Pubdate: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2005 The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456 Author: Rosie Dimanno 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) BLOODY END SEALED BEFORE POLICE ARRIVED A bad seed can find fertile territory even in the most bleak and un-nourishing of landscapes. It doesn't need the hothouse environment of a marijuana grow-op. It doesn't need real or imagined grievances against the institutions of law and authority. It doesn't need self-imposed isolation and a virulent antagonism towards the entire world. It requires only the fecund soil of a twisted, impenetrable mind. And that's a place where no legislation, no social covenant, can be imposed. James Roszko was, from all reports, a walking time bomb, a man so distorted by seething hatred and violent belligerence that he will go un-mourned even by his own father, a rejection of blood by a staunchly religious old man that might possibly shed a thin ray of light on the pathology of this cop killer. It was left to the father of one of Roszko's victims to forgive the unforgivable. "I bear no bitterness in my heart towards the family and I bear no bitterness in my heart towards the man," Don Schiemann, a Lutheran minister, said on the weekend in a gesture of mercy so gracious it astonishes and humbles. "If I was to harbor bitterness and hatred, then I would become another victim of the shooting." His son, Const. Peter Schiemann, was only 25 years old, the youngest among the four RCMP officers massacred by Roszko before the hermit lunatic turned the semi-automatic rifle on himself. A satisfactory explanation for what went so terribly amiss inside the rural Quonset hut in northern Alberta where Roszko was cultivating what now appears to have been 20 mature marijuana plants -- hardly a sophisticated or big-time grow-op -- has not been forthcoming. RCMP officials have divulged details only in small doses and some of that information has been subsequently contradicted, both by the police agency and others who claim to have some knowledge of events. Roszko's mother, Stephanie Fifield, who lives in a trailer on her son's property, insists her admittedly volatile son is not the demon as described by his father, from whom she has been long-divorced. "No, my son was not the devil," she told reporters. But he was a malevolent and brooding creature, quick to rage and endlessly nurturing a bilious resentment towards a vast array of enemies. "When he gets a grudge against someone, he will be mad at you for the rest of your life. That's the way he is." He was also a notorious cop hater before he became a cop killer. Just as he hated bailiffs, school board trustees, civic and court officials, neighbours, and anybody who represented authority, every manifestation of the common law that he so savagely and self-righteously disdained. But he loved firearms. Friends, or at least those who've described themselves as such, have said Roszko surrounded himself with weaponry, had buried ammunition all over his property, perhaps anticipating some future time when he would have need to defend himself against encroachers, might even have booby-trapped his land with grenades. That would explain the nervousness of investigators scouring his ranch over the weekend, how quick officers were to draw their guns at one tense point, another incident which has gone without illuminating comment from officials. And he liked little boys, allegedly hanging around a school in the past, attempting to lure kids with offers of candy. A convicted pedophile, Roszko served 2 1/2 years for sexually assaulting a boy between 1983 and 1989. He denied the accusations, never expressed remorse and spurned all treatment while in prison. One of his victims distributed posters of Roszko around town, describing his tormentor as a child molester, just one more valid reason for the local population to shun the man they viewed as a menace and a crackpot, capable of anything. But nobody could have foreseen the worst massacre of police officers in Canada in a century. Or could they? Countless townspeople have wondered aloud how the four slain RCMP officers could have exposed themselves so disastrously to what even agency officials are now describing as an "ambush." Everybody knew, or should have known, what a threat the 46-year-old Roszko posed, how combustible his temper, how easy he was to provoke when anyone so much as approached his property gate. Bailiffs, a particular bane of Roszko's miserable existence, were loath to go near him when executing court orders. One such bailiff, who attempted to seize property from Roszko's farm in 1999, wrote in her report afterwards: "The debtor is known to be extremely aggressive . (I) learned he was quite dangerous, has a long history of assaults, (was) in possession of a number of firearms, (and) would most likely shoot anyone on the property on sight." That bailiff was handed a police vest by an RCMP constable who'd accompanied her during that futile repossession mission. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, a nation looked inwards to try to make sense of the disaster. Were the officers properly armed and sufficiently protected for the assignment? How could such a chronic malefactor remain in possession of lethal weapons? What of the federal government's wildly ineffective and controversial firearms registry? Had a lenient justice system failed to protect not just the officers but also an entire community? The public debate centered at first on the scourge of marijuana growing operations and Canada's pot laws. Opportunists seized on the ghastly scene near Mayerthorpe, Alta., to either promote tougher sentencing for hydroponics operations or champion the legalization of cannabis. Predictably, politicians and activists provided a cacophony of sound bites, even as the grieving families asked that the focus remain on the victims, on the sacrifices they had made for duty and country. Yet it now seems the marijuana crop was only peripheral to the raid and the events that ensued. It was Roszko's mother who first made mention of a pick-up truck-- and an internecine family squabble over a sibling loan that remained unpaid. If this tragedy indeed arose from the repossession of a truck, then it is eerily reminiscent of previous confrontations between Roszko and bailiffs supported by RCMP personnel. How was it that Roszko could disappear into his Quonset hut at one moment and then reappear some distance away, with no one having noticed any movement? It was as if he'd secured for himself secret avenues of escape. Or, more disturbingly, entry. The Edmonton Journal reported that two bailiffs drove to Roszko's farm on Wednesday afternoon to repossess a 2005 white Ford pickup, on behalf of an Edmonton dealership. Roszko ignored their honking but unleashed a pair of Rottweilers, Mark Hnatiw told the paper. Then Roszko, who'd gone inside the Quonset hut, somehow popped up beside his truck and burned rubber as he fled the farm, later crashing through a fence. The abandoned truck was found on Saturday. On the farm, bailiffs and two RCMP officers they'd summoned by cell phone -- one of them was Const. Schiemann -- discovered the marijuana plants in a shed at the rear of the Quonset hut. They also found a number of brand new trucks in pieces, strewn about. The bailiffs left at 6:30 p.m., leaving behind two RCMP constables to guard the farm overnight. In the early morning, they were joined by two other RCMP colleagues. It must have been assumed that Roszko was nowhere on the premises and the quartet of officers were waiting for the arrival of an auto theft unit from Edmonton. Just as those officers got to the scene -- they were actually stepping out of their car -- gunfire erupted inside the Quonset hut. Roszko ran outside shooting and the Edmonton officers returned fire. A wounded Roszko -- it's unclear which officer struck him, whether inside or outside the hut -- retreated back inside where he killed himself. "Suicide by cop" -- a known phenomenon whereby an individual, unwilling to submit to custody, all but forces police to shoot -- is suspected by some. But that doesn't seem to fit the scene because Roszko allegedly ran from the enemy outside before taking his own life. It is mystifying. Nor is it clear when the murdered constables were shot. An official inquiry should determine whether the constables inside the hut ever had a chance to draw weapons and defend themselves. Or whether they were slaughtered in cold blood. Only one thing would appear to be grimly true: That events conspired to give a paranoid, delusional James Roszko precisely what he feared most and surely imagined often, what his entire life had been building towards -- siege, standoff, shootout. Even if, as it seems entirely likely, there never was an actual siege or standoff. Rather, a stalking and an ambush. Roszko's fate might have been pre-ordained or a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was the dreadful misfortune of four young RCMP officers to be trapped within the horror of his blood-drenched destiny. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake