In a story that just takes more twists and turns than a 60 minute episode of Grey’s Anatomy, the RCMP are reeling at the news that their horny investigating officer, Sgt. Derek Brassington, managed to impregnate the girlfriend and key witness of the head suspect of the Surrey Six shootings. Bravo. As if he wasn’t making the police department look bad enough already, he was “a seasoned investigator, and should the allegations ring true, then yes, he should have known better” says Chief Supt. Janis Armstrong, head of this revered establishment of discipline and honor. He should have known better? He obviously knew better, but he expected to get away with this, simply because repercussions for RCMP are lax and pretty much non-existent.
So now, in this internal investigation, the RCMP are going to produce, in perhaps 12 to 18 months, 1000’s of pages of reports, cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in contracting someone to conduct interviews and draw up all that paper work, and have the gall to say that the officer in question was wrong in his actions and has been disciplined and no further action will be required. Meanwhile, in the real world, businesses are firing employees for stealing stationary from the office cupboard. When a taxpayer funded, national, federal, provincial and municipal policing body can’t make a dead simple decision to fire an employee for breaking the rules which are written in stone, then the affable and personable Cst. Tim Shields should continue to see the assault of questions and criticisms to the RCMP from here on in.