Death by police,
whether some place in the U.S.A. or in Mitchells Brook, NL evokes a range of emotions that transcends all the normal reactions of people especially when transparency is tattered.
Though the
victim’s family will suffer all the pain and loss of a loved one, society also
has a lot at stake, if the state has erred or engaged in aberrant behavior.
A collective loss of confidence in authority figures is the first casualty. If the actions of the police and those of politicians have overlapped, as in the Dunphy case, unwittingly or otherwise, the fear is that not just an injustice the rule of law has been undermined.
A collective loss of confidence in authority figures is the first casualty. If the actions of the police and those of politicians have overlapped, as in the Dunphy case, unwittingly or otherwise, the fear is that not just an injustice the rule of law has been undermined.
For democratic
society, such a jolt to certainty is compounded by a sense of shared
responsibility of the need to make sure the process
that led to the wrong is repaired.
Bonds of
trust between the governors the governed are always tenuous. An Inquiry under the Public Inquiries Act (and not the more restricted Fatalities Investigation Act) ought to have been immediate. That did not happen.
