3 Arsons In 3 Years Target RCMP On Native Reservations

"The home of an RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] officer in northern Manitoba was deliberately torched early Wednesday morning, police say, the second arson of a Mountie’s residence in less than a year.

The officer’s trailer was empty when another RCMP officer, who was off-duty at the time, noticed smoke pouring from the residence around 1:45 a.m. on the remote Pukatawagan First Nation, 820 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

The RCMP officer who spotted the fire quickly got help from other Mounties at the detachment. Armed with fire extinguishers and a garden hose, the officers attempted to control the flames until the Pukatawagan Fire Department arrived and extinguished the fire.

The damage to the doublewide trailer is considered extensive and likely a total loss, RCMP stated in a news release.

Last spring an RCMP officer was lucky to get out alive when his trailer was torched on the Shamattawa First Nation, located about 200 kilometres east of Thompson and just south of Hudson Bay.

A year earlier, in August 2007, an RCMP detachment under construction on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation at The Pas was burned down. Four male teens were arrested for the crime, which caused $1.4 million in damage.

The detachment was rebuilt and the Mounties have since moved back in."

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Confrontation