Former Mountie Rob Creasser just turned 65, but half a lifetime ago, a roadside stop almost cost him his life..The Edmonton-born man grew up in Calgary, studied in university, and enrolled at the RCMP training depot in Regina in 1981. He spent his entire RCMP career in BC, with stops in Langley, Chase, Ashcroft and Kamloops where he still resides..“It’s a dangerous job. It's 99% boredom in terms of the routine and doing paperwork, followed by 1% sheer terror,” said Creasser..One Sunday night in 1991 brought Creasser a fearful moment he will always remember..“I saw a vehicle with some people in it parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere just outside of Kamloops,” he recalled..“I just stopped and pulled over behind them to check and make sure. Did they need a tow truck? Were they broken down? What was going on?”.A 21-year-old India-born man was in the driver’s seat with two teenagers accompanying him. He was driving with Alberta plates and claimed to be on day parole out of Red Deer..“I made some horrific mistakes. He couldn't find the registration and insurance, so I took his driver's license and instructed him when he finds it just to bring it back to my car,” Creaser said..“I found out afterwards, the reason he didn't or couldn't find the registration and insurance is because a gun was on top of that stuff in the glove box. So there was lots of alarm bells that should have been going off for me that didn't necessarily.".“It's not that I wasn't trained properly. It's just that if you do 30 stops a day every day while you're working, you get complicit. And I was very fortunate that in my complacency, I was able to live another day.”.Creasser asked dispatch to call the parole board and find out if the man had permission to be in BC on his day parole. He heard there was no record of such, but that it might exist but not be entered in the computer system..“I went back to the car with that information and then said, ‘I know you're on day parole. Do you have some sort of pass that allows you to be out here in the interior of BC?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, it's in the trunk.’ So I said, ‘Well, I need to see it.’.“So he got out of the car, and I kind of followed him. I could see him reaching down in front of his stuff, and then he brings out this sawed-off 22 calibre rifle. It looked like one of those pirate-type guns.”.Creasser saw the armed man turn towards him. Fortunately, he was a poor shot..“I see the flash, and I didn't feel anything, and I kind of fell over the front of his car. I could see him running down the highway past my police car. He just didn't want to go back to jail as it turned out. I'll never forget it,” Creasser recalled..“I'm kind of under the front wheels, peeking out from underneath. And I thought, this isn't the safest place to be. So I ordered the two kids out of the car at gunpoint and called for the cavalry to come help out. We found [the shooter’s] body about 200 metres past my car in the ditch with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”.It took time for the officer to recover from the traumatic incident, a process further complicated by accusations against him..“The family, because he was Indo-Canadian, said this was a police cover up, that he never would have taken his own life. It's against his religion, blah, blah, blah. So I had to go to a coroner's jury and testify and the two kids had to testify,” he said..“The first thing they did when I got back to the detachment is they took my gun from me and looked at the barrel. All the bullets were where they were supposed to be. The gun hadn't been fired.".“And this 21 year old kid was badass. He didn't have Canadian citizenship and he was set to be deported back to India. That's how bad he was, that they didn't even want him in the country anymore.”.After “a lot of counselling” and some time off, Creasser returned to duty..“That first traffic stop that I did when I came back to work was a little nerve-wracking. But I took the view that even though I made lots of mistakes about officer safety on that particular evening, I'm still here. That wasn't my time. So I've got work to do, and I can still be a contributing and valuable member of society. So let's get back at it.”.Later in Creasser’s RCMP career, fellow Mounties were shot down in Mayerthorpe, Alta. and Spiritwood, Sask. He said such losses always hit the police community hard..“It's not fun. It's like losing a family member. Even though you may not know the members involved directly, it wasn't such a big outfit. You knew people that knew them or maybe you were on courses with them. So yeah, it's very difficult,” he said..Creasser retired in 2010 and later became a spokesman for the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada. He was an early advocate for the Mounties to form a union, something the Supreme Court of Canada made possible in 2015. In recent years he has worked in security..As he enters his golden years, Creasser says he misses some aspects of his policing career, but not others..“I still talk to members and I do miss the people. I really miss the people and the work was challenging work. The political bulls___, I don't miss it all. Not at all.”
