News of the murder on Sunday of four American police officers near Seattle inevitably stirs thoughts of the 2005 murders of four RCMP officers near Mayerthorpe, Alberta.

On that day almost five years ago, officers Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon, Lionide Johnston, and Brock Myro were searching the property of James Roszko after finding marijuana plants growing there. Roszko ambushed them in a Quonset hut and killed all four. He later shot himself.

On Sunday morning, officers Greg Richards, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens, and Sgt. Mark Renninger were seated in a coffee shop when a man walked in and shot them. One of the police officers returned fire and wounded the man. Maurice Clemmons, 37, was named as a suspect and a search was set in motion.

Early Tuesday morning, a Seattle police officer shot and killed Clemmons. The suspect had a gun he had taken from one of the murdered police officers, making it highly likely that he was indeed the killer.

Clemmons had a substantial criminal record. In 1990, he was in an Arkansas prison on a 48-year sentence when he was sentenced to 60 years more for other crimes. And yet 10 years ago, Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted Clemmons' sentence, setting him free. Huckabee, of course, is on the hot seat for this now, but he blames failures in the justice system for Clemmons' release.

James Roszko, the man who shot four Mounties near Mayerthorpe, also had a criminal record, though it seems the Crown was less successful in obtaining convictions against this man. Roszko was known to have it in for the RCMP, and following a 1993 arrest for asking someone to commit murder and a number of firearms offences, he was released and ordered to stay away from the RCMP. He was later arrested and charged with a number of offences involved in the shooting of a man on his property. Those charges, like the charges in the earlier case, were dismissed.

Perhaps Gov. Huckabee is right when he says failures of the justice system are responsible for leaving people like Maurice Clemmons free to commit murder. His comments might have relevance north of the border, too. Certainly, things went wrong a number of times in Washington state and in Alberta.

In Kamloops this week, Allan Schoenborn is on trial for the murders of his three children in a Merritt home in April 2008. Schoenborn may have been in violation of a court order when he turned up at the home of the children, and after he was arrested at the children's school for harassing someone there, RCMP asked that he be held in custody. Unfortunately, a justice of the peace felt that measure was a bit too strict. Schoenborn killed his children soon after that.

The justice system appears to have failed a number of people in the most profound way imaginable. It would be easy to say those people were murdered because some jerk's civil liberties were more important than the lives of innocents, but that would be an insulting oversimplification.

—Steve Thornton

Opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and may not reflect the opinion of the Merritt News or its publisher.