Questions Unanswered in Bush Case: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

    
I had no doubt about the outcome from the Crown Counsel’s office with respect to the death of Ian Bush who was shot to death by an RCMP officer while being released in Houston.

I say no doubt, given that the RCMP started to release the defense the following morning after the death of Bush.

To refresh your memory it went like this:

“On October 29 2005 at approx 10:00 pm a Houston RCMP officer was in the process of releasing a twenty-two year old male from custody. The officer and the male were in the Houston RCMP Detachment. The male became very violent and attacked the officer. A violent struggle ensued and the twenty-two year old male died at the scene."

A further question should be,  when was the last time that you heard a defense being issued by police for someone other than a police officer?

That however is pale by comparison, when you consider this in Ian Bush’s death, the young fellow was shot in the back of the head while being released, that’s right, released from custody. When was the last time that you heard of someone being outraged when being released from custody to a point that a violent struggle took place? Resisting release is not a charge under the criminal code.

Given what has now been said by the Crown it could be very lucky that Bush is dead, given the fact that he resisted his release would he have had to face charges had he lived?  What section of the code covers that act?

As for the family, they are perfectly within their right to be upset .  Bush was having a beer outside of the hockey game in Houston, that is a given. He gave the wrong name when asked by the police officer, twice as a matter of fact, the officer within talking distance identified the man standing there as Bush, that officer knew Ian well. Is giving the wrong name to a police officer reason to be shot? Is having liquor in a public place reason to be shot?

Moreover there is only one witness to this whole affair, the police officer who did the shooting. Plenty of time has elapsed in order for the story to be well told.

Bush will not testify and the video tape machine that could have provided some answers was not operating. Plenty of questions and yet the family has very few answers.

As Dawson Bush, Ian’s dad said, "We do hope that a Coroner’s inquest will shed some light on really what took place or the civil action will bring out more of the facts."

Ian Bush will not be able to testify as to what his interpretation was of the events and that is a pity.

I’m Meisner and that is one man’s opinion.   

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