(CBC News) – The unexpected disclosure of a key email between senior RCMP officers has raised questions about officers’ testimony at the Braidwood inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski, resulting in a delay of the probe in Vancouver until September.
The email between two senior RCMP supervisors suggests that the four Mounties who responded to a call at the airport discussed a plan to use a Taser against the Polish immigrant before they arrived.
The four officers had already stated under oath at the inquiry that they had not discussed using the stun gun before arriving at the airport.
The commission was scheduled to begin hearing closing arguments on Friday morning, but after learning of the email, commissioner Thomas Braidwood announced the inquiry will resume on Sept. 22, so the commission lawyers have time to review the email and conduct an investigation.
“I am obviously appalled,” a clearly upset Braidwood said.
‘Discussed the response en route:’ email
The existence of the email was revealed by commission counsel Art Vertlieb as the inquiry resumed Friday. He said he only received the email from federal lawyers on Tuesday.
Vertlieb read from the Nov. 5, 2007, email, titled “Media strategy — release of the YVR video,’” from the RCMP Chief Supt. Dick Bent to assistant commissioner Al McIntyre.
“Finally, spoke to Wayne and he indicated that the members did not articulate that they saw the symptoms of excited delirium, but instead had discussed the response en route and decided that if he did not comply that they would go to CEW.”
The “Wayne” mentioned in the email is Supt. Wayne Rideout, then-head of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team investigating Dziekanski’s death, according to Vertlieb. CEW refers to a conducted energy weapon, the RCMP name for a Taser-type weapon.
Vertlieb said the late disclosure throws into question whether the commissioner has received everything he needs from the RCMP, and argued that the closing submissions should be delayed so the RCMP officers involved can be called to testify about the email and a full review of the disclosure process can be completed.
Vertlieb acknowledged the comments on the email were clearly hearsay, but that they must be investigated because they came from senior RCMP officers, and “on its face, the email appears to tell a significantly different story.”
Wrong and hearsay: officers’ lawyers
Lawyers, representing the four RCMP officers who were at the airport, responded that the email was essentially wrong and hearsay, and reiterated the officers statement that they had not discussed using the Taser prior to arriving.
“It never happened,” Ravi Hira, the lawyer for Const. Kwesi Millington, later told CBC News.
“What possible reason would there be to have such a plan,” said Hira, “the evidence doesn’t support this fanciful tangent that we are going down at the public expense.”
But Braidwood ruled the inquiry will resume on Sept. 22, when it’s likely Rideout, Bent and McIntyre and other RCMP officers would be required to testify about the email.
The email was apparently overlooked by federal government lawyers in the thousands of pages of documents received from the RCMP on CD-ROMs during the inquiry.
A clearly upset Vertlieb berated the federal lawyers for the mistake, saying: “This is what late disclosure does — it disrupts the conduct of the proceedings.”
Helen Roberts, a lawyer for the federal government, gave a tearful apology, saying it was simply an accidental oversight.
I took your statement at face value which did not delineate your perception fully. The phrase “in and out of policing” which referred to you, did not appear to encompass the world at at large. A qualifier would have been more instructive. But you are painting everyone with that statement are you not? In and out of policing if you are referencing the world is certainly broad brush.
The preferential treatment of natives and minorities with the unintended results are what I refer to in part. Interestingly enough an article in the paper from Vancouver today noted that the Supreme Court in the US ruled that in effect avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another. (Justice Anthony Kennedy writing)
I do not state that all members of the Native community that became members of the RCMP are substandard. I do however refer to a number that were in training for extended periods of time due to a couple of factors, one that there was no failure for them due to the political nature of the program and that training recruits now is different on account of that debacle. You incorrectly take a note from my missive that was not there.
You will get no argument from me that there are poor supervisors everywhere. In the RCMP, the “new” promotion process produced the Corporal at YVR, despite a supervisor’s recommendation that he not be promoted. I would hope that this situation would be evaluated and repaired. Given that the RCMP has had a “new” process every couple of years since 1994, and treats minorities and natives differently, does not fill me with hope.
My points on getting to the heart of the YVR matter are well explained thus far. I look forward to the recommendations of Braidwood, and the release of the details examined to make those recommendations.
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I don’t consider myself as just living in Canada. I live in the world. My statement is not a broad indictment of Canadian society. That’s how we get into trouble; by painting everyone with the same brush. As you may have noticed I use the term racist behavior.
I don’t even refer to people as racists. I do define individual’s behavior as racist. (Trying to maintain dominance and control because of race.) I identify their behavior which makes it applicable to individuals not to racial groups.
I have worked in the area of Police Race Relations in some form or fashion since 1970. Part of my consulting to police organizations and minority youth is to point out the similarities between the two groups.
EG: Minority Community and Police Community:
Both have a culture.
There are negative repercussions for informing on someone who has done wrong.
Bad police officers hide within the ranks of the good police officers.
Youth commit crimes and hide within the good people of the community.
Minority youth and the Police will always be present.
Both want to go home alive and well at the end of the day.
BOTH GROUPS DON’T WANT TO BE JUDGED BY THE ACTIONS OF ONE.
The problem is that groups are becoming so entrenched in their animosity of each other that they (Police/Youth/Society) will not open their minds up to a healthy exchange of ideas.
You took my statement as a broad indictment of Canadian society. That is 100% wrong. It is an incitement of INDIVIDUALS who practice racist behavior who live in Canadian and world society.
There are a number of people who would think that you were comparing the first nations person involved in the taser incident in BC with the suggestion that the government driven aboriginal program some how produced a substandard RCMP member. The topic after all was about the “bombshell e-mile.”
I don’t know if you were making a connection. Maybe you can answer that in your response to this comment. If you were then you were saying that all first nations’ members were below standard because they all went into that program or maybe some went the regular troop training root that I observed as a Facilitator/ Instructor at Depot. I submit that there are a number of substandard supervisors in the RCMP but is not based on race. There are plenty to go round of all races, cultures, and gender.
The member’s actions in the Vancouver incident should be judged on a timely, accurate, and open as possible investigation. Then you tell the truth no matter who it helps or who it hurts.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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“My perception being my reality; I stayed in the RCMP for 26 years because I loved being a police officer and I also knew that no matter what I did in or out of policing that I would be subjected to racist behavior.”
The only qualifier I would seek to this broad indictment of Canadian society is frequency.
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To answer some of your questions and to see it from another point of view I will state the following:
It is well documented that the RCMP actively tried to restrict the employment of some non-white members. There are now books and documents that support my statement. That is the reason for all the policies regarding minority hiring. The RCMP should have let people be all they could be in hiring and promotions to begin with.
The question now is, does it still go on in the refinement stage of racist behavior. (Racist behavior being established, maintained, advanced, and refined.) If you and the readers think it is still happening, fine. If you and the readers think that it doesn’t happen that’s fine also. Your perception is your reality.
What is happening is that RCMP members are being harassed to the point that they are on sick leave due to stress, collecting VAC pensions, receiving settlements, and leaving (retirements) rather than take the abuse. Everyone should stop blaming the members. It’s time people got out of their heads and started looking at the damage that is being done to the members. The sitting behind frosted glass approach, calmly examining the facts for years does not mean much to a female RCMP members that have been sexually harassed and assaulted. Delay is the worst form of denial. There are families and careers being ruined for all reasons. (RACE, GENDER, SEXUAL ORINTATION, CULTURE OR, I JUST WANT TO SCREW UP YOU CAREER TODAY BECAUSE I CAN. Take your pick. There is incompetence at all levels. The promotional process does not get the best person for the job. I am not anti-RCMP. I am pro-justice! Empathy would go a long way in these incidents because empathy absorbs tension.
The courts have stated that the RCMP can unionize because members swore to affidavits, and were willing to be cross examined by lawyers because the Div. Reps were not doing their job. If a union were to come about and they did not do their job protecting the members then members would keep looking for help somewhere else.
See how you would work in an environment where you were sexually assaulted? Would you just get up in the morning and get over it because you received a pension and transfer?
Other members are still in the RCMP because they have a right to be. Harassment free!
My perception being my reality; I stayed in the RCMP for 26 years because I loved being a police officer and I also knew that no matter what I did in or out of policing that I would be subjected to racist behavior. There are nine major areas of people activity that we encounter on a daily basis. Economics, Education, Entertainment, Labour, Law, Politics, Religion, Sex, and War. Racist behavior takes place in all these areas so I would not escape it.
What I am saying is; until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt will only be told by the hunter.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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Not so many years ago the govt tasked the RCMP with better mirroring the “cultural mosaic” of the country. Thus was born the new guidelines for hiring. Minorities were given priority in hiring to better fill out the percentages of the Force in terms of better representation of the population. Entrance exam score passing grades for minorities were lower than others. The percentage of hires had to begin with minorities, and when that pool was exhausted, the non minorities were processed. Passing mark in the beginning for minorities was 32 and the non minorities was 40.
In the same vein, the need for some changes in the policing of the Native reserves was identified. For some strange reason, the govt and the RCMP decided that if they hired and trained natives and put them back onto reserves, there would be better cooperation, acceptance, etc.
They soon found out a couple of things. One was that the natives that were being hired that barely made it into the Force, had a great deal of difficulty in completion of training. They found out that they could not just summarily bounce them out of training. (Discussion for a later date). Some natives were in the training facility for over a year, some approaching 18 months or 3 times the the training period and still could not make the grade, such as it was. Failure was not an option. This resulted in the beginning of the change of the training facility from being hired on as a full member to the present cadet status. (legal discussion for another time)
The second thing they found out was that a Native from Manitoba that was put on a reserve in BC was no better than anyone else, as they were still considered outsiders. Apples in some vernacular.
In their zeal to appease the government, the RCMP did not fully investigate the ramifications of the initiatives hastily put into place so that they could be seen to be acquiescing to the government demands. Bearing in mind that once somebody is hired in the RCMP (as in other organizations) , the full weight of legal and labor laws now apply. Especially with minorities. Its not as easy as it was in the old paramilitary 60’s and early 70’s when an individual could be summarily dismissed from the RCMP.
Times have changed and so have the processes. The hiring of Natives is still actively pursued, along with other minorities, to serve a quota, not excellence in selection. I dare say that this is not confined to the RCMP. It is another example of the law of unintended consequences.
The fact is, now that the shortage of applicants for all police departments is critical, the minority make up of the RCMP will be changed again. The long term question is how will the imbalance vis a vis the Canadian population be handled.
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Deepthroat wrote, (Comment # 12)
“Maybe that is a problem eh? Maybe you should investigate the government driven aboriginal program in the RCMP recruiting venue. Could shed some light on one of the YVR 4″.
You wrote the above statement (Comment # 12).
I find that statement interesting. I respectfully request that you please elaborate so that the readers of the site may have a better understanding of what you mean.
Calvin Lawrence
CGL Consulting
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I am not sure how you deduce some form of emotion from my post, but rest assured there is no “nerve” being touched.
The questions I pose are the ones I feel should be answered under oath. There is no value in placing inordinate emphasis on an issue that has yet to be determined, or issuing suppositions based on tenuous underpinnings.
My point with the Federal lawyers is that you will not hear, or be able to dissect, their contributions because of the noted stance taken by them in the past.
As for the “special review”, I refer to my question number 3. Is that not clear or would you like some clarification on my query?
The RCMP higher echelons are no different than any other organizations, in that they do not at all times have a knowledgeable grasp of all the excruciating minutiae. And thus it is important to examine the email in the proper light, as in my questions numbers 1 and 2.
I have always enjoyed the duck analogy, but I sometimes substitute the word “uneducated”.
By all means NRF, take a stab at who you think that is. Your guess will probably be most instructive.
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Should we guess about who is the righteous man here shepherding weaklings through the valley of darkness?
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Ouch! Must have touched a nerve. I hope your gaskets still have integrity up to their kilo pascal rating. After all, it’s just a conversation, sometimes serious and sometimes tongue in cheek, but never intended to blow out an artery.
And if you wish to, you may read my earlier post in which I freely acknowledge that the information contained in the emails is hearsay. And I suggest it is important to examine the trail under oath to confirm or refute the issues of premeditation and reliance on “excited delirium”. And I would also expect the role of the lawyer in the delay to be examined too. However you may want to pause and just breathe in and breathe out a bit.
But even if lawyerly incompetence is proved that hardly accounts for what more than just a few have observed: that the RCMP brass who exchanged emails are very unlikely to have overlooked something like this. Why did they not highlight it for special review? The information contained in it is the 800 pound gorilla in the corner of the room. Don’t take my word for it. Mr. Justice Braidwood said so himself: “I find this delay in disclosing it to the commission appalling,” an upset Braidwood said. “The contents of this e-mail goes to the heart of this inquiry’s work.”
Burying key issues in a forest of paper is not mythical. It happens all the time. Think the mounties are above that? Think again. It could have happened here. Think the mounties could never spin information for strategic gain at the expense of honourable transparency? Think again. That has been demonstrated more than once in this process to date and you don’t need a final report or a Ouija board to uncover it. You just apply the duck test: if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck…it’s a DUCK.
Remember, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…
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The noted email is apparently one of over a thousand emails according to the news reports. You give untested false weight to the correspondence between two of the three highest ranking officers in the Province who are far removed from the event.
You would be better to ask the following questions based on the inquiry counsel’s statement:
Vertlieb acknowledged the comments on the email were clearly hearsay, but that they must be investigated because they came from senior RCMP officers, and “on its face, the email appears to tell a significantly different story.”
1. On what information/speculation/facts/rumors/reports was the email based on?
2. Did the originator have possession of the information through personal contact with the 4, or is he relying on second/third/fourth hand information, “hearsay” as it were.?
3. Having been disclosed in April of this year, some 2 months ago, to the Crown lawyers, is it the duty of the RCMP to put weight on any of the emails which could be construed as political pressure, self incriminating or absolving?
4. Who discovered that the email(s) and other documents disclosed in April on the CD, had not been disclosed and when?
5. Were they examined by another lawyer and dismissed?
6. Indeed, were they examined in the intervening time or not?
Your assertion of a mass of paper to obfuscate the reader is laughable. If it is related to to the events then it is relevant, and should be examined for weight. The fact that there are thousands of documents does not alleviate the Crown of its burden.
Do not look for the Crown to do anything about its own actions in this debacle. You decry the foibles of the RCMP who at least have some form of oversight from the CPC, the Courts and inquiries. The lawyers have no independent oversight whatsoever and have been successful (in front of their brother lawyers) to argue successfully that their actions are above being examined under oath.
So a final question to you SC, why are you not as incensed with that situation? If you are going to armchair, as is your God given right, be expansive and cover a couple of bases.
“Twenty something police recruit”? Try persons into their 50’s. There are many in their forties, and numerous in the thirties. The make up of the RCMP training troop has drastically changed over the years. Maybe that is a problem eh? Maybe you should investigate the government driven aboriginal program in the RCMP recruiting venue. Could shed some light on one of the YVR 4.
Your dichotomy example is fatally flawed.
“Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.”
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The RCMP Commissioner claims they have cooperated fully with the Inquiry. Yet the important email from November 2007 indicates that the YVR 4 committed perjury when they testified in March 2009 and the most senior RCMP officers in BC had to be aware. These high commissioned officers knew two versions of one event, the one written about in the email and the one spun to Braidwood.
Both could not be correct but the Chief Superintendent and the Assistant Commissioner said nothing, did nothing, called nobody. However, the record does shows that C/S Dick Bent went on to argue that the RCMP should not participate in the Inquiry by claiming a jurisdictional excuse. Now, we find that the Chief Superintendent may have been motivated by a desire to hide his own knowledge.
According to the present RCMP version of events, this important 2007 email was given to DOJ lawyers in April 2009, before the media relations issues were to be reviewed. Clearly, that document had impact well beyond media relations and should have been turned over early in the lifetime of the Commission.
The email contained no idle comments about an insignificant subject. People at the RCMP executive level made a considered decision to withhold information from the early stages of Braidwood’s work. Ultimately, too many people knew.
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Is it possible that the last minute release of the e mail was just a 59th second of the 59th minute of the 11th hour coincidental correction of a lawyer’s omission? Possible, but not very likely.
Would senior execs in the RCMP recall such an incendiary email among the daily dreck that crosses their computer screens (not to mention the memories of some pretty savvy administrative coordinators who support these guys)? You bet they would.
Given the profile of these statements and the extreme sensitivity of the case they could hardly fail to be aware of the significance. (This is the same RCMP whose Headquarters wanted non co-operation with the Braidwood Inquiry.)
After that video went viral and the police account was contrasted to the photographic account that email would have acquired its own “glow in the dark” homing capability. Forgot it? Just about as much as they could walk out the front door to work on a February morning wearing just their undershorts because they forgot to put on their pants. To suggest they just had a Doh de doh doh doh Homer Simpson moment and forgot to highlight them to the lawyers reviewing government submissions to the inquiry beggars belief. It would be kind of like Ike planning to go to the Lake Country for a few days holiday on June 5, 1944 because he just happened to forget about the invasion of France the next day.
So how could this happen? Big organizations that want to conceal embarrassing information learned a technique long ago. If you cannot withhold data from the public, an inquiry or the press, you flood the recipients with a snowstorm of paper data. Reams and reams of the crap. As much as you can find. You make sure you put so much boring stuff out that you overwhelm the readers and put them to sleep if possible. Then when you have accomplished this task, you slip in a few radioactive bits and hope the dear readers miss your disclosure.
That’s what the Brits who ran the nuclear power program did after Windscale. Windscale? What’s that? Well, on October 10, 1957, the graphite core of a British nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumberland, caught fire, releasing lots of radioactive contamination (Iodine 131) into the surrounding area.
After Windscale the nuclear power operators made it a habit to disclose scads of stuff, most of it boring and meaningless. Some of these releases contained bits of data about embarrassing incidents including errors of omission or commission; errors that resulted in smaller leaks of nasty stuff than at the Windscale accident, or information about near misses that (but for good luck) an accident could have occurred. They didn’t want a lot of scrutiny of their Homer Simpson moments (pun intended). Their information releases were like drinking from a firehose. So in the midst of this numbing drivel some important nuggets lay buried. Funny thing. Some of these didn’t see the light of day in a newspaper. So I guess it worked.
Big organizations use that tactic from time to time. They use it because it works. It could as easily have happened here. I hope Mr. Justice Braidwood has an opportunity to answer the question for us all.
Turning to the Hotspur suggestion: “If you have so many problems with the way police do their jobs, join up and try and lead change from the inside.”, our friend offers a false dichotomy.
The false dichotomy goes like this:
If you reject the way police do their jobs the only way to achieve change is to join the force and change it (them?) from the inside. If you do not join the force, goes the false dichotomy, you must accept that the police are doing an acceptable job. Therefore you have no criticisms now and in future may have no criticisms of the police.
Some people may not be able to join a force for a variety of reasons: age, health, citizenship and probably others. Surely they are not disenfranchised from seeking change or expressing criticism. Still others may feel attempting to change a force from within is unlikely of success. They seek change from without. That is perfectly acceptable in this country…maybe not Iran, but here it’s OK.
To quote some lyrics of a Leonard Cohen favourite of mine:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take manhattan, then we take berlin.
Or if you like a more classical reference, would you care for something from ancient Greece about Sisyphus:
As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down forcing him to begin again.
I imagine a twenty something police recruit might feel like Sisyphus if he or she were trying to change the system from within. I’m not sure the RCMP has that long. Might need something faster and more direct.
So to paraphrase Lesley Gore,
Its my police force and I’ll bitch if I want to,
bitch if I want to,
bitch if I want to
You would bitch too if it happened to you.
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According to the news reports the email in question was previously disclosed to the Crown. It is the duty of the Crown to assess any and all evidentiary material, and to present everything in full disclosure. They failed to do this. That is unacceptable. To suggest it was deliberately buried in a forest of emails is premature and biased. It was disclosed, full stop. Some testimony under oath is need to clear this up.
However, Crown lawyers, as recent cases have shown, refuse to testify on their own conduct. They claim it infringes on their ability to discharge their responsibilities I will watch this unfold with great interest.
The email is from one high ranking officer to another. There is no evidence, yet, to suggest he was properly informed or formed his opinion based on facts or speculation or in speaking directly with the 4. This will have to be determined under oath in front of the Inquiry.
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I understand there is considerable fury developed between very senior officers. One voice demands full disclosure, regardless of additional consequences, others believe they’ve already suffered too much unnecessary damage and want that contained at lower levels, away from the handful near the top.
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The way things have been unfolding in politics these days Helen Roberts probably had very little choice but to become the scape goat.
After all someone has to go down for the mistake and lately, the choice of the day has been a woman.
I tend to agree with M.S. Thomson (”Awesome stupidity on the part of the federal Justice Dept”) & with Social Critic on (”I think there could be a form of organizational dysfunction that deserves its own term. It might be called “toxic secrecy”…defined as the pathological impulse to keep secret unflattering information that, when it emerges, does more damage to the organization than disclosure – especially when the organization claims to be honourable and trustworthy”), sorry.
But I have heard the comments before from someone else; “Quit bitching and start thinking of ways to help. If you have so many problems with the way police do their jobs, join up and try and lead change from the inside.” (seems to me I’ve heard this comment said before, is that a sound of desperation?) but after two Commissioners back to back in the RCMP, (it only took one ice burg to sink the Titanic, not two) there’s no way I’m getting on board inside or out.
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Sending email has about the same security as sending a post card via snail mail, except worst.
As the email travels to it’s intended destination, copies are made across computers and servers and have a nasty habit of showing up when you least expect or want. Hitting the delete key doesn’t get rid of the copies and have to potential to live for years.
Just ask the founder of Microsoft. Some years ago, Bill Gates had internal email he had sent unexpectedly become evidence against Microsoft in court proceedings years after he sent it.
You can’t bury email as you suggest. Someone motivated enough will find it. Internal RCMP email often lands in the hands of news agencies.
This was probably an unfortunate oversight by the Crown. I don’t believe Helen Roberts would be taking the potential career ending blame if the RCMP was to blame for this blunder.
I don’t know about any of the people leaving comments here but i send several emails a day and don’t remember every email I send. I am not the head of a major company or a senior officer in the rcmp or military (not employed by them) but do you honestly think this was a stall technique. If anything it would have been better to bury this email not bring it forward. So I would think maybe you should all think about the fact that we are dealing with people here and people sometimes make mistakes. The RCMP has fully co-operated with the inquiry and they brough forward a potentially damning piece of evidence because they finally saw it. Quit bitching and start thinking of ways to help. If you have so many problems with the way police do their jobs, join up and try and lead change from the inside.
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Here we are looking at the RCMP and thinking they do things above board and guest what, it seems they don’t.
Right in the beginning there was mention that the officers may have decided before they arrived at the airport to tazer Robert and I believe they said; no and still hold to their original testimony.
So the lawyers for the RCMP failed this week to win the argument to stop those four officers from being charged and now the RCMP have come out with what appears to be a stalling tactic to postpone the final arguments, the inquiry findings and forced the inquiry to hold off again till September.
We are looking at an about face where they are now saying that the four officers did make the decision to tazer Robert where as in the pass they were adamant that they didn’t. This smacks of a stall tactic to under mind and prevent the judge’s decision recommending they could be criminally charged as a result of their actions and testimony. Say it isn’t so?
New information surfaced that two senior RCMP members had emailed each other that the four officers responding to the call at the airport were going to use the tazer if Robert did not comply. This information is not new information but old information kept secret.
Usually the dispatch gets all the facts on the telephone before it’s dispatched out to the officers so in hindsight it may seem that they already had what they needed to act the way they did before they started out.
It also seems like they have a brazen disregard for the procedures and laws they are called to follow and enforce and holding back information from the inquiry is just another example of how they operate in these days.
I don’t buy the tears of remorse that was shed in delivering the news yesterday. Maybe she didn’t like delivering the news but to think the RCMP cries over silly things like this is ingenious.
I think in view of this new information which is really old, that the inquiry should be postponed in B.C. and a judicial inquiry should be called to look into the workings of the RCMP, to see if this organization can be saved or if it must be disbanded all together.
The email existed from day one of the inquiry and the RCMP had all the time they needed to bring this forward and didn’t.
Do you honestly think it’s something that can be used or it’s just one more attempt to buy time to get the officers off the hook?
What is this all going to cost the tax payers of Canada for this inquiry and now this delay?
I think to make it easier we should take the Polish government’s offer and ship them four to Poland and see if justice will be served there and stop making a mockery of our own justice system here in Canada.
After all in pass history, has inquiries shown us that significant things will happen or not?
Look at the RCMP appointing one of their own departments to investigate themselves, is this better or worst than the government holding inquiries over these kinds of cases?
What will they really do to correct the flaws in our system, nothing again? What a joke
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The news from Vancouver leaves me feeling defeated and depressed. I cannot see how anyone benefits from this revelation. Certainly Mr. Justice Braidwood is upset – he said so clearly. And those seeking answers and some measure of closure – Robert’s mother, the Government of Poland, and a lot of decent ordinary Canadians – just got slapped up the side of their collective heads today. Yet another delay to sort out this mess.
It will be a knee jerk and tantalizingly easy slide to say the only one at fault is Helen Roberts representing the Feds. Some may even want to suggest a deliberate deception by Roberts. But I don’t buy it. What possible personal or professional gain could she realize by an error of omission or commission to fail to present this material until the eleventh hour? And then to endure the humiliation and rebuke as she lays it out for the Commission?
Moreover, as was stated RCMP brass (Bent and McIntyre) might reasonably have been expected to point out to government lawyers reviewing material that would be submitted to the upcoming inquiry, the existence of these important e mails. But they apparently buried them in a small forest of paper, perhaps in the hope they would be missed and remain buried.
Bear in mind I make no suggestion these represent fact. They do not. They represent hearsay. Bent says to McIntyre that Rideout who headed the IHIT team, that members didn’t say they saw signs of excited delirium (given as one reason why they had to use the taser) and that they discussed use of the taser enroute (an element of preplanning they strenuously denied).
It was essential to bring this to light to follow the trail in direct examination under oath to see where Rideout learned this. And then to examine that source and so on until the stahement may be verified or refuted.
A disturbing pattern resurfaces in this saga. It was not only the four officers who confronted Dziekanski and left him dead on the floor of the airport who made statements about his behaviour they later admitted were untrue (and transparently designed to justify their actions and place themselves in a blameless light).
The RCMP brass has consistently been found to spin the public relations releases to do the same. And when new evidence has surfaced which calls the actions of the four into question, has gone “stumm”. No corrections, no “errata”, no ‘Wait, here is an e mail between two senior RCMP executives that goes to the heart of two key issues. It calls certain conclusions into question. We better put a huge red flag on this and hand deliver it to the lawyers because whether we like the contents or not, the inquiry needs to see this!’.
I think there could be a form of organizational dysfunction that deserves its own term. It might be called “toxic secrecy”…defined as the pathological impulse to keep secret unflattering information that, when it emerges, does more damage to the organization than disclosure – especially when the organization claims to be honourable and trustworthy.
You can teach monkeys to manage public trust better than this.
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Here we go again. Just when we all thought it was over and fprmer-Justice Braidwood could get down to business, this crucial piece of evidence is found and everything gets delayed until September.
Awesome stupidity on the part of the federal Justice Dept.; no wonder Helen Roberts looked so stressed and upset in the clip I saw on the CBC websight, some heads are likely to roll as a result of this.
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RCMP Commissioner makes statement about Braidwood Inquiry
19 June 2009
The Vancouver Sun
The Commissioner of the RCMP, William Elliott, wishes to make the following statement regarding today’s events at the Braidwood Inquiry:
- From the outset, the RCMP has cooperated fully and participated fully in the Inquiry.
- We have produced thousands of documents to our legal counsel for their review and for them to transmit all relevant material to the Commission.
- Commissioner Braidwood was informed that a specific document was not provided and he himself accepted the Government of Canada’s sincere apologies for this oversight.
- This was simply an oversight. Unfortunately in an exercise of this magnitude, such an oversight can occur.
- It was the RCMP, working with our legal counsel, who brought this oversight and this document to the attention of the Commission.
- The Commission indicates that it will thoroughly look into the matter, including into the relevance, if any, of the specific document, about which there are significant questions.
- The RCMP is as disappointed as all of the parties involved in this inquiry that there will be a delay in the completion of the Inquiry as a result of this unfortunate development.
- We will continue to cooperate fully with the Inquiry. The RCMP wants all of the facts surrounding this tragic event to be known so that we can learn as much as possible and make any further required changes to the RCMP’s policies and practices.
The RCMP will not be making further comment on this issue.