Where’s the value in the police chopper?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/06/2015 (3734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In retrospect, the police comment about a laser strike on its helicopter Sunday has an ironic ring.

“We don’t take matters like this lightly,” Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said Sunday. “Our messaging needs to be loud and clear that individuals making these poor choices, we’ll make every effort to identify who they are and hold them accountable.”

Matters concerning the cop copter were about to get even louder and clearer.

And, again, it was about poor choices. But this time, by people police didn’t have to make any effort to identify.

Like laser-strike incidents, noise complaints from citizens about the loud, late-night hovering of the WPS helicopter aren’t uncommon. But the noise coming from Air1 on Monday, on an otherwise perfect summer evening, wasn’t of the common variety.

Apparently, the three-man crew of Air1 inadvertently activated powerful speakers on the chopper’s public address system.

Unaware they were broadcasting to the city below, they started up with some guy talk. The first report about the crude conversation arrived via Twitter at 9:36 p.m. Monday.

“Does the #Winnipeg chopper realize the entire West End can hear their convo about blow jobs right now?”

That report soon had Twitter all atwitter with more reports — from St. Boniface to the North End — about the flying broadcast booth.

By Tuesday morning, the cop talk was the talk of the town. The incident was a gift for Internet talk show hosts Tom McGouran and Larry Updike. Tom and Larry’s take, as one might have guessed, was almost as irreverent as the high-flying original. And way more sympathetic than most.

The former radio DJs began with some, “We all did stupid things when we were kids” sympathy for the 18-year-old who is alleged to have pointed the laser at the helicopter and its crew early Sunday.

Then, they segued into the stupid thing the copter crew did the next night, and the ensuing “open mike” embarrassment with which Tom and Larry are famously familiar.

“I have sympathy for these people,” Tom said. “You and I have been in this business for I don’t know how many years, and there are instances in the past where, horrifyingly, you discover that you left your mike on.”

“Oh,” Larry offered, “I’ve got some stories, sure.”

“You see the red light on,” Tom continued, “and you’ve been talking what we thought was not on the air. Like off the air. And then, ‘Oh, God. What did I say? I can’t remember.’ I think we said some nasty things. You know, along this line. So I can sympathize completely with these guys.”

“Well, I can, too,” Larry chimed in.

Leaving ’em laughing, Larry closed with this Twitter invitation to the Air 1 crew from Twitter user Holly Caruk.

“She says, ‘Hey, if you guys are still around after your shift can you come by my house and read me a story.’ ”

Cue the great gales of laughter.

But I doubt the Air1 crew is laughing. And I’m sure WPS Chief Devon Clunis isn’t.

Police have since apologized and launched an internal disciplinary probe. But, unlike the clearly more serious laser strike the day before, what the careless — and, I dare say, mindless — musings from the helicopter cockpit did for at least one online commenter is focus his concern on a far more controversial aspect of Air1: its cost versus its value.

That’s been a long-running debate, dating back even before the helicopter was purchased for $3.5 million in 2010. The province has been picking up the operational costs since early 2011, when the budget was $1.3 million.

“We recognize, obviously, that all our operations are going to be examined and scrutinized for value,” Insp. Mike Herman told the Free Press later that year. “For the expense of this resource, do the citizens get a good value for the amount of cost it takes? When you start examining all the operations that the helicopter has been involved in, you do see incidents where, if the helicopter wasn’t there, we absolutely would not have made that arrest.”

No doubt. But Tuesday, when I asked the police for a cost versus value estimate, I was referred to the flight operations unit’s 2013 report, where that answer doesn’t exist.

I also inquired about the real operational costs of Air1. There’s fuel and maintenance and hangar space, presumably. But what about annual training, insurance and the salaries of the flights crews? Are they included?

The police service’s answer: “The information you are asking for has not been made public yet. That information will be found in the 2014 annual report once released.”

It’s been 4 1/2 years since Air1 took off, and we are still waiting for the most fundamental of answers to questions that go to value, as opposed to cost.

That, regrettably, is a loud and clear message all its own.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca