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ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE: An Heroic History
A total of 220 officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and its forerunner force, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), have died in the line of duty since the 1870s, including...
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ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE -- Their Heroic History
It may be Canada's best-known symbol internationally: a police officer in a scarlet coat, sitting on a horse. It's been used to promote Canada abroad since 1880 – and was glamourized by Hollywood in the 1920s, '30s and '40s.
Hollywood took great liberties with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and is usually cited as the source of the saying that the Mounties "always get their man." However, the phrase can be traced to the Fort Benton [Montana] Record in April 1877, four years after the formation of the North-West Mounted Police.
The force was created after Prime Minister John A. Macdonald declared that the Prairies needed a strong police force. The force's job would be to solidify Canada's claim to the West, improve relations with First Nations and wipe out the illegal whiskey trade.
This police force was initially only meant to be temporary; it was to see the West through its transition period and then be disbanded.
Macdonald modelled the Mounties on the Royal Irish Constabulary, one of the world's first national police forces.
The recruitment of officers for the new force started in September of 1873. On July 8, 1874, 275 mounted police officers set out from Dufferin, Man. They covered 1,500 kilometres over the next three months, arriving in what is now southern Alberta. They set up camp and started to build Fort Macleod – and began the work of enforcing Canadian law in the West.
Over the next few years, the NWMP set up several outposts in Alberta – and by 1885, 1,000 Mounties were in uniform.
The whiskey trade was in check and Canadian law was being enforced – as effectively as 1,000 men could enforce it across Alberta and Saskatchewan, and into what is now the Northwest Territories. Relations with most First Nations were also improving.
But on March 26, 1885, a force of North-West Mounted Police and civilian volunteers was defeated by a group of Métis at Duck Lake, Sask. The NWMP abandoned its largest post in the area, Fort Carlton, and retreated to Prince Albert.
The battle stood as the single biggest loss of life in the history of the Mounties. The federal government sent in troops and by July, the Northwest Rebellion was over.
In 1896, the future of the NWMP seemed in doubt. The prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, wanted to reduce the size of the force and eventually disband it. He argued it had served its purpose: Canada's claim to the West was well entrenched.
But Laurier didn't get his way. Support for the force in the West was strong, and getting stronger as it built on its reputation by policing the Klondike Gold Rush.
By 1903, the NWMP's jurisdiction had been extended to the Yukon and the Arctic coast. In June 1904, King Edward VII signed a document turning the North West Mounted Police into the Royal North West Mounted Police. The next year, the RNWMP became the official police force of the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
In 1920, the RNWMP became a national force when it absorbed the eastern-based Dominion Police and became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The new body was responsible for enforcing federal laws in all provinces and territories.
The RCMP underwent several changes, taking on new responsibilities over the next few decades, including:
Development of "national police services" in the 1930s, including fingerprints, crime index, firearms registration, photo section, forensic laboratory.
The RCMP supply vessel, St. Roch, makes its historic voyage through the Northwest Passage, 1940-1942.
Expansion and evolution of RCMP security operations: Special Branch, 1950; Directorate of Security and Intelligence, 1962; Security Service, 1970.
Expansion of duties and responsibilities in the 1970s: airport policing, VIP security, drug enforcement, economic crime.
In 1974, women are recruited as RCMP officers for the first time.
The RCMP gets out of security and intelligence when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is created in 1984.
International policing efforts are expanded in the 1990s with stints in Namibia, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia/Herzegovina, East Timor, Guatemala, Croatia, Western Sahara.
Currently, the RCMP acts as the provincial police force in all provinces except Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador. While larger cities usually have their own police forces, the RCMP provides policing services to about 200 municipalities across Canada.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary polices Labrador West, Corner Brook and certain areas on the Avalon Peninsula, including St. John's, accounting for about 40 per cent of the province's population. The RCMP has responsibility in areas outside the RNC's jurisdiction. The Mounties are also the police force in nearly 200 First Nations communities.
RED SERGE AND STETSON: The Famous Uniform
The RCMP are distinctive in their formal attire known as the Red Serge.
The Red Serge consists of a Stetson hat, which has a wide flat brim and hat band, a scarlet tunic that is essentially a coat in military dress style, with a low neck collar and brass buttons, and pants that are black riding breeches, with bulges at the hips and yellow striping down the outside of each leg. The uniform includes Strathcona Boots, which are brown leather riding boots, and spurs as part of the kit.
The tunic is finished off with a Sam Browne belt, a cross strap and belt that holds in place a pistol holder, a double magazine holder and a handcuff pouch. An officer in Red Serge would also wear a white lanyard. Badges include shoulder badges, collar badges, service badges, qualifying badges and appointment badges.
An RCMP officer would not wear the Red Serge while on duty during an everyday shift. It is usually pressed into service for civic ceremonies, public relations events, celebrations and memorials.
The tunic was originally made of a serge fabric imported from England. It became a part of the force around 1875, providing members with a warm, durable jacket that could be worn in all seasons. The Stetson was originally made by John Batterson Stetson of Philadelphia, son of a hat maker. In the 1870s, he produced the hat known as the "Boss of the Plains." It has a stiff brim and dented peaked crown.
The Sam Browne equipment, as it was called, became part of the British army uniform by the late 19th century. It is a shoulder strapped belt. The uniform has evolved over the years into the distinctive dress that it is today.
IN THE LINE OF DUTY: Ultimate Sacrifice by RCMP Officers
A total of 220 officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and its forerunner force, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), have died in the line of duty since the 1870s, including the high-profile shootings of four young officers in Rochfort Bridge, Alta., in March 2005, and the deaths of two Mounties shot near Mildred, Sask. in July 2006.
One of the latest RCMP casualties is Const. Douglas Scott in the Baffin Island hamlet of Kimmirut on Nov. 5, 2007. The 20-year-old from Brockville, Ont., was shot and killed while responding to a traffic complaint. The shooting came just a month after another RCMP officer was killed in Hay River, N.W.T. Const. Christopher Worden, 32, was shot on Oct. 6, 2007 after responding to a house call for assistance.
In the early years, the causes of police deaths reflected the harsh reality of bringing order to Canada's sparsely populated and geographically challenging West and North. Nine officers were thrown from their horses, drowned in raging spring rivers or froze to death before the dawn of the 20th century.
Many more died in combat with Métis who sought to establish an independent homeland in the Battle of Duck Lake, among other skirmishes of the Northwest Rebellion.
About 80 RCMP officers died in boating accidents, car crashes, as a pedestrian struck by a vehicle, or plane crashes, according to RCMP Honour Roll, a list of names of Mounties who died while performing police duties.
But 75 officers of the RCMP and NWMP have now been killed in the line of duty for merely being a police officer. Here are some of the most chilling cases, as detailed in the Canadian Police and Peace Officers Memorial database of Canadian law enforcers who died in the line of duty.
August 1920:
Const. Ernest Usher, 26, is shot and killed while trying to arrest train robbers at Bellewae, Alta.
January 1922:
Const. William Doak, 39, stationed at Tree River, N.W.T., is shot to death in his sleep by an escaped prisoner.
October 1935:
Const. John Shaw, 39, of the RCMP, and Const. William Wainwright, a municipal police officer from Benito, Man., are shot while transporting three young men suspected of armed robbery in Saskatchewan. The murderers - three farmers' sons aged 18 to 21 wearing three-piece suits - dump the officers' bodies in a muddy slough, where a farmer finds them three days later. The men later try to enter Banff National Park in Alberta, but run into an RCMP spot check. They open fire, killing two RCMP officers: Const. George Harrison, 29, and Sgt. Thomas Wallace, 39. The murderers are themselves eventually shot to death.
June 1962:
Const. Elwood Keck, 25; Const. Gordon Pedersen, 25; and Const. Donald Weisgerber, 23, are shot to death while attempting to apprehend gunman George Booth, who is firing his army surplus rifle from the Peterson Creek Bridge in Kamloops, B.C.
March 1974:
Const. Roger Pierlet, 23, is working alone on an overnight patrol in Cloverdale, B.C., when he stops a car while looking for vandals. It turns out to contain two men, one of them a Langley man whose brother has died in a high-speed police chase four days before. The man, who has been looking for a police officer in order to exact revenge, shoots Pierlet in the heart.
April 1978:
Const. Thomas Brian King, 40, stops a car for a routine check in the north end of Saskatoon. The two men in the car attack him, forcing him into their vehicle, driving to the South Saskatchewan River and shooting him before throwing his body in the water. They allegedly stopped on the way to the river to brag to friends about what they were about to do, the memorial website says.
January 1985:
Const. Allen Giesbrecht, 31, is investigating a report that a man in Vegreville, Alta, is brandishing a shotgun. He and four other officers arrive at the house, which is adorned with signs scrawled with anti-RCMP slogans. Giesbrecht is shot in the stomach and dies while searching the house, despite wearing a protective vest.
January 1987:
Special Const. Gordon Kowalczyk, 35, answers a call from a gas station near the Calgary Airport, saying a customer had left without paying for gas. He stopped a suspect, who shot him at point-blank range from his truck before stepping out of the vehicle and firing five more shots at the dying policeman.
March 2001:
RCMP Const. Jurgen Seewald, 47, was shot and killed while responding to a domestic dispute in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. The 26-year veteran of the force had only moved to the northern community a few months earlier. The man who was convicted of first-degree murder in the case has appealed, with his lawyer arguing he was acting in self-defence after being pepper-sprayed.
December 2001:
Const. Dennis Strongquill, 52, and his partner stop a truck near Russell, Man., intending to cite the driver for failing to dim his high beams. A passenger gets out of the truck and starts shooting. The two officers jump back in their RCMP SUV and start driving toward a nearby RCMP detachment. In the parking lot, the pursuing truck smashes the police SUV into a fence, trapping Strongquill inside. Again, a passenger gets out and fires a shotgun at Strongquill, fatally wounding him before fleeing the scene.
Feb. 28, 2004:
RCMP Cpl. Jim Galloway, 53, a dog handler based in Edmonton, was shot and killed during a six-hour standoff in Spruce Grove, a bedroom community just outside the Alberta capital. A 31-year veteran of the force, Galloway was shot dead at the scene as a gunman tried to leave a house while exchanging gunfire with police. The 39-year-old suspect was also hit and died later in hospital.
March 2005:
Four RCMP officers are ambushed and shot to death on a farm near Rochfort Bridge, Alta. They were investigating reports of stolen auto parts as well as a small marijuana grow operation. The gunman is also found dead inside a Quonset hut - a large metal storage shed.
July 2006:
Two RCMP officers, Const. Robin Cameron, 29, and Const. Marc Bourdages, 26, are shot July 7 after a car pursuit of a domestic violence suspect ended near Mildred, Sask. The officers would die nine days later. After an extensive hunt for Curtis Dagenais, the prime suspect in the shootings, he turns himself in on July 18.
October 2007:
Const. Christopher Worden was shot in Hay River, N.W.T., a small town about 500 kilometres south of Yellowknife. The 30-year-old officer was responding to a call from a house for assistance at 5 a.m. on Oct. 6 when he lost radio contact with police. Two backup officers were sent to the scene and found Const. Worden in a wooded area suffering from gunshot wounds. He died in hospital.
Police launched a Canada-wide search for Emrah Bulatci, who surrendered to police following a standoff in Edmonton five days later. He has been charged with first-degree murder.
November 2007:
Const. Douglas Scott, 20, was shot and killed on Nov. 5 in the Baffin Island hamlet of Kimmirut, about 120 kilometres south of Iqaluit. Scott, from Brockville, Ont., was responding to a complaint of an impaired driver late in the evening.
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