Why Can't Some People Just Admit They Screwed Up!

Some days when you read the paper you think to yourself that there's just a lot of print on a page, but in today's Globe and Mail (Friday, October 14th, 2011) there was one headline that I just had to read: "Tape Revives Anger over RCMP Conduct".

As it turns out, a couple in Hot Springs, British Columbia are still asking for some sort of accountability for what appears to be a total "miscarriage of justice."

An RCMP officer who is supposed to be responding to a 911 call in rural Mission B.C. of a neighbour reporting six gunshots. There is also taped conversation between the officer and dispatch where the two are laughing about the call, and as it turns out the officer responds to the scene but never ever gets out of his car to investigate, he doesn't speak to the neighbour who made the 911 call, he didn't go to the house where the alleged incident occured, he simply sat in his car and took seven minutes to file an electronic report on the incident. (I'd love to read what he wrote!)

Four days later, police were called back to the home where they found a man dead, and his girlfriend in severe medical distress. She was taken to hospital by air ambulance, but died en route.

This is a terrible situtation, where it's obvious to me at least that if the officer had done his job, this woman would no doubt still be alive, or at least she would have had a chance to survive.

It's the woman's parents who are seeking justice. The RCMP have supposedly completed their investigation,and conducted a disciplinary hearing for the officer that lasted less than an hour that resulted in the officer being docked a days pay. The officer pleaded guilty to a charge of "disgraceful conduct" and since the incident the officer has been promoted and is still actively serving the RCMP as an officer. This officer was totally negligent of his duty, and the penalty should certainly been more severe than docking him for a days pay and then later promoting him in rank with I'm sure a pay raise.

Where is the accountability? I'm sure that there are hundreds more of these types of "disgraceful conduct" hearings that never make the pages of the Globe and Mail, but because of a persons neglect of their duties, hundreds of other family members have had to live with the consequences.

Why doesn't this officer just fess up and admitt that he royally screwed up, and at least apologize to the parents involved. Society today seems to spend more time covering their ass than doing their jobs and admitting that at times we are neglegent in our duties. Perhaps police work isn't this officers forte! Perhaps his punishment should have been cleaning up the crime scene at the end of the investigation.