The Flying Bandit Page 13

  At that time the area was made up of a number of autonomous political jurisdictions: the cities of Ottawa, Vanier, Gloucester and Nepean as well as the smaller communities of Kanata, West Carleton, Orleans, Rockland and Manotick. Responsibility for policing these various municipalities was intricately arranged.

  The RCMP was responsible for enforcing federal laws governing narcotics, immigration, customs, etc. over the entire region. The cities of Ottawa, Vanier, Gloucester and Nepean each had their own independent police forces. The outlying communities that surrounded these cities were patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police.

  These regional policing units were arranged in an unofficial hierarchy based on the size and attendant status of each force. At the top of the list was the RCMP with its international profile, extensive manpower and formidable forensic resources. Next were the city police forces ranging from the biggest, Ottawa, with 650 members through Nepean and Gloucester, each with 100. The smallest was Vanier with less than 75. The lowest rung on the status ladder was reserved for the Ontario Provincial Police. They had 200 members in the Ottawa-Carleton region spread over a number of rural or suburban detachments, each with a complement of approximately 50 members. These small stations included West Carleton, Kanata, Rockland and Manotick.

  Even though the OPP were 5,000 strong across the province, it was not unusual for them to be looked down on by other police forces. This was because they had the lowly duty of patrolling the province’s highways and policing the small, unsophisticated towns and villages of Ontario that were not covered by any other police force. Since the OPP were seldom involved in high-profile, big-city crime, many members of the Ontario police fraternity referred to them as “bush cops” or “bush monkeys.” They liked to think of the OPP as their country bumpkin cousins who, as unrefined members of the family, were to be tolerated and humoured but not taken very seriously.

  In the Ottawa area this disparaging attitude by the city police towards the OPP prevailed in many subtle and covert ways. The OPP, of course, resented it. They felt they were as good or better than their city counterparts in the region.

  However, it was more than petty bickering that resulted from the factional organization of the Ottawa-Carleton police structure. Law enforcement in the region suffered from the jealousy and competition that existed among the various jurisdictions. Each of them wanted to excel over the other.

  In the police business performance is measured, to a great extent, by statistics. These include: the percentage decrease in number of crimes, the percentage increase in number of arrests, the percentage of murders solved, the percentage of stolen goods recovered, etc. These stats are prepared and disseminated by each police jurisdiction to demonstrate its own effectiveness and, thereby, to maintain public trust and approval. In the compact Ottawa-Carleton region, where the total population was approximately 600,000 people, the various police departments had to compete for that public confidence. Each police force wanted to be more successful than the others; no police force wanted to be the least successful of all. Therefore, being the jurisdiction that got the most “busts” or “collars” was of paramount importance. In Ottawa-Carleton police circles it was axiomatic: If an inspector in one force was congratulating his personnel for solving a high profile case, there was another inspector in another force raising hell with his personnel for not being equally successful.

  Competition among police forces can be good. It can motivate members, spur them on, make them try their best. It can also make them protective and insular. They can become so preoccupied with their own success that they stop sharing and communicating with other forces. When this happens, it can be destructive to police work and consequently beneficial to criminal activity. This breakdown in communications was happening among police forces in the Ottawa region.

  It was possible for a crook to live in Orleans, do break-ins in Nepean and sell his goods in Ottawa, and while he did, little information would be communicated from one jurisdiction to another about his crimes, his whereabouts or his activities with his fence. Break and enter detectives didn’t need this disadvantage. For them, life was difficult enough as it was.

  In every police force there is a pecking order among the various types of detectives. At the top of the pack are the major crime investigators. These are the high profile elite who take care of the homicides, serious assaults and crimes pertaining to financial institutions – like the armed bank robberies that Robert Whiteman was doing. After major crime come the detectives in intelligence, morality and fraud. Beneath them, alone at the bottom of the heap, are the break and enter investigators.

  B & E investigations are where the new recruits cut their teeth in the detective trade. Nobody in their right mind wants to be caught doing B & E investigations as a career. This is a field of police work where there is no glory and very little satisfaction.

  The workload in B & E investigation is relentless and never-ending. It would not be uncommon for the average B & E detective to have to handle fifty-five new cases in a twenty working-day month. This would be on top of his old cases. The following month adds another fifty new cases to his files.

  Not only is the workload numbing, investigating the break-ins is fruitless. They are the most difficult crimes to solve. Ninety-nine percent of them occur in an empty house. The detective arrives on the scene and finds a broken window or a door kicked in and that’s all. There’s little evidence, usually no fingerprints. Invariably there are no witnesses to describe even the shape or size of the intruder. With nothing to go on, the best an investigator can do is to perform some public relations work – visit the house, list the stolen goods, sympathize with the victim. Even doing that is difficult for the B & E detective because he’s on a treadmill, with barely enough time to return phone calls to the new victims who keep reporting in, every hour, every day.

  What makes the situation even more frustrating is that an experienced B & E detective often knows who did a certain break-in. Most thieves work in a distinct way and leave the subtle trademark of their style. Although there is little incriminating evidence at the scene, the detectives often know which crooks work certain areas and which ones steal a particular type of goods. They usually know which thieves sell to which fences. They know most of the players.

  The problem is they can’t arrest the crooks unless they catch them in the act of breaking in or while they’re in possession of the goods, or when they’re actually selling their merchandise to the fence. These transactions occur so surreptitiously, so rapidly, and so often, they’re impossible to track without effective intelligence and surveillance. Unfortunately the amount of manpower required for this type of service isn’t available for most B & E operations.

  Most stolen goods are recovered through a detective’s contacts among the street people. The good B & E investigator has an extensive knowledge of what crooks are active in the game and how they like to play. The great B & E detective has a special savvy in relating with the hoodlums and thieves that are doing the break-ins. From this network of relationships he is able to develop a coterie of informants who will work for him, keeping him advised of what’s going on. It’s a tricky business because he has to get close enough to the street toughs to gain their confidence yet remain sufficiently distant that he doesn’t compromise himself.

  One of the favourite ways for the police to develop informants is to catch a crook red-handed and get him to “roll over” or “patch over” on someone else to keep himself out of prison. When they roll over once, they tend to keep coming back to the police again and again with more information.

  It was exactly this type of street information that led B & E detectives George Snider, Ralph Heyerhoff and Mel Robertson in the direction of Robert Whiteman. Snider was from the OPP detachment in Kanata; Heyerhoff was from the Ottawa City Police; Mel Robertson was a sergeant of detectives from the Nepean City Police. The only reason they came together was to attend monthly meetings they had initiated themselves to exchange in
formation about the abundance of B & Es taking place in the Ottawa region.

  George Snider, the oldest of the three at thirty-seven, was a chameleon. Sometimes when he was on the job, dressed in blue jeans and scruffy sneakers, with his wiry build, full beard and darting eyes, he could easily be mistaken for a crook himself. At other times, when he was all dressed up in a shirt and tie and sitting behind the wheel of his Camaro convertible, he looked like a prosperous businessman. Either way, he was a first-rate detective.

  George was the best combination of tough street cop and wheelerdealer. Brassy and bold, never afraid to take chances, he was forever on the prowl, searching out leads, making new contacts, keeping his busy fingers on the pulse of the action.

  Typical of all successful detectives, he was a man with a big ego who believed he was good at what he did. This gave him a brash attitude that said, “If you want the job done, give it to me. I can do it better than anyone else.”

  Sometimes his cockiness was hard to take, for cops and robbers alike. But whether they loved him or hated him, they all knew that George Snider was good at what he did.

  George Snider as an OPP traffic officer in 1979, a year before he became a detective

  George Snider

  (Knuckle)

  George liked working for the OPP. He never accepted the idea that he was some kind of second class bush cop investigator. He enjoyed the autonomy that came with working for the provincial police. Unlike other police forces, the OPP didn’t demand that he check in every five minutes and get permission for every move he made. He loved having the option of doing things his own way, heading in a direction of his own choosing.

  Doing that often got him in trouble. George regularly went too far or said too much. His boss, Detective Inspector Lyle MacCharles in Kingston, was forever having to rein him in. At the same time, MacCharles knew that this prodigal son could make things happen and get things done. MacCharles knew if George was going to screw up it would be because he was out there raising hell, not because he was sitting at his desk sleeping.

  Still, there were times when George drove MacCharles crazy. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. When MacCharles said no, George would pause momentarily and then take another run at the beleaguered inspector from a different angle. It might take three or four attempts, but George usually ended up getting permission for something that had originally been denied.

  MacCharles learned to tolerate Snider’s dogged determination. He’d seen him go after criminals in the same tenacious way. MacCharles knew if George wanted to catch a crook it was just a matter of time before he got him. George Snider was relentless.

  MacCharles also knew that Snider had a natural bent for handling criminals. George could talk to them on their level. He played by their rules, was honourable with them, kept his word. They didn’t necessarily like George because he could put them in jail. But they trusted him. In his four years as a detective he had established a solid reputation on the street and built up a wide network of contacts.

  George was a career cop. He’d come to the OPP after finishing high school in Windsor and working for a couple of years on the Chrysler assembly line. By today’s academic standards Snider would have never made it into the OPP. But when he applied to join in 1970 it was a less sophisticated time and the requirements were not as stringent. Like many other forces, the OPP were looking for candidates who had mastered the three Rs of “readin’, ‘ritin’ and rasslin’.” Snider fit the bill.

  George’s first posting was to Bells Corners, a suburb of Ottawa. It was a detachment comprised mostly of misfits, known as the “penal colony.” Every cop who got in trouble with OPP management seemed to end up at Bells Corners. Strangely enough, when these oddballs got there, most of them turned out to be pretty good policemen. What they lacked in finesse they made up for in determination and common sense. Most of them were fearless; no one, crooks or politicians alike, could intimidate them. Because they worked alone in their cruisers in a huge area of the county where the nearest help was often thirty minutes away, they learned to survive by using their wits.

  After a year of desk work at Bells Corners, George was assigned to motorcycle duty on the highway. It was a perfect job for him. As he roared down the highway in his dark glasses, sparkling helmet and leather leggings, George couldn’t believe anyone would pay him to have so much fun. Those wonderful days on the bike lasted almost ten years.

  When George was thirty-three years old, he became a fledgling detective assigned to general law enforcement in the Kanata detachment. His apprenticeship was difficult, an arduous process of learning specific sections of the Criminal Code, the rules of evidence, taking statements, giving testimony, new procedures, paperwork. The hours were brutal, long and irregular.

  But the more investigations he did, the more he liked what he was doing. Working on B & Es, he gradually became familiar with the local network of thieves and fences. He got to know many of them on a first name basis. He soon discovered he had an uncanny knack for cultivating informants. By 1985 he had developed a legion of them.

  But it was more than his street smarts that made George a good detective. He possessed a capacity for deductive reasoning that made him unusually perceptive. It wasn’t long before Inspector MacCharles learned to listen to his ideas. He found when George came to him with something – an analysis, a theory, a suggestion, a proposal – he was usually right on the mark.

  George’s greatest attribute as a detective was his dedication to his work. He went out when he had to, any time of the day or night. There were times he would work forty hours straight with very little sleep. Sometimes he would slip out in the middle of the night for a rendezvous with an informant without any backup or cover. That was usually foolish and often dangerous. Occasionally he disappeared for days and nobody knew where he was or what he was up to. But when he finally surfaced, he usually emerged with something worthwhile.

  One of his primary concerns in Kanata was the ever-increasing number of B & Es that were taking place in the Ottawa region. He began to share his concerns with his B & E counterparts from neighbouring jurisdictions. Two of them were particularly interested in what he had to say.

  One of them was a big, burly detective from Ottawa City named Ralph Heyerhoff. He and George got along well right from the first time they met. They shared a crazy sense of humour and a general view of life that was slightly off-centre. Whenever they got together, the two of them loved to laugh and joke around but there was much more to their relationship than that. Underneath their foolishness, they were both very serious about their police work.

  Mel Robertson

  (Knuckle)

  At 6’1” and 250 pounds, Ralph was an ex-high school football player who was good enough as a defensive tackle at Ottawa’s Canterbury High School to be approached about playing at university. Any dreams Ralph had of playing college ball faded into oblivion when after football season ended, he dropped out of high school in his final year.

  Ralph wanted to be a policeman, but because he was too young at that time to be accepted into the Ottawa City Police, he had to be contented with driving a truck for a year. The following March, he was admitted to the Ottawa force and assigned to walk a beat in the Byward Market.

  The market was an ideal place for a young cop to learn the ropes. Night and day, there was lots of action in the area, most of it shady, much of it illegal. Like George Snider, Ralph soon found he had an almost inborn ability to relate with the street people. He understood them, he was fair with them and they trusted him. There wasn’t much going on around the market that Ralph didn’t have a line on. He was effective working in this locale and after four years on the beat and a year in a patrol car, his talents were recognized. The supervisors on the Ottawa Police Force recommended that he be transferred to the detective office.

  Ralph Heyerhoff

  (Knuckle)

  If that was supposed to be a promotion, it didn’t seem like one to Ralph. He spent most of his time in
vestigating petty crime like stolen bicycles. But as mundane as his new job could be, Ralph found that every investigation he did helped him to accumulate more information on the criminal network operating around Ottawa.

  He had only been in the detective office for a year when he was sent back into uniform in a patrol car. This wasn’t a demotion. At that time it was standard procedure on the Ottawa Police Force to transfer personnel up and down from uniform positions to plainclothes and back again.

  It was when Ralph was sent back to uniform duty that he first did a surveillance on Tommy Craig. He’d heard a lot about the Fat Man as an underworld figure. Among other things, Tommy was known to “have a thing for jewellery.”

  When Heyerhoff was reassigned to the B & E squad in the detective office in 1985 he began to hear a lot more about Tommy Craig, almost daily. All the information he gathered pointed to Tommy as the number one fence in the Ottawa area.

  Since B & E artists have no offices or secretaries, they tend to carry the records of their sales and the coded names and phone numbers of their fences somewhere on their person. Consequently, every time Ralph stopped a known thief he’d look at the suspect’s match books or cigarette packages or any slips of paper he might be carrying. Invariably the name Tommy or the initials T.C. or T. would show up. If there was a phone number listed on their paraphernalia, it was often the number of the Playmate Club.

  Although Tommy’s name and phone number was by far the most commonly found, other fences were listed as well. Most of them were known to Ralph. Although he was only twenty-eight years old and had only been a policeman for nine years, he knew the name and specialty of almost every crook in town.

  It was in the fall of 1985 when Ralph Heyerhoff met George Snider. They had talked on the phone from time to time about mutual concerns, but they first came together when they decided to initiate regional meetings at the detective level for B & E investigators from the west side of Ottawa-Carleton.