In the wake of city council's choice, this week, to apply for a new RCMP detachment, members of the Prince George media were invited to tour the current building. Built in 1972 and used initially as a courthouse, it has been considered to be in a fail-state for years. On Monday, city council voted to remedy that by choosing a final design and starting the public consultation process. On Thursday, the public was shown why.
There are stains in the cracked ceiling of the RCMP dog handlers' office. There are more stains on their desks. An off-coloured liquid has been dripping through.
"Do you know what is directly above us in here,?" said Prince George RCMP Insp. Chris Bomford. "Those mystery fluids are coming through from the cell blocks."
After the gagging slowed, Bomford and other senior Mounties moved on to the next leak. This one was dripping down into the records room.
The gagging started again but this time due to olfactory assault. The back of the evidence room was jammed with the latest grow-op seizure so bales of marijuana lay in stasis, but there is no containing that smell. It was enough to water the eyes and paint the insides of the nose with a wretched glaze. When the grow-op seizure is big, that smell walks up the street to the end of the block.
Imagine trying to do your work with that smell, said the detachment's commanding officer, Supt. Brenda Butterworth-Carr.
There is no where else to put the pot, and there is nowhere else to put the suspects except the second floor where all the cells are.
"It is unusual for the cell block to be on the second floor. Most detachments, the cell block is on the main floor, you drive them into the vehicle bay and walk them straight into the booking area," Butterworth-Carr said.
In Prince George, the drunks and the crooks and the combatants all have to wait for an elevator that has been retrofitted with interior locking fences.
"By the way, you can't get parts for that elevator anymore," added Bomford. "If there is a major failure, it's toast for good and you'd have to take everybody up and down the staircase. That is really problematic if someone doesn't want to do that."
Things are no better in the area most people would expect to be pristine in any police building, the crime lab. Forensic Identification police member Const. Theresa Oelke said most elements were great but, "we work with a lot of chemicals in here and it would be great to have hot water," and "the evidence lockers don't fit rifles so when we have long guns in here we have to be careful." There are also lineups at the lab door because there is only room to do one or two cases at a time.
City councillor Dave Wilbur called the Prince George RCMP detachment "a rabbit warren" of disorientating hallways and oddly shaped rooms. Ceiling tiles are caving in, the walls haven't seen paint since Canadian teams were winning the Stanley Cup, buckets catch drips, pest traps are set to kill vermin, and the capper was the recent discovery (under the sink used to dry evidence items soaked with bodily fluids, no less) that the copper pipes throughout the nearly 40-year-old building were loaded with holes.
A new RCMP detachment is expected to be a centrepiece of downtown redevelopment. The estimated building cost is about $25 million and, if approved by the public, would be likely completed sometime in 2014 or '15.
