Ottawa (Canadian Press) – A New Democrat MP is bringing in a private member’s bill to create a civilian watchdog agency that would be able to investigate deaths or serious injuries which occur in RCMP custody.
Nathan Cullen says his proposed civilian investigation service would ensure that outsiders look into such events, ending the practice of having the RCMP investigate its own members.
Cullen says public trust in the Mounties has eroded after a number of incidents in recent years and his bill would help rebuild confidence in the force.
Private member’s bills rarely become law.
The government has said it is looking at RCMP reforms, but first it wants to see the report of the Air India inquiry, which is expected soon.
Linda Bush, whose son, Ian, was shot to death in a northern B.C. RCMP detachment in 2005, says she fully supports Cullen’s bill.
She says she hopes a new oversight agency will prevent the kind of tragedy which struck her family.
Bush says she never got a satisfactory explanation of what happened the night her son died, although the Mountie involved was formally exonerated by the force.
The argument has always been you can’t use civilians but in reality it’s all a bunch of hog wash and old lamb brain arguments when we can clearly see all police has to do, to clear someone, is turn a blind eye or mop up the scene.
Where a civilian may not want do that and that’s what we need in here someone who can see the bigger picture (Justice for ALL) gather, bag evidence, preserve it and present it to a court of law while avoiding making judgements right there at the scene of the crime.
It’s a simple process and if someone does not want to co-operate and he’s a police officer just replace him and eventually the others will get the bigger picture as well.
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The complaints Commission that oversees the RCMP has instituted an independent overseer program that has a civilian watching the entire investigation.
The problem with that is the police still investigate albeit under the eyes of a civilian. This will not placate the naysayers who will inevitably claim bias on the part of the overseer or cover-up on the part of the investigators. In order to truly cleanse the process from the naysayers perspective, you will have to have totally independent civilian investigators from start to finish.
Where will you find major crime investigators to do this? Surely you would not hire ex police officers/prosecutors for that would not be acceptable. So you would have to train civilians in the art of major crime investigation, exhibit handling and continuity, interrogation and interviewing, legal analysis, prosecutorial expectations, DNA sampling, blood spatter analysis, firearms, evidence gathering, report writing, case law etc., etc.
And you will have to house and equip them in areas where they can respond in short order to any crime scene in the country. The RCMP has approximately 26,000 employees, including regular and civilian members, and Public Service Employees. There are over 750 offices in the country. So just how many persons need be hired and trained, given offices and equipment, wages and benefits, a union, etc? How long until they are effective investigators? Police have several officers involved in the investigations. How many civilians per case would be allotted? Would they have to be sworn in as peace officers to do their job, such as search warrants, production orders, arrests, etc.,.etc.?
It costs approximately 50, 000+ dollars to train one member of the RCMP in just the basics of police work, and two years of field work to be considered basically ready.
So one question other than the obviously who, is how much is this going to cost the taxpayers, and how far are we willing to go to have the “perception” of unbiased investigations?
The Bush matter has cleared the various state organs including the RCMP. I assume there is no issue with her in the performance of those organs in the discharge of their responsibilities. Will the new and additional program augment or replace or be in conflict with the established procedures? What is the recourse if the affected persons are not happy with the outcome?
Lots of questions, very few answers. Pretty easy to broad brush with lets pass a law and get someone else to do the job.
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Our perceptions as a society and individuals are our reality. The perception of Canadian Society is that the RCMP is intentionally and/or unable to conduct an investigation of RCMP members to the satisfaction of the public. Justice must not only be done; it must also appear to be done. This statement must also apply to police investigating the police.
If a Civilian Investigative Service is created they should have an in depth understanding of terms such as, Lag Time, Officer Imposed Jeopardy, Hormonal Induced Stress, and the RCMP use of force model (Incident Management Intervention Model) etc. when use of force is the issue of the ivestigation.
If the investigators do not have proper training the whole process will fall apart and a climate of mistrust will cause the process to fail from the start.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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