RCMP enjoying "open season" on Alberta Indians

This makes it three dead in two weeks.

What's wrong with this picture?

Pretty much everything. While details are scarce, the RCMP persist in entering reservations on the flimsiest of pretexts. A violent confrontation because somebody may have been drinking or didn't show up in court simply doesn't make any sense.

RCMP need to make non-violent interaction their fall-back position, instead of treating every encounter with the public as an opportunity to strut their SWAT swagger.

A change in policing strategies is long overdue.

Mounties gun down Tonto

Curtis Hallock, who played the faithful Indian sidekick on Mantracker, was shot down by Alberta Mounties on Thursday at a police check-point.

Didn't know we had police check-points in the Great White North... oh yes, I see... just to make sure you haven't been drinking... ah ha!

Yes, so they are not police check-points per se; they are PUBLIC SAFETY CHECK-POINTS!

In Alberta these public safety checkpoints are often found on the perimeter of Indian reservations, because, well, you know about the drunken Indians and all that, don't you?

It's been a busy few days for the Mounties. Not only did they get Tonto, they got a couple more Indians near Pigeon Lake.

Plus they tased a guy dead in LeDuc. No word yet on whether that too was a mis-behavin' native.

RCMP image makeover out of the gate

The day after Human Rights Watch released a sordid report on RCMP mistreatment of native women and girls, the Globe and Mail has a perky fluff-piece designed to take away any disturbing thoughts you might be having about Canada's finest tasering 12 year olds.

We meet RCMP Corporal Jeff Campbell, who leads a team of volunteer cops policing one of the country's premier ski resorts. Not just the resort, but the actual ski runs too.

Why does Lake Louise need armed cops patrolling its hills on snowboards? Are there terror suspects on the slopes? Koran-crazed Towellers schussing the pistes?

No, but the Mounties get to ski for free, and one day they did catch three guys smoking a joint.

While there seems little point for the Mounties on the mountain, it's not hard to discern the purpose of the story or its timing.

How can it even be imagined that such wholesome civic-minded officers have been smeared by some busy-body gang of foreigners like Human Rights Watch?

Mounties offer to investigate themselves after scathing Human Rights Watch report

It's telling that the top brass at the RCMP are so stunned that they think investigating themselves is an appropriate response to the allegations of abuse leveled by Human Rights Watch.

Those folks are seriously out of touch and have been for a long time.

This report needs to be independently investigated by outsiders who are in no way beholden to the RCMP's chain of command or their political masters.

A parliamentary commission is not enough. That same parliament oversees the RCMP and has a conflict of interest in any such investigation.

This requires an international investigation with meaningful First Nations representation.

A UN tribunal is in order.