Is Winnipeg's Chief of Police compromised?
It's been two-and-a-half weeks since an aboriginal mob overturned two landmark statues on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature and Winnipeg police haven't made a single arrest.
This is suspicious since the vandalism happened right under the eyes of dozens of uniformed police, none of whom who lifted a finger to stop it. In fact, the next day, Police Chief Danny Smyth commended the police at the scene for doing nothing.
Even after officers were spit on and had rocks thrown at them, the police failed to respond, effectively sending a message that they were ceding the streets to violent rabble.
Smyth, reading emotionlessly from a written statement, reassured the public that the police "will be investigating this." Yay. He said they would start by watching footage from security cameras at the Legislature.
He forgot to mention the cameras are a good 200 or 300 feet away from the site of the vandalism and assaults on individual officers.
The blatant inaction by the police only reminds citizens of how useless the police were in stopping thefts from liquor stores by roving gangs.
The Liquor Commission had to turn liquor stores into Checkpoint Charlie-like bunkers with locked doors and identity checks before honest citizens can enter. Smyth, with the help of the local news media, did his best to hide the make-up of most of these gangs.
Smythe's lackadaisical responses to burgeoning crime and social disorder have made him the only Winnipeg police chief in living memory to be publicly rebuked by a vote of non-confidence from the rank-and-file on the force.
It's also given life to a troubling rumour that's been circulating on social media off-and-on for many months. It's the type of unsourced story that would normally be ignored, dismissed as unworthy of comment---except that these are not normal times.
The rumour, if true, would suggest that Police Chief Danny Smyth may be compromised when dealing with aboriginal crime issues.
We first were alerted to the story two years ago, July 2019.
The story, as it goes, is that Danny Smyth has a close-up and personal relationship with an aboriginal member of the Manitoba Legislature. Frank Magazine might call it a "legover" but since the word isn't in our dictionary, we won't.
But said female MLA has a history of attacking Canada's police services. Among her public positions, police are racist tools of white colonists, and violent aboriginal street gangs are simply poor, misunderstood products of colonialism.
If her, ahem, "influence" has extended to Danny Smyth's definition of public safety, then citizens need to know. Reporters need to start asking hard questions to kill the rumour once and for all, if untrue, or expose the root cause of the police chief's ineffectual attitude to aboriginal crime and public disorder, if verified.
When violent mobs can engage in open destruction of public property without fear of consequences and launch assaults on individual police without fear of arrest or prosecution, someone must be held accountable.
That person is, shamefully, the current Chief of Police.
Does a two-year-old rumour explain his inaction?