Here’s to the loose cannons of the world
Journalists, and, by extension, much of society, have always had a love affair with so-called loose cannons, individuals who violate the rules of censorship invoked by the societal system in which they happen to be connected.
Speaking without a filter, without an edit switch, without a delete button, loose cannons can provide the media and the public with information that is invaluable in their assessment of matters that are begging for elucidation, especially issues of contention that seem to drag on forever, and are kept within the confines of authority figures who insist they always know what is best for the ordinary souls, people like you and me.
Occasionally, for sure, loose cannons can be afflicted with the boy who cried wolf syndrome, the Steve Neary disease, banging their gums on a daily basis to a point where they lose their credibility. But it’s been my experience that individuals unafraid to speak their mind, even when certain societal parameters, often established for self-serving reasons by our bosses and masters, make knowledge and information near impossible to attain, are, for the most part, critical to the way a democracy should be run.
Thus, my long-winded preface to the extraordinary interview David Riche, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, gave last week to the CBC on the investigation into the Don Dunphy shooting, an investigation where he had a ringside seat, having been asked by the RCMP to observe their actions. (It should be noted that judges, even retired judges, treat press interviews like poison ivy, to be avoided at all costs). Riche had more than implied in an earlier Telegram interview with James McLeod that he was in loose cannon mode, as he revealed that he was actually in Dunphy’s home in the days after the shooting and witnessed Newfoundland Constabulary officer Joe Smyth re-creating for the RCMP the incident in which he killed Dunphy.
He admitted he was frustrated by his inability to carry out his mandate, and that the job was “the most difficult thing I ever did.” But the McLeod interview was just a hint of what Riche was willing, and able, to communicate to the public: what appeared on-air in the CBC interview, and, in more elaborate form, on the CBC website, was nothing short of a bombshell, providing more insight and detail than has even been close to being made available since the shooting over a year and a half ago. It was shocking stuff. To reiterate: Riche said the RCMP accepted Smyth’s account of the shooting “without any real hard questions,” that Dunphy had a temper, but that Smyth, as well, had a reputation of being “aggressive,” that he had had “difficulties” along those lines in the past, and that, as a result, “we were dealing here with two angry men.” Perhaps even more disturbing, in Riche’s assessment: Smyth fired his gun four times at Dunphy, hitting him at least three times, that “it seemed to me there was an intention to kill,” not to “stop” or “wound;” that Dunphy never fired his gun, and that there was evidence the chamber on his weapon was open, and not in a firing position; that Smyth’s last shot was from “two or three feet” away, “and you have to say ‘why?’”
Riche, in full, loose cannon persona — I guess you take the bad with the good — was indelicate at one point in his description of the actual shooting, and probably angered the Dunphy family when he said, with an inappropriate smile, that Smyth, from his perspective, was following “police procedure,” that when “someone picks up a gun and threatens you . ... you fill them full of lead, as the Westerns used to say.” Not Riche’s finest moment, for sure, but the Dunphy family may have been willing to skip over that crude, trivializing analogy in view of the incredible and profound questions the former judge has now raised about that Easter Sunday shooting.
The Riche disclosures provide even more impetus to the desire on the part of most, if not all, Newfoundlanders to try and come to grips with arguably the most controversial police shooting in the province’s history.
Just the fact that the deadly confrontation between Smyth, a member at the time of Premier Paul Davis’ so-called protective detail, had political overtones, and was prompted by a few nasty emails, part and parcel of the ordinary life of a politician, was already reason enough to have a judicial enquiry.
Riche’s shocking conclusions this past week have made it even more critical that there be an immediate establishment of such an enquiry.
Here’s to the loose cannons of the world.
(Editor’s note: The provincial government announced Friday morning — after this column’s deadline — that Justice Leo Barry will head an inquiry into the Dunphy shooting. Barry’s report is due to be filed in July, 2017.)