On Saturday night just after midnight I made my second-ever 911 call to the RCMP. We had been awakened by an apparently intoxicated (by drugs or alcohol) screaming youth inside our fairly small back yard.
Hoping he would open the gate and leave the yard, I watched for about 10 minutes before deciding to call 911 before this person did something dangerous to himself or our property. I expected a fairly long wait as it was just after midnight on a Saturday night, when lots of things are usually happening.
Just 11 minutes after my 911 call the first RCMP vehicle pulled up in front of our house and within minutes a second and third RCMP vehicle pulled up. I was spoken to at the front door and then three of the four attending officers went into the rear yard and located the now docile youth, lying on the ground.
I want to compliment the officers on their professional approach to this situation, their attitude with me at the front door and how they handled the young man and his hopefully temporary problem.
I do believe that the public tends to take the RCMP for granted and base a lot of their conclusions on the contrived situations created for TV.
I am now and have always been totally supportive of our police as they deal with so many problems that society is just pretending do not exist. The public’s lack of support and the media’s obvious anti-cop bias must have a demoralizing effect in the long run.
Just try a day without the police and see how that goes.
Larry Leigh
Whitehorse