John Stolarski’s Old Newspaper Clippings

With the exception of his first two years in the Force, John Stolarski spent his entire career as a RCMP Police Dog Services handler (1961 – 1988).

Throughout this career, John clipped newspaper articles about members who he had worked with.

Despite the fact that John has passed away, his family has agreed for us to re-post these articles for the interest of RCMP Veterans and current members of the Force.

BOOTS LIKE MIRRORS

May 20, 1964 – Inspector W.W. Peterson, officer commanding the Saskatoon subdivision of the RCMP, reviews members of the Saskatoon detachment at their annual inspection today.  He was accompanied by Staff Sergeant F.W. O’Donnell (left) at the inspection held at HMCS Unicorn.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner, Joseph Lemieux, 61, Retires

Photograph of RCMP Deputy Commissioner Joseph Rodolphe Lemieux (Reg.#11536/).325)

January 4, 1966 – Ottawa – Joseph Rudolphe Lemieux (Reg.#11536/O.325), 61, was born in a police station and rose to the second-highest rank in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has retired from the force.

Retirement of Deputy Commissioner Lemieux, who crowned his 35 years as a policeman by heading the biggest and most successful security job in the country’s history – protecting the Queen in last year’s royal visit – was announced by Commissioner G.B. McClellan.

He was the senior of the force’s two deputy commissioners and was in charge of operations, which includes all investigations relating to criminal matters and the internal security of Canada.

Among his trademarks in the force was a ‘ fantastic‘ memory.

“Hard work, perseverance and a good memory” all go towards making a successful policeman, he said in an interview.

Son of the late Wilfred Lemieux, police chief of Valleyfield, Que. for 35 years, he was born on the second floor of that town’s police station.

Joined Force

Mr. Lemieux joined the preventive service of the national revenue department in 1930.  In 1932, when its duties were absorbed by the RCMP, he became a Mountie.  Eight years later he was promoted to officer rank and he rose to deputy commissioner of the 9,000-man force in 1960.

He was a sergeant when he arrested Camille Houde, long-time mayor of Montreal, for his active opposition to compulsory registration at the start of the Second World War.

“I arrested him on the street as he was coming out of city hall.  At the time, the mayor was afraid of being kidnapped by a certain element in Montreal and I was chosen to make the arrest because we knew each other.”

“We always remained good friends.”

Deputy Commissioner Lemieux recalled Dec. 8, 1930, during the prohibition era, when a rum runner from Vermont rammed his car while he was on a winter border patrol.

The car plunged through the ice of a river opposite Canaan, Vt., and young Lemieux struggled out of the submerged car and swam to shore.

Faced Bootlegger

He was on undercover work “on a nice, moon-lit summer night in 1934 when he faced a bootlegger on a country road in Quebec’s Beauce County. The man was charged with attempted murder of the unarmed Lemieux, and “he later rehabilitated himself after paying his debt to society.”

Such incidents are dismissed by Deputy Commissioner Lemieux as “all part of the business.”

He describes as his most ticklish job the guard of the Queen on her last visit to Canada at a time when separatist feeling was running high.

He was only the second French – speaking officer to attain the rank of deputy commissioner in the RCMP, the other being Joseph Brunet, now director-general of the Quebec provincial police.

Deputy Commissioner Lemieux likes to recall that in 1959 he became the first French-speaking officer to command the RCMP in British Columbia.  He also served in New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

He is proud that a son, Cpl. Robert Lemieux, is continuing the family tradition of police work.  He is with the Army Provost Corps in Montreal.

Deputy Commissioner Lemieux’s immediate plans are to rest, golf and fish.

NOTE: Joseph Lemieux passed away on October 4, 1991 in Ottawa.

NFLD. MAN CHARGED IN MURDER OF RCMP CONSTABLE

Photograph of Constable Robert Weston Amey (Reg.#22240).

December 17, 1964 – Whitbourne, Nfld. – Constable Robert Weston Amey (Reg.#22240), 22, of the RCMP was shot and killed here Thursday during an attempt to capture four prisoners who escaped from the provincial penitentiary at St. John’s.

The men were captured shortly after the shooting by Constable D.C. Keith, also of the Whitbourne RCMP detachment.

The escaped prisoners, all from Newfoundland were Winston Noseworthy, 21, of Bell Island; James Thorne, 17, of Fortune; John Snow, 19, of St. John’s and Melvin Young, 19, of St. George’s.

Police said they escaped from the penitentiary about 1 a.m. Thursday, stole a car outside the prison, bonded it at the outskirts of St. John’s. then stole another and crashed through an RCMP roadblock on the Witless Bay Road about 20 miles west of the city.

There were cornered outside a store at Whitbourne, 50 miles west of St. John’s, by Constables Amey and Keith.  Amy went to the police car to radio for help.  When he returned the men had jumped Keith and taken his gun.

Shot Officer

Inspector H.C. Russell, Newfoundland superintendent of the RCMP, said one of the men then shot and killed Amey.

The man with the gun then entered a grocery store and for about 10 minutes held proprietor Fred Barrett, 43, hostage.

The man with the gun gave it to Mr. Barrett and surrendered to Constable Keith, who apparently managed to round up the other three escapees singlehanded.

Otto Kelland, penitentiary superintendent, said the men escaped by cutting a hole in the wooden floor of a cell in an old section of the building.  The forced a lock on a door near the prison wall and then boosted themselves over.