Clinton Jaws - Remembering Mayerthorpe RCMP

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Former police officer remembers what happened 15 yrs ago and explains how it changed him. Colin Brown, a member in mayerthorpe, sent me a print of the fallen members, created by his mother in law. Brock, Leo, Anthony, and Peter will never be forgotten.

Hey guys, Clint here. How you doing today? That's great. Hmm. I don't even know how to start this. I guess you just, it's my old watch commander used to say. From the beginning, Clint. Sitting at home the other day and I got something in the mail from another member from Marathort. His name's Colin Brown. Thought I'd share it with you. Some of RCMP print that I haven't put in frame yet. It's of the four fall. and members in Marathorpe. I thought it was really cool. How cool is that?

Guy sends this to me in the mail, this member of Marathorpe. Kind of touched me. I thought, I don't think, well, maybe we do. We don't remember enough. I think this is something important to remember

because it affected me. Still does today. It's funny how memories are, though. My memory is not very good. I don't have a good memory. I remember towards the end of my career, I would go to work, it would be a night shift. And anything that happened after 1 o'clock, my duties that I had to complete by 6 in the morning,

I'd forget to do them. That's what I started, ended up doing. I started forgetting to add things on the watch report or read a certain file. I don't know why. I don't know why I started being that way. I had a lot of my mind. and I don't know, maybe memories just go. I don't know.

I don't know. But I remember waking up in the morning after night shifts and going, oh, man, the moment I would wake up, I'd come home around sex, I'd go to bed, I'd sleep for about four hours, I'd wake up. Right away, I'd be like, damn it, I forgot to do this, this, this, and this. And out of fear, I would call the watch office, right? Tell them my mistakes. See if I have to come back in. to fix them. So I'm going to talk about the Marathorp,

but only what I remember from it. It's hazy, but I don't remember, I remember how it affected me. And I think that's the most important thing. I think this happened, but I don't know for certain. There was an instructor,

an RCMP instructor, and I don't know where this happened, but I think he went through the entire Marithorpe incident to a group of people and I was I was part of that group. I know it's strange. You think he would, I think it happened at PRTC. This is what I remember.

Some of it's going to be right. Guaranteed some of it's going to be wrong. I haven't dug into the internet to refresh my memory. I'm not going to do that. These members were at a search warrant for a grow-up. I think the guy's bad guy's name. It doesn't matter what the bad guy's name was. It's not say as bad name.

his name. Bad guy, while these four members were guarding, hmm, guarding this area, I know it wasn't, it was on a farm, I'm pretty sure. For some reason, I have a vision of them being in a barn or some kind of hut. And while they're standing around talking, bad guy comes in and kills them all, shoots them. I remember three of the four members that were there. I remember their names. it was Brock Anthony and Peter

and Leo I think his nickname was Leo the other so I guess I do remember the four those were the members involved one of the members when he got shot he was on the on the ground

and he was able to get one shot off that bad guy that shot if I remember right hit bad guy's gun that was in his waistband hit the butt of it I remember

and this part upset me and I'm sure I didn't dream it. One of the members showed up with no uniform on. He was in plain clothes. And I was told the reason why was because a week before somebody complained that this member was in uniform buying something. Grocery shopping, something.

And that member ended up getting a 10-04. He ended up getting a talking to from his boss not to do that again. that member was on his way out of town on the day not wearing uniform and he was driving i believe a police vehicle to get in for service somewhere and the reason why he wasn't wearing a uniform was because he was going to be out and about and he didn't want to get in trouble for being out and about in uniform even though that's not even a thing but there it was i'm not blaming anybody i'm not blaming as boss for giving him a 10-0-4, maybe he was instructed to do it.

I don't know all the details, but that's why that young fella showed up without a uniform. Also remember a police officer that possibly saved a lot of lives by shooting bad guy, I think twice, one in the hand, one in the leg, and then bad guy went and killed himself. That's what I remember when it comes to Marathorpe. I remember being shucking up about it. It's an embarrassing story, but I was in Duncan. driving down the highway. This is about a week after this incident happened. I'm driving down the highway, late at night, and a vehicle turned off the highway right onto Alambi. I don't even know if you could turn right onto Alambi. I don't, Indian Road maybe, one of those roads. And the vehicle's not stopping. And it shook the hell out of me, not stopping. I'm not calling it in because I don't want it to be a pursuit. And I had a major case of tunnel vision.

And when I did talk on the radio, I was amped. My voice was up. People were saying, Clint, are you all right there? I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm fine. I could barely breathe. Pulled over the vehicle. I wrestled with the driver. Got the driver in handcuffs.

But my heart went through. I was out of control. Everything took over. Every one of those bad things that, no breathing could have fixed it. And it bugged me. It was the first time. I ever felt scared of the job. And it was because of this incident that was weighing on my head.

I pictured the bad guy driving, having a gun. This incident in Marathorpe made me realize cops die. Made me realize that there's bad guys out there that want to kill cops. I never thought that for, I'd only had a few years service. And I never really, I wasn't scared of anything. But that really shook. me up, the incident shook me up, that call of me trying to pull over that drunk driver shook me up. I never experienced that again, but the incident made me on guard. And I sometimes wonder,

you know, you look at a picture like this and you see the four members and you, you want to try to look at the good things about it. And is there possibly good things about it? Did they, did their death save other police officers? could have. Possibly. Their death might have saved a lot of officers because from that moment on, I was on guard. I knew that there were people out there that wanted to and could kill me, could kill cops. It made me more aware. Although I don't remember, there was also some changes in policy when it came to search warrants, and I can't remember exactly what the change was. But maybe that saves some lives too.

So, I think it's good to remember because you have to, right? This is important. These guys died. We don't want it to happen again. And maybe their death saved countless other officers' death from happening. Maybe. That's about it. I want to call him Brown.

Thank you for sending that to me. Damn cool, man. You said you were going to send it to me? I didn't expect it. but oh I gotta show you this. I gotta show you how I got it. Came in the mail. Okay?

This is how it comes in the mail. See, can you read that? Do not fold, right? This pitcher came all the way from Alberta. Do not fold. Picture. Inside. Big writing on it, right?

I go upstairs and my wife is, uh... She's like, Clint, You got something from Amazon. What'd you order from Amazon? I'm like, I didn't order anything from Amazon. What are you talking about? Well, it's something. I don't know exactly what it is, but...

I'm like, honey, it says do not fold. It's a pitcher. Oh. Well, you can't get mad at that. Of course not. Do you believe it? It makes its way, all away from Alberta, crosses the border.

And she's holding on to her. So I've been working hard to get the kinks out. I'm gonna put it in a frame. I'm proud of it. I love it. And Colin, I got your address here. I'm gonna send you something. Thanks, man.

But it might be not... It might get it at Christmas time. Anyways. That's it.