The family of Clay Alvin Willey still has not responded to the report released this week examining the police handling of Willey's death.
The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (CPC) released a long anticipated document examining the 2003 arrest of Willey, his handling by a number of RCMP members, and Willey's death within hours of his arrest.
CPC interim chair Ian McPhail also examined the aftermath of the incident, including allegations that police whitewashed the internal investigation, dragged their feet on helping others investigate, and tampered with detachment surveillance video.
McPhail found in the Mountie's favour on many elements, and heavily criticized the Mounties on other aspects. Although the RCMP held a news conference to answer the public's questions on the same day the report was unveiled, attempts to get a response from Willey's circle of supporters has so far been unsuccessful, short of a date being set for a meeting next week, more than seven days after the CPC report's release.
In recent months, Willey's surviving family and supporters have keyed most on the allegations of video tampering. While he did find glitches in the video system, the overall allegation was dismissed by McPhail.
"The Willey family has told the Commission that it believes that, as part of an alleged cover-up, critical information showing how Clay Willey was treated while in police custody has been edited out of the videotapes," McPhail said. "Consequently, the Commission retained the services of an independent certified forensic video analyst to verify the integrity of the video evidence in this matter. The video expert determined that the videotapes provided to the Commission were, in fact, the original videotapes and had not been altered in any way."
McPhail also found the use of a hog-tie system to restrain Willey's flailing legs to be acceptable for that time, as the RCMP's official discontinuation of that form of restraint had not yet been communicated throughout the force.
McPhail reconfirmed the pathologist's finding that the only reason Willey died that day was an adverse reaction to cocaine, not any element of his treatment by police or medical personnel. However he also confirmed there was mistreatment and there was a flawed internal investigation, followed by irresponsible delays in aid of other investigations.
"Neither the criminal nor conduct aspects of the police involvement in Mr. Willey's death were adequately investigated or addressed," McPhail said.
The mistreatment involved Constables Caston and O'Donnell, not the original arresting officers. Caston and O'Donnell were the ones who took Willey out of the police vehicle and attempted to render him into submission once he arrived at the Prince George detachment.
The report detailed the abuse and said, "Their actions were unreasonable...The members failed to treat Mr. Willey with the level of decency to be expected when he was removed from the police vehicle and transported to the elevator."
McPhail also criticised the same two officers for their use of Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs or Tasers) on Willey while he was inside police cells and physically restrained in both handcuff and hog-tie restraints.
Prince George RCMP sources told The Citizen since the release of the CPC report that they were on advisement that civil court action was pending against them, but had not yet been filed. This has so far not been confirmed or denied by the Willey family.
