Gabriel Wortman discussion sites attracting SMURFs like a screw-up attracts a cover-up

secret army of SMURFs defend 20 years of screw-ups

I am a member of a couple of Facebook groups that act as semi-public forums to discuss what went wrong in the twenty years of police interactions with the aggressive squirrelly gun-owning millionaire GW.

As more revelations have been forced out between the cracks in the red serge bricks, criticism of the RCM and HRM* police has gotten louder and louder on those forums.

*Me mostly, because I don’t think all of the blame for the festering sore Open Secret lies with the RCMP .

Or for that matter, lies with the HRM police either. An awful lots lies with us, the ordinary people of Nova Scotia. Just as it did in that other festering sore cum Open Secret : the premier who assaulted little girls.

But to rebut this rising wave of angry criticism, an equally large and active force of RCMP defenders have appeared on these forums.

Sometimes it is clear from their Facebook profile they are retired RCMP, at other times, their forum comments make it clear they worked in the policing field. Sometimes I can only suspect they are relatives of retired RCMP - spouse, siblings etc.

Journalist Paul Palango made his career investigating crime and then the crime chasers, the RCMP.

His father’s people are from Broad Cove Cape Breton and he has retired back here and he occasionally writes for the Halifax Examiner.

In his 2008 book “Dispensing the Fog” he devotes a chapter to the secret armies of the RCMP ; the smurfs.

People who go on forums to defend the RCMP without making it clear that they were once Mounties or their spouse or dear brother is.

Now these forums are meant to be free wheeling so I do not object to these smurfs voicing their opinions.

But it wouldn't hurt if they also announce where they are coming from, right from the start.

Honesty begins with the individual - the individual mountie, saying “I’m at the scene of a major major murder, the biggest since I don’t know when (when : 1751), and the killer is still on the loose”.

Instead of “We are investigating a firearms incident.”

Honest begins with the individual smurf saying “ I think the RCMP is just great and —— and I just retired from the Force.”