Some old Hollywood films popularized the phrase that the Mounties always get their man. It’s a useful fiction for the RCMP because it suggests that if you commit a crime they’re gonna find you, so don’t bother committing a crime. In other words, it serves as general deterrence – deterring people from committing crimes.
But of course, the Mounties don’t always get their man. And sometimes the Mounties are the victims of crime.
We get thousands of pages of IRP disclosure every year from Freedom of Information requests that we make to police forces around British Columbia. After all, we need keep on top of things because we’re the number one IRP DUI law office in the world! And you may know that, aside from simply defending 90-day prohibitions, we are engaged in a long-term struggle to get the law scrapped. So to that end, and to defend our clients we leave no stone unturned.
In the disclosure packages we obtain we find lots of problems with roadside breathalyzers (i.e. ASDs). It’s staggering actually. We’re often taken aback by the number and severity of the problems.
Also, however, in the disclosure packages we often find things that make us laugh. There was the case of the ASD forgotten on the roof of a cruiser and later found to have been run over on the highway. And the one from Whistler that appeared to have been dropped in a similar fashion and put back into service only to be found to be malfunctioning again and again. Its funny until you realize that innocent people were punished by this device. Then it’s not funny.
In a recent disclosure package we found emails describing the theft of five ASDs from the Langley RCMP. Apparently earlier this year the Langley RCMP were the victims of the largest ASD theft in recent BC history. Grand theft breathalyzer. The Mounties were robbed, and it doesn’t appear that they’ll ever get their man.
A bunch of things come to mind when we think about this. Firstly, how was it that the RCMP were victims of a crime yet they can’t find the culprit(s)? As well, who would be so stupid as to steal these breathalyzers? And what did they do with them? Are there now rogue cops or fake cops using them to hand out IRPs for cash?
We can’t imagine that they could sell them. We doubt that the Nelson Police would buy them, even at a cut rate. You never know about Delta, however. Or perhaps they went to a breathalyzer chop shop. There might be a market for used Alco-Sensor IV mouthpiece retaining clips.
In any event, you read it here first: the Mounties were robbed of five breathalyzers and it appears that they did not get their man. Chances of the RCMP recovering these stolen ASDs is about the same as the VPD recovering those CDs that were taken from your car while parked at Science World back in 1993.
Do the Mounties always get their man? Of course not.