'Enough is enough,' RCMP labour rep says of officers going alone

Monday's shooting death of an RCMP officer in Kimmirut, Nunavut — the second such death in a month — has renewed calls for the national police force to make it mandatory for officers to have backup in more cases.

Const. Douglas Scott, 20, was fatally shot late Monday evening while responding to a report ofimpaired driving in the small Baffin Island hamlet. RCMP in Iqaluit are expected to lay charges Wednesday against a male suspect in relation to the incident.

Scott's death came one month less a day after Const. Christopher Worden, 30, was gunned down while answering a call in Hay River, N.W.T. In both cases, the officers answered the service calls alone, late at night.

The RCMP has been working on a new policy that is expected to expand the circumstancesin which backup becomes mandatory for lone officers going into uncertain or dangerous situations. Currently, officers make such decisions at their discretion.

But the RCMP's staff relations program, which handles labour relations for the force's 20,000 rank-and-file members, "has been chasing for the last 10 years to take that discretion away from the members," said Staff Sgt. Brian Roach, a national executive member of the program.

"Have a specific scripted policy that says, 'You will take backup out with you,' " Roach told CBC News in an interview Wednesday.

"And in this policy, we have a number of scenarios whereby you have no choice: There will be backup coming with you and you won't be going until the backup's there with you."

Roach said the policy has been written and could be approved at a high-level meeting with management next month.

"You know, enough is enough. We have to get this thing done. We got to get it done yesterday, in my mind," he said.

"We're hoping now that we've built this policy with the agreement of management, and at the earliest date, which I believe is December 3rd, they're going to stamp this thing and implement it."

RCMP will face questions

Funeral plans for Scott have not been arranged, but a service could take place next week. In Lyn, a community near Brockville, Ont., his parents and family continue to grieve the loss of a young man they had hoped would be coming home to visit in two weeks' time.

His uncle, Kingston Police Staff Sgt. Chris Scott, told CBC News that his family will eventually have questions for the RCMP about the circumstances and issues surrounding his nephew's death.

"The entire family, we're still distraught and deep in the early stages of the grieving process that, you know, we haven't really thought of those questions," Scott said Wednesday in an interview.

"But a lot of those questions will come up, and I'm sure that the RCMP will answer them."

Roach said the policy changes have been a long time coming, and blamed a lack of human resources and the costs for the delay. But he said he hopes the deaths of Scott and Worden will be the final impetus for some kind of change.

"Sadly, these incidents should not be the trigger for this type of thing," he said. "We've been doing this, chasing this, for the last 10 years."