Drive Like a Canadian and Get A Bullet Up Your Ass

“You can drive any way you want in Canada. But if you drive that way down here somebody might put a bullet up your ass.”

That was the advice Joel Helle, an officer with 9 years working for CBP, gave to a Canadian driver just after he grabbed the driver by the neck. But let’s recount what happened.

From the story in thenorthernlight.com, an SUV with BC plates drifted into Helle’s lane on the interstate. Both vehicles eventually pulled over, and Helle – feeling that the driver had tried to run him off the road – started banging on the driver’s window with his CBP badge. When the driver rolled his window down, he asked if he had tried to run him off the road because he was a CBP agent (he was in plain clothes and in his own vehicle at the time).

Then when the driver reached for something in the center console of the SUV, that’s when Helle chocked him.

Helle was convicted of felony harassment, which he had pleaded guilty to. Part of his sentence is mandatory anger management training and evaluation.

This is obviously an isolated case, but it shows the potential danger of giving carte-blanche authority to people who are not mentally/emotionally sound enough to use it professionally.

Gut Feelings and Misinformation

CBP had to do a bit of damage control after one of their own called the Port Angeles border patrol office a black hole with no mission or purpose, and that they had very little work to perform. Interestingly, the officer has gone off the radar although he’s supposedly still working for CBP (one can only imagine what happens internally to those that speak out in such a way).

Back to the damage control though – so the Port Angeles supervisor, Jose Romero, addressed the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce on Monday at a luncheon, wanting to reaffirm them that the CBP presence did have value, that they weren’t short of work, they weren’t a black hole, etc. etc. You can read about the event from the SeattlePI website here.

Now, I’m going to assume that article follows good journalistic integrity, and that anywhere there’s quotes indicates something that was actually said. So let’s examine some of the soundbites shall we?

Romero devoted much of his 45-minute presentation to immigration issues, adding that an immigration violation can be charged as a felony.

Border Patrol checkpoints are "part of what we do," he added. "We look for ways to determine who is coming into this country illegally and who hasn't."

Questioning someone's immigration status comes partly from a "gut feeling" the agent might have about the person and often begins by "just going up to someone and saying, 'Hi, how are you?'" Romero said.

"There is a very short window to make the determination to go to the next level," he said.

That next level could include asking for a name and date of birth, which agents run through a database.

I don’t doubt that “gut feelings” are part of any law enforcement process. Of course, this means that people can be singled out not necessarily due to one’s appearance or mannerism, but even if the officer doesn’t understand what you do for a living.

Also interesting is that “asking for a name and date of birth” is the “next level”. All people need to present a passport when entering the US, which brings up their information from a database. In fact, for those that have never experienced it, it usually starts with:

Hello. Where are you going? What for? How long will you be in the US? Where are you staying? Who do you work for?

I found it funny that what’s presented is some sort of watered down version of reality – that based on how someone responds to “how are you” determines if they’re inspected further. Everyone is inspected further. The only “next level” is secondary inspection.

Alright, let’s look at a second bit from the article:

"The northern border has now become the focal point," Romero said. "It's extremely porous."

Canada has not been the easiest partner to work with in monitoring the shared boundary despite the existence of what Romero said were "75 known factions of some kind of terrorist group" in that country.

"It's not as good as I would like," Romero said of "cooperation" from Canada. "We're working hard to get that relationship going."

Hmm…pretty sure there’s more drug, violent crime, and illegal immigration activity happening at the south Jose, so while Canada might be a focal point for you to justify your role, I don’t think we present as much danger as you think.

Wait, wait…he did mention that there are 75 known factions of some kind of terrorist group in Canada. Here’s the funny thing: Canada actually only lists 43 groups as known terrorist organizations, so not sure where the other 32 came from (maybe the US has a different list?). And I’m happy to hear that cooperation from Canada isn’t as good as they’d like, only because what we’ve seen from the US is “cooperation” usually means “give us what we want”. Considering that Canada customs asked me where I was staying after my last trip to the US, I’m pretty sure there’s quite a bit of information already being shared.

Whether the Port Angeles post is a black hole or not, or whether we’ll ever see that young officer who blew the whistle, we’ll probably never know. What we do know from this luncheon is that the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce got a rosier, American-friendly picture of border security that may not accurately reflect what’s really happening.

Canada–Come for the Bingo, Stay for the Jail

She was handcuffed, interrogated, and strip searched by border guards. A jar of motor oil in the back of her vehicle tested positive for heroin, and thus began a horrible ordeal by a 66 year old grandmother that resulted in spending 12 days in a remand center. All charges of drug trafficking were dropped when the test that originally detected heroin was proved wrong – there was no heroin.

What US border station did this atrocity happen at? None. It was at the Canadian border station at Sprague, Manitoba. Watch this interview with Mrs. Goodin to hear the details of her ordeal:

Well doesn’t this just give us an insight into the inner workings of our CBSA agents. An organization that demands truth and honesty is free to make up things like how a drug-sniffing dog found traces of cocaine, pot, and meth. Also, we don’t really know details yet of how that test was performed…and was a second one done to ensure that the first one was correct?

And the crown in this case, asking that she *not* be allowed to stay at her daughter’s home because she’s a flight risk? You’d think we elected our crown attorneys and someone was up for a re-election year, having to show how “tough on crime” he/she is.

This is the type of thing that happens in the movies, and/or in different countries; not Canada! The CBSA has a great deal to explain here, and Vic Toews has already asked the CBSA head to provide a report on the incident. Of course, we may never know how badly they screwed this incident up citing the oh-so-convenient “privacy concerns”.

Mrs. Goodin, on behalf of my country I apologize for your ordeal and I hope that if you do decide to bring civil action against the CBSA, that you win and get every dollar you deserve for such an obvious abuse of power by a group of empowered bullies!