Not on the naughty list

Critics are certainly entitled to question his methods, but there’s no disputing his results.

A British Columbia police chief posed as a heavily armed Santa for a Christmas card sent to proven gang members, well-known offenders and others with a history of being on the wrong side of the law. The lettering on the card asks, “Which list will you be on next year?” and there’s the number for a helpline that criminals can call if they want to change their ways.

“This is terrible,” Kelly Scarsbrook wrote on The Province newspaper’s Facebook page. “Using the image of Santa with guns is just plain wrong.” The eye-catching greeting card is part of Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich’s dramatic turnaround of the community’s crime rate. A few years ago, Abbotsford was known as Canada’s murder capital. Today, it’s one of the safest cities in the country, according to Statistics Canada.

Rich and his colleagues have made life tough for gang members, kicking them out of bars and even putting the Canada Revenue Agency on their trail in search of unpaid taxes, according to reports.

If Rich wants to invoke Santa to continue putting a crimp on crime, we certainly won’t put him on our naughty list.