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Police should not investigate themselves, lawyer tells Vancouver death inquiry |
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Written by Camille Bains, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Monday, 12 May 2008 |
VANCOUVER - The Vancouver Police Department broke its own rules to protect two of its officers when it investigated the death of an aboriginal man who froze to death in an alley, a lawyer for a native group told an inquiry Monday.
Cameron Ward, who is representing the United Native Nations Society, said Monday the department hardly conducted a bona fide homicide investigation, declining to even interview the two officers involved.
Frank Paul was found dead of hypothermia on Dec. 6, 1998 in the alley where Const. David Instant left him a few hours earlier after picking him up in a police wagon for being drunk in a public place.
The heavily intoxicated homeless man had been refused admission to the city drunk tank by then Sgt. Russell Sanderson, who said Paul wasn't drunk even though he couldn't stand and had to be dragged in and out of the facility.
In his closing summation, Ward said the probe was so botched that investigators didn't interview Instant or Sanderson.
"What happened here was an investigation that was deliberately calculated to give the police officers responsible for Frank Paul's death every opportunity to avoid culpability and accountability for their actions," Ward told the long-running inquiry.
He said it's obvious Instant's duty report about the incident was misleading because the officer wrote he assisted Paul down the corridor of the drunk tank when a video recording shown at the inquiry made it clear the man was dragged in and out of the facility.
Instant received a one-day suspension for his role and Sanderson was off the job for two days, discipline that hardly fit their actions, Ward said.
He said police failed to immediately notify the coroner's service, leaving that important step for almost two hours after Paul's body was discovered in the alley.
The police department's rules also say suspects should never be returned to the crime scene, even though Instant was back in the alley, Ward said.
And the police department didn't separate various police officers and take statements from them or interview four other potential witnesses who were in the police wagon with Paul.
Earlier in the inquiry, the police officer who headed the department's internal investigations unit testified the department conducted an "exhaustive" probe into Paul's death.
But Ward told inquiry commission William Davies that police departments should not investigate their own officers when they're involved in someone's death.
He said that's the No. 1 recommendation that should come out of the lengthy inquiry into Paul's death.
"The police should not investigate the police in cases where the police cause someone to die," Ward said.
Ward said society has miserably failed people like Paul, whose death as an aboriginal man involved racism, "the ugly elephant in the room."
"It is outrageous and unconscionable, in my submission, that chronically alcoholic, poverty-stricken homeless aboriginal people live on the streets of this wealthy city in a wealthy province that calls itself 'the best place on earth,' " he said, referring to a government marketing logo for tourism.
Ward also criticized the province for operating only six beds at a Vancouver sobering unit for alcoholics.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 May 2008 )
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