The defund/anti-police folks who want to replace front-line police officers with social workers should:
Do an early morning traffic stop on a car with tinted windows on the 401, knowing back-up is at least 20 minutes away.
Knock on a door at 2 a.m. and tell a single mother her only child, a high school honour student two weeks from attending university, was hit and killed by a drunk driver while bicycling home.
Respond to a 9-1-1 call involving a crib death, a young couple’s first born. Then go home and try to sleep with your five-month-old asleep in the crib.
Take abuse from a driver who doesn’t think he or she deserves a speeding ticket for going 15 kilometers an hour over the limit in a school zone.
Take a punch on the nose while trying to arrest somebody six inches taller and 100 pounds heavier and who is strung out on drugs.
Be first on the scene of a suicide and sit with a wife and two kids while waiting for the coroner to arrive.
Be in court at 9 a.m. for a trial after logging a busy 12-hour overnight shift.
Watch a child molester walk out of court with a smirk on his face after beating the rap on a technicality.
Have a young punk laugh and call you a pig after planting a whopper on your face.
Have the shift sergeant tell you that the person who scratched your face during the arrest has tested positive for AIDS.
Walk into a bloody murder scene where a stoned boyfriend has shot and killed his teen girlfriend with a cross-bow then put a bullet in his head.
Sit down with a senior citizen widow and take notes while she weeps about losing her life savings to a fast-talking scam artist.
Respond to a domestic dispute on Christmas Eve where a heavily intoxicated father has just given his wife a black eye and two little guys are on the couch crying while the father yells at them, “You don’t have no gifts because there ain’t no Santa Claus.”
Be confronted by a mentally-disturbed person waving a 10-inch long butcher knife and you have to make a split-second decision as he lunges at you.
Attend the funeral of a colleague with a wife and three kids who was shot and killed in the line of duty.
Be grilled by an aggressive lawyer who questions your integrity because you didn’t cross a ‘t’ or dot an ‘i’.
Retired inspector Brendon Wells, who had a long career as a police officer, and who saw it all, calls it “emotional scar tissue.”
“Some things,” he said, “you just can’t forget. It stays with you for the rest of your life.”
As a wise experienced Windsor Star editor once told this rookie reporter, “Remember this: Theory improves with a good dose of reality.”
__________
When Charlottenburgh Township resident Louis Emard answered a knock at his Highway 2 home, just east of the Cornwall Golf and Country Club, late in the evening of June 18, 1963 three hooded men brandishing handguns burst in.
They tied up the businessman – who owned a small chain of gas stations and was part-owner of CJSS radio with his brother Paul – and his three young children.
When Mrs. Emard arrived home, she too was tied up.
The men were looking for money and when told there was none in the house, they fled with jewelry, $12 from Mrs. Emard’s purse, $2 in change from a piggy bank and the family’s two cars.
Emard managed to free himself and called the Ontario Provincial Police.
Two days later the cars were found abandoned near the Quebec border.
High on the list of suspects was a Montreal gang that had pulled off armed robberies in Eastern Ontario.
__________
When a key witness in a civil case at the Counties court house on June 12, 1963 was unable to attend because of illness, Justice Leo Landreville adjourned the trial and in an unprecedented decision moved the proceedings to the man’s Ninth Street home.
The judge, sheriff, clerk and lawyers set up shop in the man’s living room.
ALSO IN 1963 – Two days after Judge George Brennan sent a Cornwall man to jail for eight months for the near-fatal shooting of city police officer Const. Ford McGillis, Crown attorney Percy Milligan said he was appealing the ridiculously short sentence. (The appeal was successful and the sentence was changed to three years). Defence attorney Malcolm MacDonald argued that the man was too drunk to form intent to shoot McGillis in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun. … The first ocean-going ship docked at Cornwall Harbour and unloaded a shipment of caustic soda for the C-I-L plant. … Lisette Boucher, 16-year-old St. Lawrence High School student, was crowned Queen of La Semaine Francaise. … Rev. Kelvin Maloney was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood at his home parish of St. Andrew’s. He was assigned to Nativity Parish as an assistant pastor. In other clergy moves, Rev. Rejean Lebrun was named assistant pastor of Sacred Heart in Alexandria and Rev. Herbert Seguin was named pastor of the new parish of Canadian Martyrs, the eighth parish in the city. … Charles Franklin, one of Cornwall’s oldest residents, died at age 102. … Bill Denman and Frances Boyd were winners of the annual Optimist Club bicycle safety roadeo. … The Hershey chocolate factory opened in Smiths Falls. … Ted Smith notched his second no-hitter of the young season as Lloyd George Wharfmen blanked Massena 7-0 in a North End Fastball League game. The 21-year-old Dundas hurler had 11 strikeouts.
TRIVIA ANSWER Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster Dan Shulman is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario (Western U) in London, Ont.
TRIVIA Which of these actors did not serve in the Second World War: 1) Jimmy Stewart, 2) Art Carney, 3) Paul Newman, 4) Charlton Heston, 5) Don Rickles, 6) James Earl Jones, 7) Lee Marvin, 8) Henry Fonda, 9) Harry Belafonte, 10) Tom Selleck.
QUOTED “Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.” – Charles Dickens
