Last week's press conference with the RCMP and Mayor Rogers, held to release the latest crime stats for Prince George, at times resembled the Black Knight sketch from Monty Python's The Holy Grail.
After losing all his limbs in a duel with King Arthur, the Black Knight tries to put a positive spin on the situation, "All right, we'll call it a draw."
To hear it "nine homicides is bad, but it could have been worse," sexual assaults increased over 17 per cent, but it's encouraging that so many victims made the call to police," and on it went.
Which begs the question-who writes this stuff?
While crime rates in some areas such as aggravated assault and auto theft were down, overall the rate jumped by five per cent and the picture is not pretty.
Homicides jumped 300 per cent from three to nine, sexual assaults up over 17 per cent, robberies were up three per cent break and enter up five per cent, weapons related offences up 35 per cent and drug related crime up six per cent.
Spin doctoring aside, we have a crime problem in Prince George and despite the best efforts of the RCMP in some areas, it continues to escalate.
Implying that most of the homicides were gang related should not make any of us feel safer. It just means we're a stray bullet away from some gang banger with poor aim.
It also reinforces the myth that the Gang Crime Summit back in November tried to dispel: that gang crime in PG is all of our problem and the damage it causes is not just confined to gang members.
There is no question that the zero tolerance policy of the Downtown Enforcement Unit and the work of the gang task forces have lead to more arrests, but that is only part of the equation.
The other is a justice system that at times resembles a revolving door where criminals are back on the street before the cops get back to the station.
The Harper Conservative's legislation to get tough on crime by introducing longer jail sentences, mandatory minimum sentences for impaired driving, serious gun crimes, sexual offences against children, drug offences and white collar crime, and the scrapping of the odious "faint hope clause" of early parole for serious offenders deserves our support.
After introducing a policy of longer jail time in the U.S. several years ago, the crime rate there has dropped even while Canada's has increased. If the bad guys are in jail, they can't commit crimes.
We now find ourselves in a country where the rights of the few take precedence over the safety of the many. Where judges make laws instead of elected politicians, and we're all paying the price.
Until this situation changes, all the Mounties, money and good intentions in the world are doomed to fall short, and our crime rates will continue to rise, and no public relations spin doctor will change that reality.
