After retiring as an RCMP officer, Charles Scheideman had had a bellyful of policing, which was changing in ways not to his liking. He was a street cop, one of the close-cropped breed who understood the ways of the world. He knew how to handle delicate situations, and he knew when to throw away the key to the hoosegow.
An adulterous couple out hunting killed a couple of horses? Well, pay the farmer for his horses and no charges(or publicity) will be levied. Case closed.
This worldly-wise approach was being snuffed by office-bound bureaucrats with university degrees and little or no understanding of human nature. Worse, political correctness was degrading more than just language.
The snappy image of the RCMP marching band notwithstanding, former Mountie and author Charles Scheideman finds today’s force is offering the public less of a service than in the old days when officers learned on the job.
Why, back in the day…
The Victoria, B. C. writer has gathered his own stories, as well as those told by other officers, in Policing the Fringe, an account of his two decades chasing scofflaws in the vast wilderness of the British Columbia Interior. Scheideman patrolled such hardscrabble places as Lytton, Quesnel and Williams Lake, “a frontier town, a hard-drinking, long-distance-driving sort of place.” Liquor inspired most of the capers in the book, booze too often turning stupid behaviour into the criminal.
There are plenty of car wrecks and enough gore to satisfy fans of the macabre. Among the gruesome delights are maggot-ridden bodies and the puzzle of a crushed car at the bottom of a mountain in which no human remains are found. Turns out the wreck was not discovered until after wolverines had feasted on the driver’s remains.
Other tales involve feral children; a bank heist in Fernie schemed by Keystone Kriminals( “the plan was so poorly thought out that it was more like comic theatre than a criminal conspiracy”);and the recovery of an apparent suicide with a gruesome head wound from a gunshot, during which one officer’s bitter observation– “at least the asshole came out here and didn’t make a mess inside” –caused the victim to hoist himself on an elbow to “glare with his remaining eye.” Incredibly, the man recovered after getting reconstructive surgery.
Scheideman reserves his angriest judgment for lawyers: “Ninety-nine per cent of them give the rest a bad name.”
His working life coincided with the creation of the marijuana-growing industry, as the hot valley sun helped create bumper harvests of such varieties of B. C. bud as Fraser Funk and Stein Stun.
The cop did not have much time for those who defended the cultivators. At one trial, he could not disguise his disgust.
“I have always been puzzled by the fact that lawyers, who are officers of Her Majesty’s court, are so willing to accept payments in such obviously dirty money,” he writes. “In this case, I took the opportunity at the trial to ask the lawyer if he ever engaged in barter with his clients or if it was necessary for them to convert their product to cash in every case. He curtly replied that everyone was entitled to counsel. I replied that I was well aware of that, but that he had not answered my question. He walked away.”
In another case, he was frustrated by a judge who went easy on an accused who turned out to be a fellow lodge brother.
Police often deal with the worst of us at our worst, perhaps understandably resulting in a jaundiced view of humankind, with attendant prejudices. Scheideman’s attitude towards aboriginal peoples can at best be described as paternalistic. “We felt pity for the native people,” he writes of his youth in Alberta, “but we were unable to understand their laid-back, apparently apathetic attitude.” To criticize such an attitude is to reflect a political correctness that fuels much of the retired cop’s anger at what has happened to his profession.
“Street-educated cops who roll with the punches and dish out as good as they get have not got a snowball’s chance in hell of advancement beyond their current assigned level. The exams and assessments for promotion are all formulated by the behind-the-scenes folks with rosecoloured glasses.”
In 1974, in the middle of his career, which lasted from 1961 until 1989, the officer took part in a car chase through Kicking Horse Pass during which he fired his gun at a speeding Fiat Spider.
He assumes today he would be pilloried for such an action, though he delights in having been presented with a handmade trophy by his daughter. Topped by a toy sports car, the trophy honours “Sharp Shot Scheideman.”
Policing the Fringe is a crisply written account of one man’s experience with the Mounties. Fans of police tales will find much to admire. Others will find insight into the attitudes of an earlier generation of law enforcers.
Canwest News Service
