As a parent or caregiver, there is nothing more terrifying than not knowing where your children are and if they are safe. Airdrie RCMP did little to put guardians’ minds at ease this week when an officer pulled over a convicted sex offender with a 10-year-old girl in his car, gave him a speeding ticket and sent him on his way.
Little did the officer know the man had gone to a mall, impersonated an officer and carried the girl to his car.
How can a parent feel safe in this community when the people trained to protect us are letting convicted criminals slip through their fingers?
The offender, John Francis Dionne, is such a threat to the community that RCMP issued a warning about his high risk to re-offend after he moved to Linden in October. So how is it that a police officer pulled this man over with a young girl in his car and no action was taken?
We commend the Airdrie RCMP for investigating the incident and taking every measure to determine where the breakdown in communications occurred, but parents across the city and beyond are outraged at the thought that a police officer was nose-to-nose with a high-risk sex offender who had just abducted a child and nothing was done to stop it. The only saving grace in this story is the fact that the offender was apparently spooked by being pulled over by the police and dropped the little girl off at McDonalds in Airdrie unharmed.
What if he had continued on and assaulted the girl? Who would be held responsible? We can only hope that the review of procedures by the RCMP results in some changes that ensure this will never happen again.
Evidently, it is up to us as caregivers to teach our children what to do if a stranger approaches them. There is no guarantee that your child will not be approached, but if they are equipped with the knowledge to take quick and smart actions to avoid abduction, it can save their lives.
It may be the only thing that will.
