Slemko , The Most to Lose In Bush Inquest: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

When the inquest into the death of Ian Bush at the hands of Constable Paul Koester at the Houston BC police station , ended last week , the one single person that you had to single out was Joe Slemko, who, after being invited to testify at the inquest showed up on his own dime to tell his version of events.

There will be retribution for Slemko; the system doesn’t permit people who are policemen to step outside of the nine dots to tell their version of events. Slemko made that clear when he said he had been the brunt of letters sent by the RCMP in Edmonton trying to block him from testifying at trials, for the defense. For the "Defense" I say because I would raise the question of whether things would have been different had Joe been at the inquest telling the jury that indeed Paul Koester was underneath Bush when he somehow was able to make a spider man move, get his gun out in spite of being nearly unconscious and then fire a bullet into the back of the head of Bush.

No way said Slemko; I am here to tell the truth, according to the blood spatters it did not happen this way.

Slemko is indeed just a Constable, likely due in large measurement to the fact that his passion in life is to do blood spatter analysis. It is his passion and the people in charge of the Edmonton police should be very happy to draw on the knowledge of a guy who eats, sleeps and dreams about blood spatters.

I sent off a mail to tell him recently that I admired him for standing up for what he believes in. I am not suggesting that his testimony is law, the simple fact that he appeared to testify should indicate something. He took a lot of heat from Koester’s lawyer, who tried repeatedly to discredit him. The people in attendance thought otherwise, they listened to Joe and the fact that they did will resonate long after this thing is over.

He wrote back;

Even though my involvement in the Bush case was very stressful and emotional for me; I would do it again in a heartbeat. I will continue to be available for these types of cases in the future, regardless of the consequences. It is my belief that accountability makes us all better in the job that we do as police officers.

He impressed me with that comment ,  he also reinforced  the believe that I have that there are many good police officers out there who believe in what they are doing, they are clean , squeaky clean , and they are the ones who get  tarred by the same brush when events such as the Bush death unfold.

To many RCMP officers participated in the white wash of the events of Bush’s death either by sloppy innvestigating, or by evidence which was suspect at best.  The result was a recommendation that Koester’s story is the one the public should believe.

Slemko can hold his head high  along with all of the other, good, officers; . we need more of them in Canada.

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

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