To the Editor:

Saturday, October 17 daytime was uncharacteristically drizzly and wet in Keremeos, so when skies cleared that evening, I set out at 10 p.m. from my home to walk through town, taking the main thoroughfare.

Suddenly out of nowhere, an RCMP truck pulled up from behind containing a solo, female greenhorn constable. She cheerfully accosted me, stating that she’d just received report of a person acting suspiciously on the main drag and that I “perfectly fit the description.” I just as cheerfully told her that I’d recently walked up Seventh Avenue, but had done nothing more than quietly walk up the street, literally minding my own business. She reiterated how much I resembled the falsely alleged pedestrian walking downtown.

She then asked my name, which I gave her but pressed for further information - to which I asked whether she was attempting to interrogate me as a “suspect.”

She denied I was a suspect, to which I indicated I’d be on my way because there was no correlation between what she was on about and my person. When she realized I possessed knowledge of my rights as a citizen she immediately launched into her well rehearsed spiel that she’d have me thrown in prison for not playing the game by her rules.

I had to think on my feet quickly - did I want to continue my quiet walk homeward under a starry, autumn sky, or have the girl with the gun turn my life upside down on a decidedly slow news kind of night? My horoscope said nothing about being confronted by uniformed thugs tonight, but I caved in and answered her questioning. Even though we went our separate ways on her terms, she eerily stalked me on my peaceful walk over the next ten minutes and then again jumped out of her truck elsewhere to ask me all the questions she “forgot” to ask earlier.

Please note - I was always on public sidewalks and roadways during her pursuit.

We live in a region where the yahoo factor is about 8.4 on the Richter scale, furhtermore the young cop admitted she knew the allegator - it is clear to me that they each had nothing better to do in this deadend burg but to make trouble for an innocent pedestrian.

It is perfectly legal in Canada to quietly preambulate through public wayfarea but it is not legal for police to detain citizens and question them about personal data without due cause.

What struck me most about these multiple encounters last week was that she would not tell me why she was interrogating me once I professed my innocence and utter unawareness of what she was talking about. She preferred rather to bully me by threatening to throw me in prison without explaining her demand for all my personal data. I still don’t understand how a cop purports to throw intelligent, innocent citizens into their prisons without a valid charge laid, court trial, or actual sentencing and conviction by a judge.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedons, protects all of us from arbitrary detainment by armed officials. It is our law - so that when a young, unsupervised, powertripping cop throws the Charter out the window - it is she who violates the very law which she is sworn to uphold.

As it happens, my place of residence in the heart of this village was burglarized in July and my landlord lost thousands and thousands of dollars worth of possessions - his house and out building sustained damage during the crime. Earlier this month, he spent several hundred dollars to have electricians upgrade a sophisticated security system to further secure our house. The night he lost so much, several other buildings were burglarized in Keremeos in a crime spree. We may now extrapolate that while real, live crime was being committed throughout our village, the RCMP members were perhaps chasing down absolutely innocent citizens elsewhere in the vicinity .

It is not a crime to not drive a pick up truck, officer.

Réal Saint Laurent, Keremeos