RCMP Watch

Bruce Cheadle, Ottawa (Canadian Press) - It’s a blurry, democratically dangerous no-man’s-land that governments and RCMP spokespeople do not like to publicly explore.
The line between legitimate RCMP security duties and the media management imperatives of a politically sensitive Prime Minister’s Office appeared to be scuffed once again this week on the election trail.
Mounties protecting Prime [...]

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On Sunday, September 28, 2008, thousands of police and peace officers from across the country will gather on Parliament Hill to honour colleagues who have died in the line of duty. The Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Stockwell Day will participate in the 31st Memorial Service. In the past year, 2 police and peace [...]

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Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Press) -  The RCMP won’t fully participate in a public inquiry into the death of a man at the Vancouver airport after he was shocked by RCMP Tasers if the officers involved could still face charges, a spokesman for the Mounties said Thursday.
The inquiry into Robert Dziekanski’s death at the Vancouver airport [...]

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Vancouver, B.C. (Globe and Mail) - The RCMP plans to be involved in a public inquiry into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport, but is waiting for the Crown to decide whether criminal charges will be laid.
“The RCMP intends to fully co-operate with the Braidwood inquiry,” Acting Staff Sergeant Tim [...]

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(CBC News) - A veteran RCMP officer has filed a lawsuit against top-ranking members of his own force over a sex crime investigation involving underage prostitutes that resulted in the 2004 conviction of a B.C. provincial court judge, CBC News has learned.
In a statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court Sept. 9, Const. Justin [...]

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(National Post) - Canadians shouldn’t have had to wait for an Access to Information Request to drag an RCMP investigation on the force’s use of Tasers into the public eye. The Mounties should have released the report themselves, without prompting, when they received it in June. And they should make public now the 18 pages [...]

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(Toronto Star - Editorial) - How much more prodding does Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government need before it moves decisively to control the fast-growing use of stun guns by police in this country?
The RCMP alone has more than 2,800 such weapons, which deliver 50,000 volts of electricity. Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli recently urged the [...]

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(Globe and Mail) - A recent report indicates that the RCMP relied too heavily on the manufacturer’s advice and research in developing policies for the use of electric stun guns. This latest revelation goes to show that the police force got it wrong, right from the beginning.
An independent review has found that the RCMP failed [...]

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Daniel LeBlanc, Montreal, QC (Globe and Mail) - The RCMP has struck an immunity deal with disgraced adman Jean Brault in exchange for information on other players in the sponsorship scandal, notably money man Jacques Corriveau, court records show.
A search warrant that was partly unsealed yesterday says that Mr. Brault gave a sworn videotaped deposition [...]

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Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa (Toronto Star) - The RCMP did not do “due diligence” when it approved the Taser stun gun for use as a less-than-lethal weapon by its officers, a hard-hitting independent review concludes.
The report was ordered by RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott after the uproar following the death last October of a Polish immigrant shot [...]

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