(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Dec. 2, 1998)
A tragic end for Port Moody's chief
By Leo Knight
I
would be remiss if I didn't take some space to note the passing
of Ray Singbeil, Chief Constable of the Port Moody Police
Department.
Singbeil
was on indefinite suspension from his job running the 39-man
department following a dizzying amount of internal politicking
by the NDP-appointed police board and some members of that
departments union.
It's
hard to say what drove him to put a gun barrel in his mouth and
squeeze his life away, but it undoubtedly had something to do
with the supposedly independent review of that department by
retired Justice Sam Toy, a copy of which Singbeil was given just
before his death.
Ray
Singbeil spent most of his career as a Mountie, retiring five
years ago to take the top job in Port Moody. He took the job
with a mandate to "modernize" the force.
Singbeil
was the quintessential professional as a Mountie. He was a cop's
cop, honest and scrupulous to a fare thee well, but tough and
fair. He believed in the law and what was right and wrong.
Now, I don't know the contents of the Toy report. But, I'm sure Singbeil's troubles had much to do with his sense of right and wrong. He knew it was wrong not to have any female members on the force. He knew it was wrong not to have minorities represented in his staff. He tried to correct those wrongs. I suspect this initiative was the start of his downfall.
The department appears to be dysfunctional by anyone's account. The vacuum created by Singbeil's ouster at the hands of three members of the police board undoubtedly contributed to his decision to take his life.
But,
no matter how things evolve in the political struggle for
control in Port Moody, Ray Singbeil was considerate to the end.
He took his gun to a motel in Bellingham and did what he thought
he had to, there, where no cop he had worked with or who knew
him would have the sad task of investigating his death.
Singbeil
took a cop's way out. "Eating your gun" is the leading
cause of death for police officers. Unlike too many of the
latter day politicians masquerading as senior police management,
Ray Singbeil was a cop right to the end. The citizens of Port
Moody are worse off without Ray Singbeil. So are the rest of us.
*
* *
The
dangers inherent in policing are not limited to the
psychological. On Friday, Const. Laurie White was shot in the
leg while attempting to execute a search warrant on Ronald Hoag,
a sex offender in Kitimat.
White
was part of the search team and was sent to cover the rear of
the residence while the main team prepared to enter at the
front. All of this is normal. But the situation quickly became
abnormal when two shots ripped through the rear door striking
White in the leg just below her knee. The high-powered round
smashed her lower leg so bad that nine hours of emergency
surgery couldn't save it.
In
a split second of violence this officer lost her leg and was
lucky it wasn't her life. Her partner then risked his life by
running into the line of fire to drag the wounded officer to a
position of safety where she could begin receiving treatment for
the ugly wound.
This
incident came in the same day as the Vancouver Police Department
was forced to explain why it used a heavily armed Emergency
Response Team to execute a search warrant across the street from
the infamous Cannabis Cafe.
On
the BCTV News Hour the evening before, we were treated to
pictures of officers wearing flak vests, carrying automatic
weapons preparing to enter the building where they had
information that the dope dealing occupants had semi-automatic
guns.
We
saw the uniformed officers scurrying to secure the area of
citizens prior to the entry to ensure no innocent civilians
might be caught in the middle of a fire fight.
The
next images were of some addle-brained potheads moaning to the
cameras about the "Gestapo tactics" of the police. All
the while they were very publicly smoking their illicit drugs as
a challenge to the police. The television cameras were all too
happy to eat it all up and flash it on the late news.
The
next morning, police spokesman Const. Anne Drennan found herself
in the position of having to defend against the dopers
accusations. Well, they found drugs inside the building. They
also found a replica semi-automatic handgun. Sure, it couldn't
actually fire a bullet, but until they physically checked it
there's no way of knowing.
The
bottom line is every time a police officer has to go through a
door, the potential for violence is there. And being the real
world, as opposed to the drug induced fog inhabited by the
boneheads shown on the news cajoling the cops, stuff happens.
Ask
Constable Laurie White about it. When she gets back up on her
foot.
*
* *
Another
story in the news last week was the successful investigation and
arrest of a major figure in the Asian organized crime world.
Following
up an extortion complaint, VPD's Gang Squad raided Kwok Tam's
Burnaby home on Aug. 5. They seized a half pound of raw opium, a
couple of semi-automatic handguns, almost $80,000 in cash as
well as other related evidence to the extortion.
Their
subsequent investigation led them to Tam's Kingsway business,
Sunning Auto where, in a Nov. 19 raid, they seized several boxes
of documents relating to the extortion investigation.
Tam,
who came here in the late '80s as a refugee claimant, is, police
claim, a king pin in the shadowy world of Asian gangs. But one
of the things seized in the raid on Tam's home surprised even
the cynical, street-hardened cops.
A
nice, framed photograph, of Tam the crime boss, smiling cheek by
jowl with none other than our own boy-premier, Glen Clark.
Getting advice from an accused extortionist for a new tax policy?
I wonder.
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