A Prince George incident is likely one of the last in the province for which police will investigate the conduct of fellow police.
West Vancouver Police Department (WVPD) was asked to investigate what happened the day Prince George RCMP used a Taser on an 11-year-old boy. Even though WVPD is not an RCMP organization and is geographically far away, some public cynicism was raised about professional bias. This was acknowledged in the final incident report by WVPD Chief Const. Peter Lepine.
"I understand and expect that there will be those who believe that my decision to publicize these details is an attempt to vilify the 11-year-old boy in order to exonerate the police," wrote Lepine. "I can assure all of you that everyone involved in the original incident, as well as the investigation, was fully aware and sensitive to the fact that the police were dealing with a child.
"However, ultimately, the boy's age was secondary to the fact that his apprehension was deemed necessary in order to prevent him from causing further grievous bodily harm or death."
Lepine cleared the local police officers of wrongdoing and praised their use of the Taser.
David Eby, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, said there were two main problems with the WVPD report.
Firstly, it took almost a month after the investigation was concluded to release details, even though no violation of privacy existed.
"To not disclose the reasons and circumstances only undermined the reasons using the WVPD was a good idea in the first place," Eby said.
Secondly, he added, "Police in B.C., both RCMP and municipal, have a huge credibility problem, based on cases where the police description [of controversial events] turned out to be a lot different than what actually happened."
Furthermore, he said, even with the best of intentions, the events in question would still be seen through a police officer's lens, which may be out of step with the public's view of what is or isn't acceptable policies or behaviours.
"You have to believe the [WVPD's] summary of the evidence," he said. "We don't know if they did the best investigation or the worst investigation, and it is immune from Freedom Of Information disclosure so we can never know."
Solicitor General and Minister of Public Safety Shirley Bond, the MLA for the property on which the Tasering occurred, said the effort was well underway to establish an independent and civilian investigation department for matters of contentious police conduct.
She stressed she took no issue the incident or its report.
"It was a serious matter that merited an independent investigation by an outside police agency. West Vancouver police conducted a thorough investigation," she said.
"In the future, we'll be able to forward serious incidents like this to the Independent Investigations Office.
"Our goal is to have the IIO [Independent Investigation Office] operational by the end of the year and accepting cases in the first-half of 2012. Interviews are in process for the chief civilian director and I am optimistic the competition will be successful and a person will be in place very shortly, before the end of December. That person will then build a team of investigators and work with a transition team to bring the office into operation."
