Article content continued

Wawra did not return requests for an interview Wednesday. However, he previously detailed his account of a chance meeting in a letter to the editor.

During a trip through Nose Hill Park with his wife, the couple were asked by two men if they had “Been to the Stampede yet?”

Wawra didn’t reply, and was asked again. The aggressive tone had the off-duty cop instinctively reaching for his handgun.

“I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, ‘Gentlemen, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye,’ ” he wrote.

Despite describing the men as bewildered, Wawra thanked “the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort.”

The 20-year officer lamented the strange feeling of being unarmed.

“Many would say I have no need to carry [a gun] in Canada,” Wawra wrote. “Yet the police cannot protect everyone all the time. A man should be allowed to protect himself if the need arises.”

Subsequent to the online furor over the letter, Calgary Cultural Ambassador Jenn Lutz said in a tweet that the two “very aggressive” men Wawra encountered were simply giving out free stampede passes.

@redgypsee Apparently 2 guys representing Calgary oil co. gave free #Stampede passes in Nose Hill. Talk about snap judgement from US cop. —

Jenn Lutz (@JennLutz) August 08, 2012

The report that the men were promoters was, however, contested by a media relations manager of the Stampede in an interview with the local Kalamazoo paper.

Congregating under the Twitter hashtag: #NoseHillGentlemen, the Twittersphere mocked the officer’s paranoia after his letter was posted online.