Police Gone Amok

Earlier today I did a rant about Robert Dziekanksi police murder.

It isn't the only one. Another police murder that bothers me tremendously is the killing of Ian Bush. Sadly, the RCMP "investigatge" themselves and oddly always come to the conclusion that the murder was "justifiable". It is a sham and a travesty that any police force is allowed to "investigate" itself. The police close ranks and "protect their own". The result is a seriously deficient police force that harbours bullies and murderers:

Early Sunday morning, a sleepy Andrea Patrick opened her door to an officer from the local RCMP. After being told that her 22 year-old brother, Ian Bush, was dead, the first question was, "How is he dead? Was it a motor vehicle accident?" The officer's reply was, "All we can say is he's dead."

...

A friend of Andrea's, who had taken criminology courses, insisted the family get themselves a lawyer. She recommended Howard Rubin, of Vancouver. Four months after the incident happened, Rubin was able to inform the family that Ian had died from a single, close range shot to the back of his head.

Here's how CTV, one of the major TV networks covered the story:

The lawyer for the family of a man fatally shot by police said Thursday it appears RCMP were targeting Ian Bush when he was arrested with an open beer.

Howard Rubin said Bush was among a crowd of people outside the hockey arena in this northwestern B.C. community yet he was the only one to get a ticket.

"There's no other tickets,'' Rubin said outside a coroner's inquest into Bush's death.

"There's beer that's seized. They just go for Ian. He's a person that's at the back of the crowd when that happens. They acknowledge that he was just holding someone's beer at one point.''

Const. Paul Koester said he was fighting for his life when he shot Bush, 22, in a struggle at the RCMP detachment Oct. 29, 2005.

The New Westminster, B.C., police investigated the shooting and concluded Koester shouldn't be charged.

The public outcry that followed prompted B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal to make some details of the shooting public.