My LTE


Rev. Don Schiemann and the families of the RCMP who were murdered in Mayerthorpe are glossing over the fact that cannabis growing had nothing to do with arresting well know police hater James Roszko. The police were assisting the bailiff in repossessing a vehicle. It cheapens the memory of the slain police officers to associate their deaths with anything other than the truth.


Rev. Don Schiemann et al needs a good understanding of the parable of The Fall to see prohibition's inherent weakness. The forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter is the moral of the story, but the more subliminal lesson is that even the Supreme Authority will lie to command obedience. It is the Serpent who tells the truth. Forbidding pleasure drugs and authorities lying about them has served humanity about as well as prohibition served God. Breeding disrespect for the law and the authorities is all prohibition ever accomplished. The lesson to authority in the parable is that the law is not meant to be a tool with which to battle evil.


Repealing prohibition would be the path to chose if the lives of the fallen RCMP are to be made meaningful. Restoring respect for the law and those who serve it can only happen when rule of law supercedes the will of the tyrant. Vices are not crimes. The rule of law is applicable only when the government is limited in the power to protecting people from force or fraud. Any other use of the law, like turning vices to crimes, is a perversion and deserves the disrespect it gets.


Perhaps Rev. Don Schiemann ought to open his Bible to the very first page. In Genesis 1:29 the Creator bestows the plants of planet Earth, not to the state, not to medicine, but to you. Rev. Schiemann ought to consider putting the prohibition law to the Four Cardinal virtues of St. Thomas Aquinas test. Temperance, prudence, justice and fortitude are those virtues and prohibition does not live up to a single one. Wanting your way so badly that you would willingly harm another person, i.e. support the aggression of meting out criminal records in the hopes people will give up the vice of pleasure drugs, is vainglory defined.



Chris Buors

September 27, 2005

Commons civility collapses amid questions about Mayerthorpe massacre

DAN DUGAS
Canadian Press

OTTAWA (CP) - MPs went from chummy and polite to downright nasty Tuesday before you could say "eight-second sound bite."

It took less than two days for the thin veneer of civility to wear through in the House of Commons, freshly back from its summer recess. Just hours after MPs chatted amiably at the swearing-in ceremony for Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean, they traded low blows during question period over four dead Mounties.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper threw the first punch. He accused Prime Minister Paul Martin of having misled the House on Monday when he said he'd met the families of the officers killed in Mayerthorpe, Alta.

The families were in Ottawa on Monday to push for tougher prison sentences.

Martin responded that he meant he had met the families at the officers' funerals in March after the four were killed during a stakeout at an auto chop shop and marijuana grow-op.

Then he fired back: "I do not believe that it is appropriate for the honourable member to try to make this kind of political gamesmanship on such an emotional event," he told the Commons.

"I am prepared to meet with the families again, I would be more than happy to sit down with any member of the four families that would like to discuss this with me."

The father of slain officer Peter Schiemann said the prime minister called him in Alberta later Tuesday.

"He (Martin) left it that his door would always be open for our families to speak with him at any time," said Rev. Don Schiemann, who is a Lutheran pastor.

"I appreciated that and thanked him for calling and thanked him for extending the apology, and apology (was) accepted," Schiemann told Edmonton television station CFRN.

Schiemann said he also told the prime minister during the phone call that the issues the families are pushing are non-partisan, and he hoped all parties would support their call for tougher sentences for the worst offenders, CFRN reported.

Meanwhile, in the Commons, Harper hotly denied the prime minister's charge he was playing politics and said he was acting on the families wishes.

"I can assure you that the families have told us they want us to raise the issue in the House today and I am proud to do it on their behalf," Harper said.

A family spokesman said afterward that they did not specifically ask Harper to raise the issue and that they only agreed it would be all right after Tory MP Rona Ambrose told them it would be raised.

The did-so, did-not nature of the debate left NDP Leader Jack Layton exasperated.

"Accusing someone of playing politics is playing politics yourself," he said.

"We had one day of good behaviour and I felt we were slipping back into the old practices of insults being hurled about.

"I didn't feel the exchanges today on either side . . . were particularly dignified.

"I thought we were going to try to act in a more respectful fashion and that attitude doesn't seem to have lasted very long."

macleans

Dead cops stop drug wars

Did the shooting of Constable S.O. Lawson end Alcohol prohibition in Alberta?

Some historians seem to think so.

By David Malmo-Levine

"During the early years of alcohol prohibition, it was argued that all that was wrong was lack of effective law enforcement. So enforcement budgets were increased, more Prohibition agents were hired, arrests were facilitated by giving agents more power, penalties were escalated. Prohibition still didn't work.

The United States thus learned it's lesson - with respect to alcohol. ... Since alcohol is treated as a nondrug, however, the relevance of the lesson to other drug prohibitions has been overlooked."

- Consumer's Union Report: Licit & Illicit Drugs, 1972, p.266


Between 1915 and 1917, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba all passed alcohol prohibition laws through public plebicites. Canadian alcohol prohibition went National in 1918 as part of the war effort, but by the end of 1919 Prime Minster Mackenzie King gave the power to regulate - or prohibit - back to the Provinces.

In 1920, the US began it's own 13 year experiment in a national prohibition law. This move gave a boost to the "Dry vote" in Canada. Despite B.C. wisely opting for regulated sales, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba once again ratified alcohol prohibition. Then, suddenly, in 1922, the tide began to turn.

During the late fall and early winter of 1922, a petition was circulated by the Hotelmen's Association, pleading for government control of the liquor trade and the return of licensed parlors and bars. It contained 51,000 names.

A third alcohol plebicite was set by Premier Greenfield March 9th, 1923, the day after he recieved confirmation that the petition was in order. Manitoba set a date in June for their third plebicite - Alberta's followed in November. This time the Wets won. Their victory soon echoed in Saskatchewan in 1924.

What happened at the end of 1922 to turn people's attitudes around so quickly - and despite the US going the other direction - get people to vote "wet"?

The answer, suprisingly enough, may have been the shooting death of Constible Steven Lawson of the Alberta Provincial Police.

Born in England in 1880, Steven O. Lawson came to Canada in 1903, and west in the spring of 1904. After trying his hand at ranching, he joined the Macleod police on May 7th, 1907, where he later became chief of police. At the outbreak of war, he enlisted and served overseas. On his discharge, he became police chief of Fernie in 1920 and served with that force until his enlistment in the Alberta Provincial Police on March 12th, 1922.

He was stationed at Coleman, a little mining town west of Blairmore that straddled the main highway used by rum runners. He was added to the APP as one of fifty men specifically placed to suppress the liquor traffic.

As the story goes, on September 21, 1922, Lawson and his partner recieved a tip from a stool-pigeon that a popular rum-runner named Emilio Picariello - AKA "Mr. Pick" - was going to Fernie for a load of liquor. Another anonymous tip let the APP know that Pick was returning with his load. Constable Lawson observed Pick and his crew going both directions.

With Pick was his mechanic and his son. Some APP officers were waiting at Pick's hotel in an ambush, but the moment he was served with a search warrent, he sounded his horn and Pick and his crew were off to go back across the BC border. Waiting in the middle of the road was Constable Lawson.

Pick's son refused to stop for Lawson, so the Constable shot him - in the hand. Later that evening, Pick's son was arrested and held prisoner.

Pick and Florence Lassandro, the wife of an associate, went to confront Lawson. They drove up to the police barracks in Coleman, and Steve Lawson approached them in their car. According to Lassandro's statement to the court, an argument ensued, which turned into a fight.

Pick insisted that Lawson was going to accompany him to retrive his son from jail. Lawson refused, claiming not to know where the boy was. Pick seized Lawson's gun in order to enforce his command. Lawson resisted. The gun went off several times. Lassandro panicked and shot Lawson. He died a few minutes later.

Emilio Picariello and Florence Lassandro were tried, found guilty and executed on May 3rd, 1923. Florence Lassandro was the first and only woman to be executed in Alberta.

A day before they died, another policeman died enforcing alcohol prohibition laws. Constable Charles M. Paris hopped onto the running board of a high-powered McLaughlin roadster, only to have the roadster smash into a wooden fence. Constable Paris was killed instantly.

At least 250 people died either enforcing or evading the prohibition laws from 1915 to 1933. Awareness regarding this prohibition-related violence - combined with the "Moderationist" movement and certain economic arguments - combined to ensure alcohol prohibition's loss of public support.

According to one historian: "This case, highly publicized, was instrumental in bringing an end to the eight years of prohibition in Alberta." (1)

According to another: "It is entirely possible that many persons, appalled by the tragedy and the violence that seemed to accompany all efforts to enforce Prohibition, both in the United States and Canada, willingly signed the petition in order to prevent more disorder and breaking of laws." (2)

After the shooting deaths of four Mounties in Alberta last week, much of the mainstream press jumped on the fact that the gunman was growing pot plants. The media initially ignored the fact that the gunman was being investigated over stolen car parts - not pot plants, and that he was a convicted child molestor who served just two and a half years in jail. (3) Had our society taken molestation more seriously and pot gardening less seriously, he might have still been in custody.

The media also missed the lesson of alcohol prohibition - going as far as putting it in quotation marks when cannabis activists refered to it - as if to say the connection was suspect. When one newspaper listed Lawson's name as one of the dead Alberta police of yesteryear, they didn't even mention he died enforcing alcohol prohibition laws. (4)

It is a mistake to argue that activists are exploiting the tragedy of dead police by using such an occation to call for an end to prohibition. It is neither "shameful" nor "disrespectful" to try and avert further tragedy by drawing lessons from history. (5)

If history has a lesson, it is that such tragedies are often the shocking incidents required for the public to get over it's paternalistic morality and wake up to the reality of prohibition-related violence and of the price of trying to control the private behavior of others - a pointless sacrifice of the lives of those who we rely on for our security.


(1) http://www.rootsweb.com/~canab/albertansp.html

(2) Frank Anderson, "The Rum Runners", Lone Pine publishing, 1991, p.59

(3) http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=n0307113A

(4) http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2005/03/04/949834-sun.html

(5) http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/03/08/953482-sun.html

The following books were used in the writing of this article:

Frank Anderson, "The Rum Runners", Lone Pine publishing, 1991
James Gray, "Booze", Alger Press, 1972
Eric Newsome, "Pass the Bottle", Orca Book publishers, 1995
Neil Boyd, "High Society", Key Porter Books, 1991



For more information (and images) on Constable Lawson, try these links:

http://www.albertasource.ca/lawcases/criminal/emperorpic/people_lawson.htm
http://www.albertasource.ca/lawcases/criminal/emperorpic/emperorpic.htm
http://www.albertasource.ca/lawcases/criminal/emperorpic/emperorpic_setting.htm
http://www.albertasource.ca/lawcases/criminal/emperorpic/setting_demiseof.htm
http://www.officermike.com/memorial/prior1940.htm
http://www.fernie.com/about_fernie/rumrunners.html
http://www.albertascene.ca/en/filumena/synopsis.asp
http://www.treadsoftlycanada.com/treadsoftlyadventures/history.html
http://www.cacp.ca/english/memoriam/profile.asp?memnum=64
http://home.cogeco.ca/~mirage/canlassandro.html
http://www.rmbooks.com/books/rumrun.htm
http://www.crowsnest-highway.ca/cgi-bin/citypage.pl?city=CROWSNEST_PASS






web page

Letter I sent to CFCF 12 TV news in Montreal,re. Mayerthorpe propaganda.

Sirs Madam;

You perpetuate false journalism when you report a story without verifying the facts.Or you are intentionally promoting Police propaganda.which is it?

I refer to your reporting that the R.C.M.P. and the families of the Mayerthorp officers, want the Government to get tough on crime and especially Marijuana grow ops,where the officers were killed investigating .
It has been well established that the media falsely ran with the Marijuana story when in fact it was later stated and reported by the R.C.M.P. and the media that the Police were there for a chop shop and a well known violent offender.
Yet again you follow the Police lies again and report it as they being killed over a marijuana gro op.

Shame on you ...I expect this from American news and journalists,not from Canadian news...shabby reporting ,Yellow journalism.

The Reply.

Dear Mr .....

Point well taken.
Thank you for watching our newscast.

I will follow this up with the appropriate personnel.


Barry W Wilson
Executive Producer,
CFCF News, Montreal
CTV Television
514.495.6181
(fax 514.273.1973)
bwilson@ctv.ca

One of the fathers of slain mountie will be on the call in show Peter Warren http://www.peterwarren.ca/NEWSALERT.htm
The people need to understand the facts

Peter Warren of CKNW (mail@peterwarren.ca) on the size of the marijuana industry in Canada with Prof. Stephen Easton:

http://www.timmeehan.ca/cknw-20051001-warren-easton.mp3

Peter Warren (mail@peterwarren.ca) interviews an RCMP relative on their anti-pot porchlight campaign:

http://www.timmeehan.ca/cknw-20051001-warren-myrol.mp3

oh but why stop there? Axes, swede saws, chainsaws, buncher-fellers, de-limbers, haul trucks, roads, mills...

The relentless use of logic is simply a form of stupidity.

Including grows in their campaign will bring about no positive results. The Montreal Massacre lead to the gun registry, a monolithicly useless exercise. Expect the same with this, however different the scale. This one calls for a massive rebuttal by our side.

peace and pot

Webpage:
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=956137da-e1c1-47e3-956c-ea0e696a2642

Newshawk: CMAP http://www.mapinc.org/cmap
Pubdate: Monday, October 3, 2005
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Contact: letters@thejournal.canwest.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/
Author: Emma Poole, CanWest News Service

Mounties' families earn ear of PM for campaign pitch

Canadians asked to leave porch lights on in support of tougher sentencing

Emma Poole
CanWest News Service

CALGARY -- As the families of four slain Alberta Mounties launch a
nationwide campaign for tougher prison terms and parole restrictions for
convicts, Prime Minister Paul Martin has agreed to meet with the group later
this month.

Keith Myrol, the father of murdered Const. Brock Myrol, said the families
are tentatively scheduled to sit down with Martin the week of Oct. 23.

As they await the meeting, Myrol is asking Canadians to turn on their porch
lights tonight as a message to the federal government to change the
sentencing system.

"Honestly, I was trying to come up with a way to involve all Canadians that
was easy and visible," Myrol said Sunday from his home in Red Deer.

"People needed a conduit to make their feelings known."

Constables Myrol, Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon and Leo Johnston, from the
Mayerthorpe area, were gunned down at the farm of convicted criminal James
Roszko in March. Since then, the families of the murdered men have been
pushing for legislative reform to prevent a similar tragedy.

Myrol and the others have repeatedly asked Ottawa to acknowledge the country
has a problem with drug control -- specifically marijuana.

The four officers were shot by Roszko after being ambushed as they guarded a
marijuana grow-operation and some stolen auto parts found inside a Quonset
hut on his farm.

Myrol said he wants to challenge people in government to work together to
change the justice system.

"Be Canadians, not politicians. Build prisons, use maximum sentences, say no
to parole, pat your local police on the back," he said. "Stop slapping
wrists and start penalizing these violent animals for what they've done."

Myrol is asking anyone who wants change in the system to turn on their porch
lights tonight between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. He calls the "Maintain the right
by turning on your light" campaign a grassroots referendum for Canadians.

While he's appreciative of all the commemorative plaques and permanent
memorials dedicated to his son and the other officers, Myrol said the best
way to remember the men is to make the system safer.

"I'm not naive to think this is the fix," he said. "We need the memory of
these fallen four boys to stand for something."

For people who can't be home to turn on a light, Myrol is asking them to
honk their car horns.

"Let's let this country know that we're done with criminals getting off soft
and we're done with repeat offenders," Myrol said.

"Let's fix this mess before another life is lost."

Martin faced accusations last week in the House of Commons that he lied
about meeting the families after the tragedy.

Martin said he did speak with the group following the Mounties' funeral, and
would be willing to sit down with them again.

"I am prepared to meet with the families again. I would be more than happy
to sit down with any member of the four families that would like to discuss
this with me," he told Parliament.

The families are trying to arrange travel plans before securing a date with
Martin.

Mark Roy, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, said Sunday: "The
Prime Minister has met with the families after the tragedies and has offered
to meet with them at their convenience."

The town of Mayerthorpe is currently working on a memorial park to honour
the officers.

The real issue is the illegal firearm.

FINAL CREDITS - ALBERTA RCMP DEATHS - JAMES ROSZKO


(The gun Roszko used, a HK .308 assault rifle reportedly smuggled into Canada 25 years ago, had been modified with the addition of a flash suppressor and telescopic lens. )



While initial public reaction to the events of March 3rd was dominated by the issue of marijuna grow operations, it later shifted to the question of how a man long-known to be a threat to public safety could remain free and have access to deadly weaponry.




At the time of his death, James Roszko was 46. He stood 5-foot-5-inches and weighed 150 pounds.



Roszko's criminal history, which began at age 16, was noted not for his list of convictions but his skill in escaping them. Over thirty years, he faced 36 criminal charges, but was convicted of only 12.



In 1976, he was convicted of breaking and entering and received one-year's probation in 1979. Three years later he was found guilty of harassment as a result of a dispute with The Whitecourt Star newspaper. The paper later secured a restraining order against Roszko. Three charges of failing to comply with a probation order earned him 45 days in jail in December 1993. He was not convicted of another criminal offence until 1999.



In December, 1993 Roszko had an altercation with a school trustee that resulted in his being charged with 12 offences, including unlawful confinement, assault with a weapon, pointing a firearm, possession of a weapon dangerous to the public, impersonation of a police officer and obstruction of justice. Only seven charges went to trial, resulting in complete acquittal chiefly because of the key witnesses' credibility. Rumours of witness intimidation were in wide circulation at the time.



Roszko's lengthiest prison term (2 1/2 years) stemmed from a series of sexual assaults that lasted almost seven years -- from January, 1983 to December, 1989. The assaults began when the victim was 10, and several years elapsed before the victim stepped forward.



While in prison for the sex offences, Roszko faced difficulties stemming from an incident on his farm in 1999. Charges of aggravated assault involving an assortment of firearms offences were laid. Roszko had confronted two area men while they were joyriding in a pickup truck on his property. Roszko confronted them, brandishing a hunting rifle. One man was shot in the shoulder, the other was hog-tied and thrown in the back of the pickup truck. Roszko was charged with five offences. But as the two intruders were also charged with assault, it put their credibility in doubt. All charges were dismissed.



In 2004, Roszko was charged after putting down a spiked belt when election enumerators came onto his property. He was due in court in April, 2005 to face that charge. Roszko was visited on numerous occasions in recent years by bailiffs and other court officials in connection with repossession of property. It was on such a matter that the events of March 3 precipitated.

The man at the centre of Roszko’s sexual assault charges slept with a knife under his pillow and a gun under his bed for the past 12 years. Even when he learned that Jim Roszko died during a gun battle with the Mounties, he felt he had to see the body of the man who had terrorised him before he could feel safe again. He still can't believe it took the deaths of four police officers to do it.




Wishing to remain anonymous, the man is not surprised the police were outwitted and outgunned. Roszko had weapons stashed all over his sprawling, booby-trapped property. He was most proud of his HK .308 assault rifle (possibly similar to the G3KA4 model pictured left), which hung on the wall in the living room of the trailer where he lived.



In describing events surrounding his case, the man said Roszko begged for sexual favours. Sometimes brandishing a gun, Roszko forced the young man to perform sexual acts with him in front of a camera.



Roszko was obsessed with his privacy, the man remembered. He planted bushes and trees on his property for protection, taped all phone calls, drove vehicles with darkly tinted windows and always carried a scanner tuned to police frequencies which he carried with him at all times. Roszko once grabbed a gun out of some bushes and pointed to a dugout where a 45-gallon drum was buried underground. Roszko said it was ready for a body.



Roszko also had a "fast bag" to practice his boxing skills in his living room. While not a big man, he was quick and he was strong. He once punched a cow in the head so hard that the animal dropped to the ground. Roszko was a driller by trade in the oil patch but subsidized his income by farming. He would also top up his finances by stealing a snowmobile here or some cattle there, the man recalled.

On June 21, 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported it had obtained a copy of the autopsy report for James Roszko, detailing the last moments of his life and shedding some light on the tactics he used to ambush four RCMP officers on his farm.



After being shot twice by officers, in the hand and the thigh, Roszko shot himself with a prohibited semi-automatic assault rifle, putting a bullet near his heart. Roszko's brother John said "He wasn't about to give police the credit for taking his life, so that's probably why he took it himself."



The gun Roszko used, a HK .308 assault rifle reportedly smuggled into Canada 25 years ago, had been modified with the addition of a flash suppressor and telescopic lens.



The autopsy file indicated Roszko was well-prepared for Alberta's March weather. He was wearing two pairs of pants and five layers of shirts and jackets. He also wore black socks cut to cover his boots.



"Hunters used to wear that. That's an old hunter trick," said Roszko's brother John, referring to a method to muffle the sound of approach.



"I'm sure that he was planning for something like this. He always bragged before that if he was ever going to take any of them out, he was going to take out a pile of them."



Earlier reports suggested that Roszko had also covered himself with a white sheet as camouflage.





http://lastlinkontheleft.com/fcalbertarcmpsuspect.html