When I was still a member I never thought much about not coming home from a call. I thought a lot about officer safety, about what I needed to do to keep safe. Ultimately though, it was rare that you would think to yourself, there’s a chance I might not get out of this alive.
Every call had potential to be dangerous, some carried more risk than others, but it can be a violent world at times. The police are at the edge of that violent world, and even the most innocuous call can turn quickly.
It was a call about an impaired driver in Kimmirut that Constable Doug Scott attended to last night, one of the calls that we often think about as being very routine. It ended in his death. Doug Scott, only 20 years old, and posted in Kimmirut for only 6 months, was shot and killed last night. The second death of a member in a month. A young man with all of his life ahead of him.
Most members don’t think about not coming home from a call, until one of us is killed. Then we think about the countless calls that could have ended our lives. I charged about 300 people with impaired driving in my career, I have been there. Like Chris Worden in Hay River I went to countless disturbance calls. Like him I probably would have gone over to check out what looked like a drug deal going down, I have been there. I have guarded the crime scene, been in the high speed pursuit, gone to the domestics, stood on the side of the road in a traffic stop, pulled over the vehicle with no lights. I have been there.
We have all been there, that is one of the reasons the death of a member hits us so hard. There are other reasons it hits us hard. We are family. I don’t know Doug Scott, but he is connected to me. He was my brother, born of a common experience and similar dreams and hopes. I have lost another member of my family today, and I just wish it would stop.
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Words fail me. The “what if’s” are back resounding in my head.
If you’ve worked with the RCMP every member becomes a family no matter where they are from, When something like that happens it hits home, I had a good cry today remembering what it was like taking those calls at the dispatch, there was a show of support for the officer’s at outside of Detachment here in Iqaluit this afternoon, allot of people came out to support the member’s.
Sometimes going back to a great poet is better then trying to find the words myself …
No man is an island
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
(…) any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne
A sad day indeed, for everyone. I think especially of how life in the north 40 years ago was so different. When policeman got killed back hen, it would be the result of bad weather or accident, not being shot by someone. Like you, I hope it will stop, that people will reflect on what is happening and work to change the path they’ve taken.
It’s true about not thinking about not coming home from a call. I just expect my husband to come home. Tonight I will think about it when he leaves and I will think about Doug. I hope I never truly take it for granted. My sympathies for you, I can see how hard it is on the other members here loosing a fellow member. It really is like loosing a family member.
When I heard, D.Scoot is 20 years old, right away I thought about my boys because they are 19 now and made me think D.Scott was very young indeed.
This post gave me chills! I imagine it’s a double-edged sword, being an officer and thinking about the calls you’ve come from, unnerving to think about it and unnerving not to. What to do? Think, but not too hard? Seems to me that when people are involved there is never anything routine. A dear friend of mine lost her nephew, also an officer and also 20 yeas of age, to a drunk with a knife. It’s a tragedy, no two ways about it.