Retired Kalamazoo cop goes to Canada, embarrasses our entire country

By on August 10, 2012 in Uncategorized

Please. Stop. You make the rest of us look like the idiot you are.

I’m getting pretty used to Michigan being the laughing stock of the country. Between tea party whacko and Troy mayor Janice Daniels and some of the most absurd tea party Republican legislators you will find in the USA, we really have a big lead in the “Who has the biggest idiots” race.

But Walt Wawra of Kalamazoo has taken it to “11″.

I recently visited Calgary from Michigan. As a police officer for 20 years, it feels strange not to carry my off-duty hand-gun. Many would say I have no need to carry one in Canada.

Yet the police cannot protect everyone all the time. A man should be al-lowed to protect himself if the need arises. The need arose in a theatre in Aurora, Colo., as well as a college campus in Canada.

Recently, while out for a walk in Nose Hill Park, in broad daylight on a paved trail, two young men approached my wife and me. The men stepped in front of us, then said in a very aggressive tone: “Been to the Stampede yet?”

We ignored them. The two moved closer, repeating: “Hey, you been to the Stampede yet?”

I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, “Gentle-men, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye.” They looked bewildered, and we then walked past them.

I speculate they did not have good intentions when they approached in such an aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone.

Would we not expect a uniformed officer to pull his or her weapon to intercede in a life-or-death encounter to protect self, or another? Why then should the expectation be lower for a citizen of Canada or a visitor? Wait, I know – it’s because in Canada, only the criminals and the police carry handguns.

That was a letter to the editor that Wawra sent to the Calgary Herald newspaper.

The boys, as it turns out, were promoters handing out free tickets to the Calgary Stampede.

This guy is such a paranoid freak that he probably would have shot these boys if he had been carrying a sidearm. It’s a damn good thing he didn’t.

Not surprisingly, he has become the butt of jokes far and wide and even spawned a Twitter hashtag #NoseHillGentlemen.

And probably the most poignant:

Thanks, Walt. Now we have to clean YOUR foreign-made mess, too, just like we had to for Mitt Romney.

[CC Facepalm image credit: Cesar Astudillo | Flickr]


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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1384237949 SRulifson Miles

    I’m sorry the guy’s a retired ? policeman… no wonder we’re in trouble, omg and in a foreign country, what have we done…? o’ canada

    • Babakak

      He’s not even a retired….

  • http://www.illustratedbykarenjones.com/ Karen Jones

    I wonder how hard it would be to move my family to Canada? I wonder if they think of us the same way as we think of Mexico? Do people get nicer the closer you are to the poles?

    • Jgc

      Not so much, generally we find Mexicans nicer.

  • Angelica

    I live in Calgary and can say “yee-haw” and “howdy” without fear of getting shot!

    I love this city and I know this city loves me back. If not, how come my wallet was returned to me, contents intact, 3 times over the course of the last 14 years? My phone was also returned to me the one time I lost it. My ID was mailed to me via snail-mail at the cost of the store owners’ where I left it, without me knowing or expecting it in the mail. I left my handbag on the floor of a department store during the Christmas season a few years back and found it exactly where I left it a couple of hours later, when I realized I lost it somewhere and retraced my steps.

    Sure, there is crime here in Calgary, it’s just not the norm. We – thankfully, live in a city where we can be at peace. We recycle. We wave at the car who let us in as a gesture of recognition. On the sidewalk (etc) we bump into others and THEY are quick to say “sorry”. When caught looking at you, a stranger will smile and say “hi”. I live right around the corner of 24h “crack Macs” in down-town (vewy, vewy dangerous!). There are a few suspicious (raggedy/drugged) looking people walking around, asking for money – or cigarettes, and they don’t stab me when I say “sorry, got no money on me, good luck!”. This city is growing, crime rates will grow accordingly, and I will continue to show new immigrants (I am also one) to wave their hands as a polite gesture when you get let into traffic. I will continue to teach, by example, to say “hello”, “please”, “thank you”, “you are welcome” (not “ya”), etc. I am a proud Calgarian and grateful to this city, which graciously opened its doors to me and took me in as its own.

    It must be very hard for Mr. Wawra to live in such state of fear, where he believes the world is a very dangerous place. Still, I am grateful he does not live in this city – we don’t need him here. I don’t want people to live in fear of their neighbor, because I am one of them. I am a kind and loving person and want to remain like so. People like Mr. Wawra make it difficult to live in peace.

    Mr. Wawra, please don’t come back. I don’t care how many invitations you get from good-natured Calgarians to show you how hospitable we are. You are not welcome here. Keep yourself – and your guns, to yourself – and your city. Your whole country has no reason to be proud of, regarding this matter – and if they are, there’s something seriously wrong with your culture.

    I have a relative who lives in the States. When visiting Canada, we went camping at a site. It was late at night and people where going to bed. We were sitting by the fire and some drunken guy came stumbling through our site. My relative felt VERY unsafe. Wanted to find a weapon he could use against this “could-be” murderer. He could not understand that the guy was just there to have a good time. He could not understand that maybe, he was just taking a break on the long way back to his tent. This guy sat down with us and started talking while my relative grew more and more anxious. We hinted to the guy to go to his tent. He left, we never saw him again. After this incident, every time I visited the States I started noticing the fear induced advertising and notifications aired through massive American media. “Are you prepared?” “Is your family prepared?” “Terrorism”, etc. are typical weapons used against Americans to induce fear into their lives and keep them “walking the line” their government outlined for them. This is just my humble, uninformed opinion. Feel free to bash me.

    I love Canada, I love Calgary, I love peace and I am grateful this man didn’t have a gun on him that day. Because he would have certainly ended up with innocent Canadian blood in his disgusting “lord praising” hands.

    Violence and peace DO NOT go hand in hand!

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