Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

Inquiry Needed into Police Reaction to Drunk Driver Tip

By Jack deWit

What would you do?
by Jack deWit

Let’s question your judgment for a moment.

Assume you and a couple of friends are out for a stroll down the CNR tracks and you are about to cross a railway bridge. You meet a hiker coming the opposite way who claims he heard a train coming from behind causing him to rush to make it across the bridge. However, because of the terrain, the train is not audible at the present time. Would you ignore the warning and attempt to cross the bridge or would you perhaps wait until such time as the
train passed or it was reasonable to suspect that it might have stopped on a siding on the other side?

Again, let’s imagine you are hiking in “Forests For the World” and you meet up with a jogger and he says that he just saw a black bear around the next corner. Would you take any precaution to protect yourself or any others who
may be following you or would you blindly forge on and hope for the best?

Now suppose you were a driver who had the circumstance to witness an erratic and possibly impaired driver. Would you report the vehicle to the authorities as soon as possible? Perhaps you would flash your lights at
oncoming traffic providing some type of warning that a hazard was ahead of them.

Regrettably this happened recently on the Hart Highway. A motorist went out of his way to try to convince, without success, an alleged impaired driver to refrain from going any further. He then warned an RCMP member of his
observations and obviously hoped that a call would be made to dispatch so another police vehicle could be sent to intercept the truck that was witnessed being operated erratically.

Unfortunately, it seems, for whatever reason, the police did not heed the warning immediately and a serious accident involving the impaired driver resulted with the death of one child and serious injuries to his parents.
Luckily a brother survived with minor injuries.

In my opinion, there should be an external investigation into this incident. An internal analysis of the events could be publicly viewed as unacceptable and bias. RCMP policy on these types of warnings must be included in their
training manual. We often hear and see advertisements asking the general public to assist police as “eyes and ears” so that they may perform their duties more efficiently. Why compose these requests if they go unheard?

I ask that an investigation proceed forthwith to provide RCMP and other police agencies with cause to draft policy pertaining to such information offered by citizens. Moreover such an examination may assist Murray LaPlante, who in this case provided the warning, to conclude that he did everything in his power to prevent the accident. The inquiry into this tragedy can also assist all police forces in justifying whether or not they acted in accordance with prudence and not a reactive judgment call made at the time of receiving such information.

I can only assume the constable involved must be questioning his/her decision in this particular case, perhaps even to the point of accepting some responsibility for the tragedy. In my opinion, it is better to respond effectively and err on the side of caution. Only an independent panel will conclude if policy must be enhanced to cover such an incident.


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