Lesson Learned?

As you may or may not remember, a prominent New Brunswick sociology professor was murdered last November by his son-in-law. (I wrote about it here). I was (and still am) deeply saddened for him and his family and I was equally as pissed about the complete negligence by the RCMP and police officers involved in the case.

The silver lining at the time was that social justice groups were pushing for an inquiry and report in regards to the investigation. Well, the report has been tabled.

The report calls for better training for RCMP officers regarding domestic violence. Domestic violence, from an investigation point of view, requires certain knowledge and skills that this report found were lacking in RCMP officers.

"The administrative review of the case found that the focus of their investigation was primarily on the theft and fraud allegations, and the mental health of Baker instead of the possibility that there were factors that could lead to domestic violence."

I cannot speak for Mr. McKendy's family members or friends but I can speak for myself in saying that this report is somewhat of a relief in the sense that at least there is the possibility of change occurring. There is no guarantee that anything really will change but it's a possibility now.

I'd never heard of Professor McKendy until his death but if you have a second, Google him. You will get page after page of both his work and people responding to it. He clearly made a difference around the world. Let's hope that this report makes a difference, too.