A financial audit discovered that the sheriff misspent $100 million to fund immigration sweeps and investigations into people who questioned his policies.
http://www.npr.org/...
What you may ask is a RCMP? It's the Canadian federal police force called
the Royal Mounted Canadian Police. No, they don't ride mounts anymore. They ride in patrol cars like every other police force in the world. Except of course in parades and ceremonial events. As an American living in Canada when I first moved here, I was amazed by their colorful uniforms and long tradition of great service of community policing. I was amazed to find out they were a federalized police force, they're under direct control of the federal government. That means the local racists and yes, there are some racist people in Canada as well. Never would have a chance to elect someone like Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Canada. It just couldn't happen. Not even in some backwater place.
Of course some large Canadian cities do have their own city police forces but for the most part from coast to coast, throughout Canada's history the RCMP have and are serving Canada well. Of course there are incidents in Canada in the press. Particularly in the large cities where the police have been accused of behaving in a racist fashion but compared to what is going on in the U.S. and has gone on in the U.S. historically, Canada has fared far better for many reasons. One of those important reasons is the RCMP. The RCMP are for the most part, loved by Canadians and highly respected throughout Canada's history. There are always great tales about the Mounties service to communities, helping people, saving lives, protecting property and keeping the rule of law.
We've all seen cartoons of Dudley Do Right. You know, the square chin fair haired blue eyed boy whose off to save Nell from Snidely Whiplash back in frontier times Canada and was thought of and revered as a hero riding in to save the day but more often than not, that is what happened in real life Canada. Because of the RCMP, Canada evolved into a type of community policing that we in below the 49th parallel could only ever hope of seeing because the mounties knew their communities. They knew the people and they knew how to serve. They sure weren't looked at as an occupying army in the communities they served. They were viewed as part of the community and still are. I must say from what I've seen as an American living up here, I have nothing but good to say about them.
This leaves us with a rather troubling question. Could America be better served by an RCMP force as opposed to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and extremists like him that seem to dot the American landscape? Where out of control local yokels elect these fruit loop variety racist police because as a nation we tolerate them doing that. It actually seems natural to us. Of course the locals should damn well be able to elect whoever the hell they want to because that is their right. Under the tyranny of the majority in local yokel Maricopa County in Arizona where we allow them to put people in chain gangs, make them sleep in tents, dress them up in stripey black and white uniforms and feed them primarily baloney sandwiches. The more bad press that gets them, the happier the local yokels are to stick their thumbs in the eye of mainstream America. Of course we don't know any better for the most part. Neither did I until I moved to Canada, until I met the RCMP. Now that I have, I guess I have to ask would America still have Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his many scandals if we had a federal Canadian style RCMP force for local community policing which is controlled by the federal government.
For people not familiar with the RCMP here is a picture diary in video format somebody made.
About the RCMP
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the Canadian national police service and an agency of the Ministry of Public Safety Canada. The RCMP is unique in the world since it is a national, federal, provincial and municipal policing body.
Could we benefit from an RCMP type of federal police force? Well, could we?
Joe Arpaio and his supporters probably don't think so because they would be out of business.