Late Saturday night a cover up at the Vernon RCMP Detachment was exposed and a news Conference Scheduled for Tuesday at 8:00 A.M. was announced. At this conference a RCMP spokesperson will inform the media that the impersonation of the Vernon detachment’s Inspector by a Hollywood actor had actually occurred and the ruse had begun in early December of 2006 and continued until July 31, 2008.
The actor William H Macy has had the cooperation of the National Police Force to fill in for Inspector Steve McVarnock when the latter was announced as a replacement for Inspector Clair Hayward who suddenly retired on Dec. 12, 2006. The timing of Hayward’s resignation produced circumstances that made the decision to use the actor, Macy as a temporary substitute for McVarnock necessary.Steve McVarnock had been seconded to the Department of National Defense under section 107b.232-01 of The Anti-terrorism Act. G/C Justice This was for a four month period from Dec 1, 2006 to July 31, 2008 in order for McVarnock to reprise his Kosovo role in training Police Officers in Kabul, Afghanistan. Macy and McVarnock had originally met in Kosovo in late 1999 when Macy was shooting a film in the region. Since then Macy has replaced McVarnock for a few days at a time on occasion but until December of 2006 the need to fill in for a longer time had not presented itself. Macy is a method actor who often takes on jobs in the community to study for upcoming roles and the opportunity to take on this assignment for a period in Vernon fit perfectly into his busy schedule.
McVarnock (Macy) arrived in Vernon in mid December of 2006 and has performed the duties of Inspector since then. Local members of the policing community who knew the real McVarnock were sworn to secrecy and the intention was to seamlessly substitute the real Inspector McVarnock on his return from Afghanistan. And it almost worked.
A local Vernon reporter who had observed the fake Inspector several times during the period noticed that he was left-handed but wore his gun on his right hip as would the real inspector who was right-handed (from his press released bio). His suspicions were raised further when he happened to view the movie Pleasantville in which William H Macy portrayed the father George Parker. The resemblance to the local Police inspector was remarkable. On a hunch, he went to the local video rental stores but found there were no Macy movies available. Macy has made at least 40 movies and none were available. (Macy Bio).He confronted ‘Inspector Macy’ late yesterday afternoon and the hoax was exposed. Local Political members confirmed that they were completely taken in but saw no problem with what had happened. As a spokesman for the city said, “If the real Inspector can do as good a job as the fake inspector William H Macy did, then this city will be well protected and in good hands.” However the city watchdog demanded assurance that the RCMP would not be billing the City of Vernon for any costs for the eighteen months of the imposter's employment. (Lirpa Sloof)
