An open letter to Const. Jason Tait, on the heartbreak of eight seconds
By Kyra Hoggan
I have agonized for days – in fact, years – over what and how to write in this situation.
I am unspeakably angry with the IIO for torturing you like this, and with the provincial government for creating such a body, then ignoring what damage they do, thus brutalizing the public servants we so fundamentally need. Not to mention the public at large, who no longer know whom to trust.
To be clear for my readers, Const. Tait, we have spoken on the phone perhaps twice? The second time, largely because I stupidly misspelled your name, because I heard ‘Tate’, not Tait?
I’m pretty sure we’ve never met in real life.
We’ve certainly never broken bread together or can be counted as friends.
I actually actively dislike how quick you are to be judgmental of the young people I love, and who tell me you’re pretty speedy in assuming the worst of them.
So, no. We’re not buddies.
BUT.
You served overseas. You served here at home. Decades of service.
And eight seconds may take everything away from you.
If I were in a life-and-death, eight-second situation, I would curl up into a little ball and cry. Or be found running high-speed to the nearest liquor store.
I’m told that would be poor policing.
I have found the IIO to be startlingly politically inadept (signing a report Ronald MacDonald, Seriously?!?! R.J. MacDonald would have worked without insulting everyone involved who understands current social paradigms. That was so petty and small and egotistical it hurt my stomach).
I find the three years of torture you’ve just endured – and your family, and the Edey family, not to mention the Degroots, and the cops in that situation – to be an absolutely dangerous affront to the kind, gentle people of my community.
The provincial government appears not to care at all, which I think is exceptionally vile, as they are the ones under-funding and under-resourcing the IIO, and allowing clowns to stand at the helm.
The tardy investigation was, I believe, sloppy and lazy, and I think if you had engaged in that kind of police work, openly targeting a civilian in a murder investigation for THREE YEARS, there would have been hell to pay – imagine doing to a random citizen what has been done to you. The whole world would be up in arms.
I was at first delighted when my son expressed a desire to become a cop. Now, he’s totally not allowed to even consider it – just as he’s not allowed to consider journalism, because the world has taken an ugly turn for us. (And I jokingly told him he couldn’t enlist if Trump was elected, because we never, ever thought that thing could happen. We thought the very idea of it was funny. I’m not laughing anymore, and he’s for damned-sure not enlisting).
So, friends or no, we have this one thing in common: the opposition to people who aren’t interested in the facts, and who decline to value service. For right or for wrong, for better or for worse. We serve.
I’m truly sorry for the Edey family, and I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for your family.
I wasn’t there for those eight seconds (thank God).
But I’m glad people like you are always there in my stead.
So I’ll be there for every moment of the trial.
I’ll trade the eight seconds of life-and-death for as many hours are required to report correctly on what happened on that bridge.
I’m not willing to just say I think this is all political nonsense and untrue … nor am I willing to try and hang you without knowing what the heck happened.
Maybe you did wrong. I honestly don’t know.
What I know is this:
For years, you put on a Kevlar vest, a taser, and a gun less powerful than the bad guys, with less money and manpower, and protected me and mine from drug dealers and rapists and murderers. That’s not nothing. You police, I report. I want you to know, I will report as honestly as the facts allow.
I don’t know, after the abuse you’ve suffered, if this even means anything to you, but I want you to know I will watch and learn and listen in court.
Because I feel I owe you a great deal more than eight seconds.
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