🇨🇦 Police database predator gets house arrest

A Regina police sergeant mined an internal database for 33 women, stalked them with fake wrong-number texts, lied about his name and job, and still walked away with a conditional sentence of two years less a day, served in the community. That is the Canadian justice machine in one greasy little case: abuse state power, violate privacy, exploit women while on duty, then collect a velvet-glove punishment. The civil suits from Bridgette Cyr and Kerry Benjoe, as reported, are what happens when the system refuses to clean its own house.

Robert Semenchuck already admitted he accessed police records for personal gain between 2015 and 2023, sometimes using police-issued equipment and seeing women while working. Yet the usual institutional reflex kicks in: minimize, compartmentalize, move on. Canadians are told to trust expanding state databases, more surveillance, more bureaucratic reach, more official discretion. For what, exactly. So connected insiders can weaponize private information and then argue consent was freely given. A country that cannot protect citizens from its own uniformed bureaucracy is not being governed in the national interest.

🍁 Maple Chronicles