Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 Source: Sudbury Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2005 The Sudbury Star Contact: http://www.thesudburystar.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/608 Author: Bob Vaillancourt, The Sudbury Star Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Rochfort+Bridge (Rochfort Bridge) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) MURDERS A TRAUMA FOR ALL OFFICERS: SUDBURY POLICE Police officers in Sudbury were still reeling Friday over the loss of four RCMP comrades in a shootout Thursday at a drug grow operation in Alberta. "Whenever an officer is lost, there is always a demoralizing effect and a sense of loss. When four members are lost, it has a traumatic impact. We are all feeling it here," said Insp. Susan Evans of Greater Sudbury Police. Police officers "know when we sign on there is an inherent risk. We are performing a function that, although socially critical, is not necessarily applauded by some segments of the community," said Evans. "When we lose members through job actions like this, the loss is there. The sense of dismay, the sense the traumatic effect is there. "But, by the same token, it reinforces how necessary our function is in society." Frank Elbers, a detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police and the deputy director of the service's drug enforcement section, said anytime an officer is killed, "you sort of sit back and look, but to have circumstances where four police officers are killed, it is mind-boggling." The circumstances surrounding the deaths of the four officers, at an illegal drug grow operations, illustrates the inherent difficulty of drug enforcement work, said Evans. No matter how much information police have before a drug raid, there is never a guarantee they will not encounter the unexpected, she said. "We are well-armed, we are well-equipped, we do the background first to see who we are dealing with, what other kinds of incidents an individual might have been involved in so we have some sense of who we are dealing with and what we are dealing with. "We do what we can and prepare to the extent we can based on our intelligence and what we have shared and learned from other organizations. But you still will never be fully confident that you have been able to anticipate everything that might or could happen," she said. No policy or procedural manual can ever prepare an officer for everything, said Elbers. The tragedy hit particularly close to home for one man, a relative of one of the Mounties killed Thursday. For a long time, Peter Christopher Schiemann talked about making the Royal Canadian Mounted Police his career, says his uncle Elmer of Sudbury. But this week, that career came to an abrupt end, when Schiemann was gunned down. Schiemann had only been on the jobs a few weeks when he was murdered. "He was quite new on the force, but he loved it. He just loved it," said his uncle. His family was devastated to hear of his death, said Elmer, who received the news from a sister in Ottawa. Peter's part of the family has been living in western Canada for a number of years, said Schiemann. "They were quite young when they moved out west. I haven't seen him for about 12 years." Peter is just one of a number of family members who belong to the RCMP. "I got a bunch of relatives that are in the RCMP, five of them I guess all together." Schiemann said he has not yet heard of funeral arrangements for his nephew. In the last year, the OPP have conducted 1,822 search warrants at both indoor and outdoor grow operations. Seized during those raids were 1,938 weapons, said Evans. Grow ops "are definitely a dangerous place to go into because you don't know what is waiting there for you," said Staff Sgt. Claude Faucher of the Sudbury RCMP detachment. But he is not sure drug enforcement is any more dangerous than other police work. He sees it as "the same as doing a traffic stop on the highway. While the details of funeral or memorial services for the four slain officers have yet to be finalized, all three officers said their respective services will have a presence at those services. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake