FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

The VICE Guide to Right Now

Police Called the Mayor on This Winnipeg City Counselor Who Got Too Drunk

Counselor Ross Eadie has a history of criticizing police, so this was an "interesting" choice on their part.

Ross Eadie. Photo via Facebook/Ross Eadie

Read: University of Missouri President Timothy Wolfe Has Resigned Amid Student Protests

Politicians are, like the rest of us, people. Sometimes we forget that, which can lead to cults of worship for those who don't let us down and unnecessarily sanctimonious outrage when they do. Winnipeg city counselor Ross Eadie did his part to remind us of his humanity by having, by his own admission, "way too much to drink" on Friday night. The Winnipeg police punished Eadie by taking him to a shelter that also operates as a drunk tank and by… calling the mayor on him.

Advertisement

As an incredulous-sounding Eadie noted to the Winnipeg Free Press, he is a full-grown man and the mayor is not, in fact, the father of every city counselor.

"Why would you, the police, call the mayor?" he asked. "I'm 55 years old. I obviously had too much to drink. Why would you call the mayor, though? I don't understand that. He's not my father. I'm not accountable to him, so for me, it was kind of like, wow, what's that all about."

Eadie, who is legally blind, found out about the call when someone from the mayor's office called him about it, and mentioned the police had said he'd assaulted "a paramedic or something." He acknowledged that he had drunk too much and said while he didn't remember being taken to the shelter, he had likely passed out in a cab and reacted poorly to being woken up by people he didn't know.

"If you wake up somebody who is totally drunk and you're blind and you don't know where you are, more than likely, because I don't remember, more than likely I probably tried to push them away," he said. "Leave me alone. I just want to go home."

Eadie sits on the police board and has been critical of the city's police force before. Given that, it doesn't seem like a giant stretch for some to connect the unnecessary tattle-telling to some kind of payback.

Follow Tannara Yelland on Twitter.