Wednesdays news conference to announce Richard Rosenthal as B.C.s first chief civilian director of a new organization to investigate deaths and serious injuries involving the police started with a bit of a stumble. David Eby, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, was blocked from entering the room where the Premier and her Attorney General were holding forth.
Consider it just another bit of clumsiness by a government that has made it a regular feature of the way it does business. Eby and his association have done more than any other to advocate for the proposition that police should not be investigating themselves. An organization such as this one is just what was needed. In fact, Eby welcomed the announcement.
Hes not alone.
The announcement came 13 years almost to the day that an aboriginal man named Frank Paul was dumped soaking wet in a back alley by a Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»police constable where he would soon perish from hypothermia. The subsequent police investigation led to the constable losing a days pay.
It took the B.C. government another decade to set up the Davies Commission into Pauls death. As a result, among other things, former B.C. Supreme Court Judge William Davies called for the civilian investigation of police.
But whatever shoddy reputation the VPD had in these matters, it paled in comparison to what the RCMP was up to. After a string of in-custody deaths, the event that finally blew the publics cork was the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski. He died at Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»International Airport after repeatedly being tasered and taken into custody by four RCMP officers.
Fortunately, the egregious act was caught by a citizen on video that doubtless caused the government to move with more alacrity than they displayed in the Frank Paul case in calling a public inquiry after an internal police investigation found no particular fault.
During the course of the Braidwood inquiry, the four RCMP officers repeatedly lied on the stand, refuting what was as plain as the video anyone could see. In the end, they were charged with perjurynothing more.
In his recommendations, former B.C. Appeal Court Justice Thomas Braidwood repeated the call for an end to police investigating themselves and the creation of a civilian body to investigate deaths and serious injuries that occurred while people were in their custody.
These incidentsPauls and Dziekanskis and the reports they prompted didnt just move the public; both the VPD and the RCMP finally realized the only way to regain the confidence of the public was to call for civilian investigators themselves.
So for Richard Rosenthal, rather than thinking he is meeting a hostile force in our police as he found in his previous appointments as a civilian investigator south of the border, he should realize he is being welcomed here with open arms. At least for now.
The folks he will have the most time convincing of his worth may well be the general public.
In that regard, he is handicapped. His office will only deal with criminal matters, which are no small thing. But issues of policy violations, which form the greatest portion of complaints against the police, will still be handled first by the cops and then by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.
As well, there is the matter of his budget, which stands at $10 million per year. If police under investigation become litigious as they have been here and elsewhere in the past, that sum could quickly evaporate. We are left to wonder if the government will replenish it.
And we should watch with interest to see if Rosenthal can live with another major objective. At the end of five years, he is expected to no longer have any former cops working as investigators on his staff.
All that aside, this is a good first step.
