A Prince George man beaten by police is doubtful the government will implement an effective civilian unit to investigate cases like his.
It was raining in Surrey the night of Jan. 3, 2007 when members of that city's RCMP Emergency Response Team showed up at a home there to deal with a case of child maintenance payments. It was not Dwayne Washington's home, but he was visiting there and alone inside when the knock on the door came.
It has been extensively reported what happened next. The circumstances and events are the matter of a court case coming up in early 2012, but not at issue is the fact Washington was severely injured in an altercation with those police members.
He contends in his civil suit that not only was the beating wrongful, but the layers of investigation into the matter, all conducted by other police members, was itself unjust.
Solicitor General Shirley Bond unveiled plans earlier this week for the new Independent Investigation Office (IIO) that will probe serious cases with allegations centred on a police officer.
"I certainly will be putting the new legislation to task," Washington said. "Who is going to control the master file? If the police filter your complaint before it gets to the IIO, it is not an independent civilian complaint process."
According to Bond, the new IIO would "end the longstanding practice of 'police investigating police'," and each file is theirs.
"As the lead investigative agency in cases under its mandate, the IIO will conduct criminal investigations, interview witnesses and gather evidence," she said. "If, after an investigation is concluded, the chief civilian director considers that an officer may have committed a criminal offence, the director will report the matter to Crown counsel for review and charge assessment."
If the IIO merely reviewed internal investigations conducted by existing police agencies into police-centred allegations, they wouldn't know what pieces were missing, said Washington. It is the "you-don't-know-what-you-don't-know" scenario, and would never remove the stigma upon any police investigators whose hands were on the file.
According to Bond, the IIO would conduct "investigations that are fair to, yet entirely removed from, the police forces under their scope." Part of that was to accurately probe the incident, but the other benefit was to be a public perception valve.
"In time, we believe that setting a new standard for civilian-led police investigation and accountability will strengthen the public's faith in the dedicated officers working to keep them safe," she said.
The legislation enacting the new agency will soon be introduced. Once approved by the Legislature, the civilian director will be hired (this person must never have been a police officer) who will then hire the team of investigators and support staff by the end of the year.
A spokesperson for the Solicitor General's office told The Citizen that the agency's budget was still being calculated. Once established, the IIO will actually operate under the auspices of the Attorney General.
LOCAL POLICE PRAISE NEW INVESTIGATION AGENCY
"Good." "Couldn't happen fast enough for us." This was the consensus of police members asked by The Citizen about the launch of the new Independent Investigations Office.
Local police are not comfortable with police investigating the police. Even if they did a pristine job, there was no way for the public to verify that, leaving a credibility gap with only one remedy: get someone else to do it.
"It is to early to say if there is anything I take umbrage with in the proposed structure, and we don't have a lot of those details yet from the government, but nothing stands out for me as a problem in the early stages," said Supt. Rod Booth of the RCMP's North District headquarters.
"There will likely be growing pains that will make it a stronger process in the long run."
Prince George's RCMP detachment spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass said it will have the added feature of taking the biggest, longest internal investigations off the desks of capable police members.
"That will free up police resources so it is something we support on many levels," he said. "We have been expressing our support of that for years. It doesn't matter who you talk to, we are all in favour of it."
Booth said there was still discussion to be had about the scope of the new agency. Certainly serious cases were already in the proposed office's purview, but eventually could all complaints be channeled to this independent agency? Or was it better for some disputes to be left at the grassroots level if good communication between parties was all that was needed to fix the situation?
Booth said it was also likely a better spending of public money, since the taxpayer was funding the process for either model.
