Praise For HAWCS Newsworthy?

Advertising for mundane police work worth a full half page in a Calgary Sun edition where other more newsworthy articles were left informationally vacant is worth comment.

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2009/07/30/10310416-sun.html

In this news story, HAWCS gets top honours for locating an impaired driving suspect using infrared technology.

Eventually, Dutnall and Ng using the infrared thermal imager and orbiting for about 40 minutes in the area, homed in on a heat source under a street along a very steep ridge overlooking Sunnyside.

At the time, Ng hoped the heat source wasn't a rock, which can actually hold heat, Cave said.

"This guy was not running down the street, but hunkered down in thick bush," she said of the onerous task of finding him.

"Without that camera, they could never have caught this guy ... I was completely impressed."

With the assistance of police on the ground, including the canine unit, the suspect was taken into custody.

"It was really good work for picking up on that little flicker of heat source," Cave said.

You've got to be serious? What's next, "lawyer gets top honours for using criminal code"? "Judge gets top honours for using a pen?". "Iginla gets top honours for wearing skates"? Using the tools we have been given to do our job is akin to putting the right foot in front of the left when walking. I find it extremely difficult to get really excited about on duty police officers using tools of the trade to fly around and look for red flickers. I am, however, impressed with the collective work of all of the officers, combined with a high level of due diligence in capturing the suspect. But, isn't this what we should reasonably expect from all members of our local constabulary?

Next week’s story: "Law enforcement lauded for using handcuffs".

There were a number of informationally vacant stories in today's edition of the Sun. As a citizen, I would rather have real information, germane to important stories rather than those designed to pat law enforcement on the back for doing seemingly simple and expected tasks.

Where is the follow-up on the death of Harley the Dog???

http://andjusticeforall-calgary.blogspot.com/2009/07/token-investigation-investigation-into.html

http://andjusticeforall-calgary.blogspot.com/2009/07/repostcode-of-silence-investigation.html

David G. Chow
Calgary Criminal Defence Lawyer

www.calgarydefence.com