[Content warning: This article quotes graphic, hateful language and describes a violent attack.]
Art Mortimer knew instinctively that if he didn’t take a chance and try to grab the four-foot iron bar wielded like a baseball bat by the enraged trucker, he would be seriously injured or killed.
Mortimer, a commercial transport inspector at a weigh station near Sparwood, B.C., had issued two tickets to the trucker and told him about a provincial rule that required him to shift the load.
The trucker circled his Mack semi-trailer truck around the station once, and then rammed Mortimer’s 1981 Datsun car into the side of the weighmaster building.
Armed with the bar, the trucker clambered onto the car’s roof and started smashing out the remaining glass in the building’s windows while yelling that he was coming for Mortimer.
Standing behind the counter as this surreal attack unfolded, Mortimer irrationally thought, “I can’t fight him in here, we just got new computers.” So he bolted out the front door.
“He caught me real quick,” Mortimer recalls. “He is a pretty big, tall fellow. He came at me with a batter’s stance like he was going to swing at my head and I thought, ‘Well, my only option is to close in on him and grab the bar,’ which I did.
“We wrestled over the bar for a while and he gave me a couple of hockey checks with it, tried to knee me in the groin, but he was quite a bit taller than me so I took it all belt high.”
University of Calgary political scientist Melanee Thomas said the handling by police of Schmidt’s case is troubling for a couple of reasons.
The first is that the police inaction has become tolerated. People, including academics, journalists and politicians, who are frequently subjected to online attacks and threats from people dog whistled by a growing class of populist politicians are now cynical and many no longer demand that police protect their right to free speech.
ACAB.
A violent racist, Donald Laird sent death threats to a politician, then dodged his sentencing date. Alberta police don’t seem too concerned
Of course they don’t. A significant percent of them probably agree with him. Now, if he was peacefully advocating boycotting Israel, it’d be a no-brainer.
“Some of those who work forces…” come on everyone, y’all know the words!
In an email, a Calgary police officer told Thomas that after a long consultation, the Crown had decided not to charge Laird.
“This was based on a number of factors, but I believe the main reason being that typically he escalates after being charged.”
This makes complete sense
“We want to charge him, but he’s so violent when we do we feel it’s best to let him be violent without being charged.”
Wow thanks, what a fantastic system.
Sounds like an ideal member of the Conservative electorate.
