John had very kindly agreed, on short notice, to speak about his 31-year career as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) force, which he joined at age 19.
In those days (54 years ago), only single males were accepted into the force and only after 2 years with the RCMP could a member seek the force’s permission to marry. The training took place in Regina and John’s class was the last group to be trained to be mounted on horses that played an essential role in the group’s graduation ceremony (seven months later) for the last time.
John’s first posting was in Swift Current, where he lived with 8 roommates. Routine detachment work included traffic, domestic incidents and break & entries. It was here that as a 19-year old he witnessed the horrible scene of a fatal accident – a jet crash near Moose Jaw.
Next stop was a 6-year stint in Assiniboia, a mixed farming and ranching area, where the RCMP was responsible for both the “usual policing issues” as well as the “unusual” in an area exceeding 4800 square miles. These included minor thefts to safe attacks, assaults, cattle rustling (where stolen un-branded cattle were found in Ontario and identified from a picture the farmer had taken several days earlier to show his visiting daughter), a 2-seater plane crash and search for the instructor and student whose parachutes had malfunctioned as they abandoned the plane, sudden deaths (suicides, gunshots, poisons), a mystery grave alongside a railroad track with no body, a money belt containing $35,000 cash removed from a car crash victim’s body and accidentally incinerated (Subsequent careful analysis of the ashes verified the identity of the cash!).
John’s next posting was in the drug section located in Saskatoon, which he found boring, dealing with the usual soft drug problems. However, he recalled a psychopathic truck driver by the name of David Threinen who killed four young children (7-12 years old) in that city in 1975.
Next stop was an office job in Ottawa’s RCMP criminal intelligence section. There were lots of weapons in the Toronto and Miami areas in the 70s and 80s – mainly STEN guns, (submachine guns used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces during World War II and the Korean War). An investigation by the RCMP, Canadian Forces Investigations Unit and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) determined that the Canadian army’s STEN guns had been made unusable in two different methods at opposite ends of the country. Criminals gathered them and reassembled using the serviceable parts from each.
While at The Pas, John joined Rotary and started the first lobster dinner fundraiser there. From The Pas, John was moved to Winnipeg where he worked in criminal intelligence - the last 4 years in the area of money laundering. His last court case took place in 1996-97 and 4 years ago John got a phone call from the still-in-jail criminal seeking John’s help!
In response to a question as to what John thinks of the changes that are taking place in the RCMP, he indicated that the RCMP hires humans, and humans are not perfect.
John had also brought along the book “In The Line of Duty” by Robert Knuckle which was the honour roll of the RCMP since 1873.
President Doug thanked John for his interesting presentation.
Amayra Wilson, one of three recipients of the Ed Werbowski scholarship awarded in 2020, attended Oak Park High School which provided the following school biography of the young lady: