From Christopher Di Armani, posted to his site on January 27th, 2012:

Thomas Bounds is a sheriff with the Alberta Sheriff’s Service. He requires, at a bare minimum, a severe reprimand and retraining to learn how to act like a human being, since he clearly has no clue at the moment. For his blatantly abusive and potentially life-threatening treatment of Bill Berry, a 52-year-old deaf and mute cancer survivor, Sheriff Thomas Bounds should really be fired.

Does that sound harsh?

Perhaps, but it’s certainly an apt punishment for almost killing Bill Berry for the dastardly crime of trying to pay a parking ticket.

That’s right, Bill Berry was attempting to pay a parking ticket on December 9, 2011 at Red Deer’s courthouse when Sheriff Thomas Bounds became enraged that the deaf man wouldn’t follow his orders.

Bill Berry, as you can see, has some serious health issues.

He is deaf, mute, survived cancer and now breaths through his neck through a tube. He has a feeding tube that runs into his nose.

It is instantly apparent that Mr. Berry is

a) absolutely no threat to anyone and

b) seriously in need of help.

Instantly apparent, that is, to everyone except a mindless bureaucratic thug like Sheriff Thomas Bounds.

Sheriff Thomas Bounds, unlike Bill Berry, has some serious mental issues, first and foremost being his utter devotion to what I like to call Bureaucrat’s Rule #1.

For the benefit of those visiting this great site for the first time, Bureaucrat’s Rule #1 is simply this:

The Rules Are More Important Than People.

It’s a simple rule, and we mere citizens had better learn our place before encountering such all-powerful bureaucrats (at least in their own eyes) such as Sheriff Thomas Bounds.

The compassion I feel for people like Bill Berry is only outdistanced by the complete and utter contempt I feel for bureaucrats like Sheriff Thomas Bounds.

On the day in question, Sheriff Bounds approached Bill Berry to inform him that he had not properly passed through security. That’s completely fair, and indeed it is Sheriff Bounds’ job to do so. I have no issue with that.

The issue I have is with how Sheriff Bounds chose to deal with Bill Berry after Mr. Berry attempted to gesture to the good sheriff that he could neither speak nor hear him.

Instead of acting like a human being, figuring out what the problem in communication was and how best to deal with it, Sheriff Bounds decided the absolute best course of action was to take the severely medically challenged and frail man, grasp him in a bear hug and physically drag him back to the security checkpoint.

When the thug with a badge finally let Mr. Berry go, the poor man collapsed to the floor, unable to breath because the bear hug had caused his breathing tube to be pulled out of his throat, causing him to stop breathing.

Wait. It gets better.

During an interview after the “incident”, Sheriff Thomas Bounds actually had the unmitigated gall to say that Mr. Berry responded, and I quote:

“non-verbally, by aggressively waving his arms at which time I took control of him.”