Lack of social respect behind RCMP home shooting in Nunavut: criminologist

The March 18 shooting of two RCMP residences in Kimmirut is not a reflection on the quality of policing in Nunavut, a criminology expert told Nunatsiaq News in an interview.

It’s not about policing at all, when youth turn over police cars and vandalize property, as they did this past weekend in London, Ont., when St. Patrick’s Day celebrations took a violent turn, said Ron Melchers, a professor of criminology and senior researcher with the Centre for Research in Community Services at the University of Ottawa.

A television reporter’s truck was set on fire, while firefighters and police were pelted with rocks, bottles and two-by-fours, according to a spokesman for the London fire department, who said “the situation was completely out of control and we had to pull back for the safety of our personnel.”

In Kimmirut, on the other hand, a 22-year-old man was arrested after someone fired multiple rifle rounds into two RCMP staff houses.

It’s not about good or bad policing even when a young person shoots into the homes of police officers, Melcher said.

But these kinds of incidents flow from the same root, Melchers said.

And that’s incivility, what he defines as a lack of respect for society’s norms and values.

Incivility, derived from the Latin word “incivilis” meaning “not of a citizen,” refers to social behaviour lacking in civility or good manners, such as rudeness, lack of respect for elders, vandalism, hooliganism, public drunkenness, threatening behaviour and violence.

Demonstrating incivility can become a “sport” for youth — and it’s no surprise to Melcher that a youth in a northern community where there’s easy access to firearms would end up with a rifle and direct it towards those in power.

And this incivility is a growing phenomenon in Canada and around the world, Melcher said.

“Nunavut is not alone — it’s something much bigger,” he said.

However, tackling incivility is hard: it’s not enough just to give youth jobs or housing because in many instances, like this weekend’s St. Patrick Day mayhem in London, the youth involved have money, housing and jobs,

Stemming incivility starts at home, Melcher suggests.

There, parents can teach their kids early on to respect figures of authority, such as police, and let them know they should “be nice to the people with the guns” who are keeping the peace.

“Police are a figure of authority,” he said.

And, so, when you don’t respect authority, what better symbol to attack than the police — whose homes are known to everyone in a community the size of Kimmirut.

Other individuals can also be targeted in the same way, Melcher suggests.

“They’re just a convenient target,” he said: the next time it’ll be ambulance drivers, or it could be the members of the media investigating a story.

with files from Postmedia News