Policing with the World on Your Beat:
Remarks for the Sesquicentennial of the St. Thomas Police

by John Thompson

October 19, 2002

When I first met with the organizers of tonight’s events, I scratched my head to think of what I could recall about St. Thomas in history, and — I’m ashamed to admit — the only thing that popped up was that this city is where the famous circus elephant Jumbo was killed… evidently that was one elephant this community will never forget.

I’d like to thank you for the invitation to address this distinguished gathering, and would like to congratulate the St. Thomas Police Force for 150 years of service.

150 years, that is a long time ago. The Duke of Wellington was dying — while a nephew of his old enemy Napoleon was just proclaimed as the Emperor of France. Harriet Beecher Stowe was finishing her novel "Uncle Tom’s Cabin", a book which did more than anything else to win popular support against slavery in America. Wells Fargo was founded and House Sparrows from England were first deliberately released in North America.

Here in Elgin County, a few elderly veterans of the British Army on their land grants would have recalled their old General. A small black community was forming down in Essex-Kent, the terminus of the Underground Railway for escaped slaves from the US. Over on the Niagara River, there was much excitement about a brand-new engineering marvel — a suspension bridge over the Gorge hanging from steel cables: Cutting edge technology!

Municipal policing was a brand new innovation too. It was only in 1829 that the British created a centralized metropolitan police force, and it would have been a proud civic moment in St. Thomas when the city could establish its own force — proving that it too was a modern community.

150 years ago; a police officer in Canada was a well-equipped fellow. If force was necessary, he would have his truncheon at the end of the long arm of the law. His ability to communicate was enhanced with a rattle, or even a whistle. And, of course, municipal coffers permitting, he might have access to a horse on occasion.

A century ago, there had been some improvements. In 1902, an officer might be carrying a revolver besides his truncheon. Municipal call boxes could be found at various points around the city, allowing an officer to use a telephone to report in or summon assistance. Instead of wearing out shoe-leather, he might have one of these new-fangled bicycles when making his rounds.

50 years ago, within living memory, a police officer would certainly have a revolver and was likely to be driving a radio-equipped patrol car (perhaps one with a shotgun in the trunk).

And now today: On the crowded belt of today’s police officer there is a semi-automatic pistol, spare magazines for it, perhaps a small container of pepper spray, and the old oak truncheon has long been replaced with a nylon/plastic baton, a or telescoping stick. Sitting atop of his (or her) body armor, there is a small tactical radio, with another radio and computer terminal in the car — for access to a variety of databanks; and a shotgun sits there too. As back up in case of real trouble would be a tactical response unit with an array of weaponry including submachine guns, grenade launchers, non-lethal chemical weapons, flash-bang grenades, scoped rifles for marksmen and assault rifles.

One wonders what the next 50 years will bring.

The changes to a police officer’s communications and equipment have been driven by technology, certainly; but also by necessity. Society has changed too, as has criminal behavior. Back in 1852, we didn’t expect police officers to study criminology, social theory, or other academic disciplines. Experience was all that was necessary; but those were simpler times.

Some of you will recall Abraham Maslow’s famous theory on the hierarchy of needs, and how human beings act to meet a set tier of requirements 1) for food, water and immediate survival, 2) for shelter, or a home; 3) for companionship or sex; 4) for peer respect and recognition; and 5) for "self-actualization" — to act to express yourself, or for self-image. It isn’t a perfect theory, but it is a simple one and can be carried a long way.

Beyond the bread and butter daily work of seeing to traffic laws, enforcing bylaws and otherwise working for safety, peace and order in the community; there is always some crime that has to be addressed. There is always somebody around in any population who is willing to take that infantile shortcut to fulfillment of these needs by resorting to crime.

In 1852, survival could be an immediate concern for some people; and shelter wasn’t always guaranteed either. Petty theft in those days could involve livestock, firewood, or a smash and grab at a bakery rather than a jewelry store. But there were some big gaps in today’s panoply of criminal behaviors. If a murder occurred, it was usually to preserve the killer’s security and domestic life. There were criminal gangs, mostly in big immigration hubs like New York, but these were small and informal by today’s standards and their main attraction for recruiting was the prospect of survival in an alien environment, rather than the need for peer respect. The word "terrorist" usually was a historical term referring to the agents of the French government 60 years earlier during the worst of their Revolution. The few deviants that had popped up in history; like Giles de Rais, the Emperor Caligula, and Vlad Tepes; were likewise rare and dead. When most of society is preoccupied with the bottom three of Maslow’s tiers of need, there is little scope for a serial killer, terrorist or gangster.

By 1902, things had changed. "Terrorism" now referred to the frantic activities of the Anarchists, who had been killing national leaders and captains of industry on both sides of the Atlantic — the modern political criminal had appeared on the scene. Street gangs had grown in size and sophistication, but still largely restricted themselves to major cities. Gangs of petty Irish thugs (containing the likes of my own Granduncle in New York) were starting to be eased aside by the likes of the Sicilian Black Hand. Also, the modern serial killer had finally lurched into view through the likes of Jack the Ripper, Herman Mudgett (aka H.H. Holmes of the ‘murder castle’), or the French "Ripper" Joseph Vacher.

However, these problems must have seemed remote in St. Thomas; but the outside world was drawing closer.

In 1952, the Mafia was recognizably on the scene; having been turned by the Prohibition period (which ended 20 years earlier) from a loose conglomeration of urban gangs into a structured transnational society on both sides of the Border. While the world was taking a break from the appalling violence of the past few decades, the foundations for modern terrorism had been firmly established — and Arab intellectuals in Egypt and Syria were busy formulating the creed that we know today as Islamic Fundamentalism. And of course, sociologists and psychologists (two relatively new academic disciplines) were busy examining the occasional serial killer, and trying to model their behaviors and understand their motives.

And so to today. As Canada has matured into a cosmopolitan society, people from almost every nation on the planet have arrived here. As always, the majority are here to build a decent life for themselves and their children. But in every community, a few are here as organized criminals or agents of a terrorist group; and we have a representation from every group in the world.

Canada has the old Mafia still floating around, but we also have Bikers, Aboriginal gangs, Chinese and Vietnamese Triads, sundry Mafiya groups out of Eastern Europe, Nigerian confidence artists, Lebanese gangs, Jamaican Posses, and the occasional Latin American group. We have become a fully cosmopolitan country, and our underworld is truly multi-cultural.

Organized crime is well out of the big urban centres and can be found almost everywhere in Canada. One of the key distributors for black market firearms in southern Ontario used to hang his hat inside the Oneida Reserve, while Walpole Island remains a key smuggling area and Ipperwash has become an interesting nexus for sundry activities. Bikers are omnipresent, and other gangs are following the money into the suburbs and smaller cities.

As the likes of Clifford Olson and the team of Bernardo/Homolka can demonstrate, serial predators are no longer exclusively a feature of urban life.

Terrorism has grown dramatically from being a nuisance to a deadly threat to the very fiber of the Liberal Democratic nations. Moreover, the major terrorist groups in the world today are usually funded through organized crime; adding a new dimension to the threat they pose.

While homegrown terrorism inside Canada is rare — our busiest group is the Animal Liberation Front — international terrorism is altogether more serious. The Al-Qaeda meta-network (a network of networks) has trained its members in the production and use of chemical weapons. Its attacks on September 11^th killed some 3,200 people in a single day; a feat they probably intend to surpass as soon as they can. The September 11^th attacks were meant to paralyze the command structure of the World’s leading superpower; and damage the economy of the entire Western World — and they did succeed in this second objective. Their recent sinking of a 400,000 ton French oil tanker shows they are willing to continue these assaults, and now their nature is again displayed by the death of almost 200 Western tourists and Balinese Hindus.

The network also shows a real talent for recruiting disaffected Muslim immigrants in the Western World, and for recruiting our own criminals. Al Qaeda has profited from opium and heroin production, while cell members have engaged in counterfeiting, consumer scams, and organized automobile theft. As we have seen in Europe and the United States, any town or city in the Western world could shelter one of their cells.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose main support base is now Toronto — the largest Sri Lankan Tamil city in the World, have also demonstrated how a terrorist group might undertake no actions in Canada (except against members of their own community), but their fundraising and political arms can still become a profound and subtle threat. They have interfered with police investigations, assiduously sought political influence, and learned to intimidate the media — all to ensure that the Tigers hold over Canadian Tamils remains uninterrupted.

International organized crime and international terrorism can be found everywhere. Indeed, their most common presence is revealed in narcotics — every ounce of coke, or hashish, of heroin, or of metamphetamines puts money into the pocket of somebody in a transnational terrorist group, and ammunition into the AK-47 of some terrorist or insurgent somewhere else. But their presence is by no means restricted to narcotics — people smuggling, systemic consumer fraud, extortion, or any of a variety of other schemes can indicate their existence on the streets that you protect and in the community that you serve.

In a society where all of our basic needs are met, organized crime, terrorist groups and serial/sexual killers — all engaged in their skewed satiation of the human need for peer respect and self-expression are more common than ever. They will continue to be plentiful in the foreseeable future, they will continue to adapt and react to whatever means are brought against them, and they will continue to present challenges that you must meet.

Here in St. Thomas, you represent a proud tradition, but those who served this community before you did not have to see the world’s problems at their own doors. You might envy the quieter times that they lived in, but I am sure that the constables that came before you will rest secure knowing that their legacy is in the best possible hands.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca