Is it the citizens or officers that are the problem?
This is the question that I am forced to ponder over the recent situation involving the ticketing of Good Samaritans. It is funny that the situation exists where a member in good standing in the community, cannot be placed in charge of his own child.
Dr. Jon Cooper states that he has no problems with his son’s interactions with the officers yet his son is still facing charges from the RCMP. It seems like many officers, and I do not want to paint all officers with the same brush, cannot have their authority questioned without responding by overly asserting their authority to compensate. Here is a situation that is completely explainable and not outrageous in terms of what the citizenry was doing yet the way that they interacted with the officers is now criminal?
I applaud the Coopers for their adherence to great civic values in trying to improve the community. I wish more people were like them. I question the RCMP here — if they were truly doing their job in serving the community they would have been helping to get that quad out of the snow, not ticketing people for doing the right thing out of the kindness of their heart.
Nathan Reis, St. Albert
