “Before there would be behaviours that just wouldn’t be tolerated, whereas now, because of decriminalization, it is being tolerated.”
Other nurses said the problem wasn’t limited to the Northern Health Authority. They came forward (both anonymously and openly) to say that drug use and violence have become common place in hospitals. Drug-addicted patients openly smoke meth and fentanyl, and inject heroin. Dealers traffic illicit drugs. Nurses are harassed, forced to work amidst the toxic fumes from drugs and can’t confiscate weapons. In short, according to one nurse, “We’ve absolutely lost control.”
People think that drug policies have no impact on those outside of drug circles – but what about those who have to share a room with a drug-smoking patient?
No wonder healthcare workers are demoralized and leaving in droves. Maybe it isn’t just related to the chaos of Covid.
The shibboleth of decriminalization faced further damage when Fiona Wilson, the deputy chief of Vancouver’s Police Department, testified before a federal Parliamentary committee to say that the policy has been a failure. There have been more negative impacts than positive, and no decreases in overdose deaths or the overdose rate. (If such data emerged from any other healthcare experiment, it would immediately be shut down).
Wison also confirmed that safe supply drugs are being re-directed to illegal markets and now account for 50% of safe supply drugs that are seized. Her words echoed those of BC’s nurses when she told the committee that the police, “have absolutely no authority to address the problem of drug use.”
Once Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix stopped denying that drug use was occurring in hospitals, they continued their laissez-faire approach to illegal drugs with a plan to create “safe consumption sites” at hospitals. When that lacked public appeal, Mr. Dix said the province would establish a task force to study the issue.
What exactly needs to be studied?
The NDP government appears to be uninformed, at best, and dishonest, at worst. It has backed itself into a corner and is now taking frantic and even ludicrous steps to legitimize its experimental policy of decriminalization. The realities that show it is not working and is creating harm towards others and toward institutions that should be a haven for healing.
How quickly we have become a society that lacks the moral will – and the moral credibility – to just to say “no.”
Susan Martinuk is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis.
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