Warren Thwing collects model trains and Avro Arrow paraphernalia, posters and stamps. Memories at home in Kingston, Ontario include aviation, hockey, Star Trek and auto racing. But by far his greatest amount is of RCMP memorabilia.
“I’ve always been a mountie lover,” he said in an interview with CBC News. “I joined the RCMP years ago, but I was so short for the height requirement — I was five-foot-eight and half an inch short.”
Instead, he channeled his fervor for the national police into his team. He says he has spent thousands of dollars, mostly on eBay and at collectors’ shows, on hundreds of items, including three full uniforms, badges, shoulder badges, caps, lapel pins, shoulder pads and a Stetson hat. On his mantle are RCMP figurines and two Royal Doulton commemorative ceramic busts.
He dressed up as red twill uniform he bought and had portraits made at his home; she uploaded the photos online and framed them for her wall at home. Their Facebook timeline is full of well wishes and congratulations to the Mounties on various anniversaries and achievements.
Thwing says he never imagined his passion (police call it obsession) would one day go south.
Raid with guns
At 6:30 a.m. on May 7, 2020, Thwing was in bed, listening to the radio, about to start his day.
“All I heard was a, pardon the expression, a bang, and glass breaking and stuff. And my house alarm.”
SWAT team members in commando gear pounded on his side door and rushed into the house and into his bedroom, rifles drawn. His home security camera captured seven officers, though Thwing says he remembers more than a dozen.
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When they told him they were there to execute a search warrant to pose as a police officer, Thwing said, it didn’t make sense to him. He said he asked an officer, “Why didn’t you ring the bell? And he said, ‘You had a gun.'” I said, “Yes. It’s closed”.
Decades ago, Thwing had inherited a broken and dirty old revolver from his grandfather, he said. Thwing said he’s never shot it and has no bullets.
Thwing was handcuffed, taken to a police station and charged with felony impersonation of a peace officer. That same day he had a first court appearance.
NS teams were on alert
Under normal circumstances, Thwing’s collection of RCMP items might never have come to the attention of the authorities. But just two and a half weeks earlier, on April 18, 2020, another man who had acquired an authentic RCMP uniform massacred 22 people around Portapique, NS, including a Mountie. He eluded the police for 13 hours, partly because he was driving an off-duty RCMP patrol car bought at auction and kitted out to look real.
In the following weeks, Nova Scotia Mounties searched social media for anyone who had posted images of the RCMP team. The force told CBC in an email that “RCMP officers in Nova Scotia were monitoring social media platforms regarding the use of RCMP uniform items by non-RCMP employees “.
Thwing posted this photo of himself in an RCMP ceremonial uniform, indoors and at home, on March 4, 2019. “I really wish I had worn it every day of my life, but unfortunately I wasn’t tall enough to enlist at the time. ,’ he wrote. More than a year later, the police would cite the image as part of their grounds to search his home. (Warren Thwing/ Facebook)
Officers observed numerous photos of RCMP uniform items online, the email said. Equipment such as the traditional red robe can be purchased on eBay and the Official Mountie Online Store sell a lot of elements with the RCMP logo.
But the only case that caused any alarm was a Facebook account with the name Warren Thwing.
“This individual was in photos wearing the uniform items in public. That is why the information was passed on to the jurisdictional police in Ontario,” the RCMP said.
An RCMP spokesman stressed there was absolutely no connection between the Nova Scotia shooter and Thwing.
The Mounties began investigating the local Kingston Police on May 5, 2020. A Kingston detective went to Thwing’s Facebook page and noted several of his posts: one from March 2019, where he at home in his ceremonial red uniform; another from October 2019, where he was walking around the Queen’s University campus in pants that matched his RCMP yellow striped uniform, an RCMP hoodie he bought online from the official store of Mountie and a store-bought RCMP crest hat; and a photo of Thwing at home wearing the same hat and mask to which he had attached an RCMP badge.
Police were most concerned about an October 2019 Facebook photo of Thwing in public, wearing pants matching an RCMP uniform, a cap with an RCMP crest and an RCMP hoodie. ‘RCMP that you purchased from the Mounties Official Online Gift Shop. “I believe it is likely that if a member of the public had seen Thwing … that person would have believed Thwing to be a peace officer,” a detective wrote. (Submitted by Warren Thwing)
The detective applied the next day for a search warrant for Thwing’s home. “I believe William Warren Thwing has an interest in the RCMP and has been out in public wearing what appears to be an RCMP uniform,” he wrote in his search warrant application. “I think it’s likely that if a member of the public had seen Thwing in his uniform, that person would have thought Thwing was a peace officer.”
The search warrant application said police were concerned Thwing might have an “interest in self-harm” because his Facebook bio at the time read: “I’m the biggest shit and I really wonder why ever born. I wish I were. dead.”
Police also noted that Thwing had a firearms license and was the registered owner of a revolver.
2 weeks in jail
“Character of a peace officer“, as it is officially called, is a relatively minor crime. Courts have sentenced first-time offenders to a fine of as little as $200, although the maximum penalty is up to five years in prison.
Criminal defense lawyer Leora Shemesh, who was consulted by the CBC about Thwing’s case but was not involved, said the circumstances should have allowed him to be released on a promise to appear at the court at a later date.
Criminal lawyer Leora Shemesh analyzed the evidence police used to obtain a search warrant in Thwing’s case and said she struggled to “understand where the crime was.” (Mehrdad Nazarahari/CBC)
But at his initial court appearance, someone — Thwing isn’t sure who because he appeared via video conference — asked him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Due to the COVID-19 isolation requirements in provincial jails at the time, he was held for two weeks before finally being released, on the condition that he surrender all “police clothing, insignia or other paraphernalia” to the Kingston Police.
Thwing said it was a difficult time at the jail, with lockdowns related to COVID-19 limiting detainees to their cells for up to three days at a time. He didn’t get all his prescription drugs, because of his diabetes and heart disease, she said, and he wasn’t given proper nutrition at first.
The charge against him was dropped in March 2021.
“A simple knock on the boy’s door”
Police in commando gear are supposed to break into someone’s home unannounced is rare in Canada. By long-standing legal precedent – hundreds of years — Officers must normally call and state their presence and purpose when executing a search warrant.
Exceptions are allowed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when there are reasonable grounds to be concerned about the destruction of evidence or possible harm to the officers or occupants of the home.
“Generally, search warrant entries without calling, especially with so many officers to one [SWAT team]it’s for guns and gangs, sometimes child pornography,” Shemesh said.
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CBC News showed him the Kingston police search warrant application and a 2018 police incident report, when Thwing posted that it was a good time to jump off a pedestrian bridge in nearby Gananoque , Ontario, which was closed for construction (Thwing told CBC). has warped the sense of humor and the post was a joke). He also saw the home security camera footage of the police raid on Thwing’s residence.
Shemesh said that not only did he not think he called for the attack to attack the door, he saw little justification for a search warrant.
“I had a hard time understanding where the crime was. Even when I read the warrant for the first time, I almost felt like I was missing something, that there had to be more,” he said.
“A simple knock on the boy’s door would have had the same effect.”
Thwing has photos at his home and on Facebook of him wearing traditional RCMP gear. He was a big fan of the force and had an unfulfilled lifelong dream of becoming a Mountie. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
Kingston police did not respond to questions from CBC News last week, saying officers involved in the operation were on vacation.
An ongoing investigation by CBC News in no-call police raids across Canada produced numerous dubious transactions, including where tactical teams break into people’s homes based largely on the evidence of confidential, paid informants, but then find none of the drugs or weapons they expected. Some police forces have admitted under oath that they use no-knock raids, called “dynamic entries” in…