The way an internal police investigation is being handled into the Tasering of a child in Prince George is not alarming the Minister of Children and Family Development.
MCFD boss Mary McNeil said she has heard the same news as the public that the West Vancouver Police Department has not interviewed the Prince George RCMP members closest to the incident, more than a week after the event took place.
She told The Citizen that this does not mean, in her experience, that the probe is not following the appropriate course.
McNeil was on the Vancouver Police Board for four years before her entry into provincial elected office and said she was generally accustomed to the protocols of such investigations.
"It is easy to talk in black-and-white but there is a tonne of grey in this situation so it behooves all of us to do the best job we can, here," she said. "We have to take a few deep breaths and find out what the real issues are and deal with it."
Earlier in the week it was reported by Chief Const. Peter Lepine of the West Vancouver Police Department that his members were focusing on other elements of the incident first, and would turn their attention to the RCMP members at the scene when they were fully prepared to question them on the available evidence.
"It may seem that interviewing the officers is a task that should have been included in the first phase of the investigation while the team was in Prince George but there is more work to be done before those interviews can take place," Lepine said.
Lepine said his priority is to conduct a fair, thorough and transparent investigation.
West Vancouver police were asked, as an outside investigative body, to check out the Prince George RCMP incident after the boy was Tasered by Mounties April 7 after the boy allegedly stabbed his care worker.
