Love sometimes makes men do some very stupid things. Take the case of RCMP Constable Todd Glasman. He met the woman who would become his future wife sometime around August of 2009.

She had, and still has, connections to the Hells Angels.  She regularly visited one of her Hells Angels friends in prison.

Just days after he met his wife-to-be, he began making unauthorized checks using the CPIC system, and he continued making unauthorized checks until early last year.  He readily admits passing the information to the woman who later became his wife.

The Canadian Police Information Center, or CPIC as it’s more commonly referred to, is the system that police forces across Canada use to access and transfer information about criminal activities.

To quote their website:

The Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) was created in 1966 to provide tools to assist the police community in combatting crime.

CPIC is operated by the RCMP under the stewardship of National Police Services, on behalf of the Canadian law enforcement community.

It’s off-limits to organized crime.

Well, it’s supposed to be.

That’s where the fallible human being effect comes into play.  RCMP Constable Todd Glasman is one of those failed, fallible human beings.

It’s not like Glasman didn’t know what he was doing was wrong.  He did.

According to reports, he would park down the street from her home when he was visiting her so his car would not be connected to her.

She was, after all, well-known to police to borrow their terminology.

Sadly, Constable Glasman tried to hide behind his badge to defend his actions.  He claimed the unauthorized checks were to, and I quote:

“protect himself and the RCMP.”

That in and of itself is disgraceful.  If true, it would only be true in the sense that he didn’t want to get caught, and wanted to know what other cops knew about him in connection to his wife-to-be so he could protect himself from discovery.

That’s self-preservation, not protecting the RCMP.

For his transgressions RCMP Constable Todd Glasman was docked 8 days pay.

“The board finds that a reasonable person, having the knowledge of the relevant circumstances, including the realities of policing in general and those of the RCMP in particular, would conclude that conducting numerous unauthorized national crime databank checks for personal reasons without an operational requirement, is disgraceful,” the disciplinary board ruled on March 28.

While he gets to keep his job, he has disgraced both himself and the RCMP.

Over the past year or so there seems to be many more cases of RCMP constables disgracing the force.  Some are relatively minor, like Chilliwack RCMP constable Matt Wright stealing money and drugs.

Some are horrible and very public, like Constable Geoff Mantler‘s brutal kick to the face of Buddy Tavares in Kelowna earlier this year.

We need honourable police men and women, not cops like Matt Wright, Geoff Mantler, Desmond Sandboe, and Andy Yung.  And, of course, RCMP Constable Todd Glasman.

All of them bring shame and disgrace on the RCMP.

But why the seemingly sudden rash of disgraceful conduct being aired?

Could it be a sign the RCMP is finally starting to clean up its act?

If so, then I would urge the RCMP to simply get rid of its bad apples, instead of keeping them on the payroll, complete with badges and guns.