The B.C. government now has moved to strengthen the power of the province’s police watchdog and close loopholes in laws governing municipal police, ensuring officers will no longer be able to avoid discipline by resigning. Proposed amendments to B.C.’s Police Act will boost the authority of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, an independent office that oversees complaints against the province’s 11 municipal police departments. (Note The pretentious RCMP operates under its own federal complaint process.) Among the most significant changes is one stipulating that the commissioner can continue disciplinary proceedings even if an officer or police chief resigns. Any discipline is added to their service record in case they try to become an officer again. Currently, there is no such power.
Other changes to the Police Act include:
– An officer is required to co-operate with an investigation within five days or risk a misconduct charge. Currently, they can avoid co-operating.
– The commissioner, not the police force, will decide whether an allegation should be investigated. Currently, the department makes that call, and the commissioner can overrule it.
– The commissioner will oversee all investigations in real-time using computer software. Currently, he has to request police files.
– An officer will be entitled to appear before a police board before being suspended without pay.
– The maximum suspension without pay increases to 30 days from five days.
Former Victoria police chief Paul Battershill avoided suspension last year by resigning prior to a disciplinary hearing into his affair with a police board lawyer. The case also saw former Victoria mayor Alan Lowe acting as discipline authority over Battershill, despite suggestions he was in conflict due to being a witness in the investigation. Lowe said he had no power to recuse himself. The changes will allow a retired judge to take over as discipline authority in such a conflict. Also Jamie Graham, the current Victoria police chief, retired from the Vancouver police force in 2007, before being found guilty of discreditable conduct for failing to encourage officers to co-operate in an investigation of misconduct allegations in the Downtown Eastside. Under the proposed changes, he would still have been disciplined and his record marked before he was hired by Victoria. “I think it goes for [former] chief Battershill and myself that when we did leave office … we were prepared to waive those provisions of the act to allow discipline to fall,” Graham said in an interview. He applauded the changes for increasing transparency.
A public hearing before a provincial court judge would have compelled all 37 witnesses to give testimony under oath, with the appropriate authority weighing the evidence and making a determination of that evidence, according to the standard of law. A public hearing would have forced the truth out. Evidence would have been properly weighed and the rumour mill would have been silenced…. The police board and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner must acknowledge that there is a high threshold of public accountability for a chief of police. Any misconduct or inappropriate behaviour resulting in the removal of a chief should have an expectation of full disclosure. see also http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/letters/story.html?id=7b907f07-dee9-450e-98d9-915fb28267c3
David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the complaint process still inadequately involves the police investigating themselves. Eby was also clearly disappointed that documents relating to investigations will continue to be exempt from Freedom of Information requests. But the government will look at the value of civilian oversight, similar to Ontario, as part of an audit of the complaints process set for 2013, said B.C. Solicitor General John van Dongen. The government bill includes “virtually all” of the 91 recommendations made by Justice Josiah Wood in his 2007 report into the system’s failings, said van Dongen. Bob Rich, president of the B.C. Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police, said, if passed, the reforms will increase public confidence in the complaint process. overnment house leader Mike de Jong said he hopes the bill is approved in the current legislative session, expected to end in late March or early April. Farnworth, NDP critic criticized the government for taking almost two years to write the legislation.
Now this Long-awaited changes to B.C.’s police complaint process appear set to die on the floor of the provincial legislature as government dissolvesd parliament without passing the amendments into law. HOW IS THAT FOR A PRETENTIOUS BC MINISTER NOW TOO. Solicitor General John van Dongen admitted that the changes won’t become law .. and Van Dongen didn’t answer directly when asked if government knew in early March the bill would not pass. “it’s clear government didn’t view those items as priorities… If the government thought it was important to get re-elected they would have done it, that’s the bottom line, this BC Liberal government has been fairly clear in pushing through the legislation on things they think are important, they’ve invoked closure…. they clearly have the votes to do so.”.. I HOPE NO ONE IS FOOLISH ENOUGH TO RE-ELECT HIM TOO?http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/minister-told-ashby-be-careful-20090405-9t9l.html
Meanwhile in Australia… “A VICTORIAN Government minister tipped off former assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby in 2007 that then union chief Paul Mullett might be under investigation, according to a secret briefing paper prepared on behalf of Ashby. The paper, marked “private and confidential”, gives the first example of the alleged political corruption that Mr Ashby has threatened to air since he was charged with corruption offences last year. It reveals that Ashby had a “private meeting with a minister of parliament … on or about the 2nd April” in 2007. The document states that the minister “disclosed to him (Ashby) that he should be careful talking to Mr Mullett on the telephone”. At the time of the conversation, Mullett was the secretary of the 11,000-member Police Association. The document states that after meeting the politician, “Mr Ashby was left in no doubt that there were moves afoot to remove Mr Mullett from the political environment prior to the next election”. The document also states that Ashby, who resigned from the force in late 2007, has information to expose “a corrupt conspiracy … (involving) the highest levels of the Victorian Government”. The document, which does not name the minister who met Ashby, was written in order to convince the police union to fund his legal fight against corruption charges connected to allegations that he leaked sensitive information to Mullett. The claims in the document suggest that the politician who met Ashby knew that Mullett’s activities were being scrutinised by authorities with the power to tap phones. At the time of the April 2007 meeting, a detective who was a close friend of Mullett’s was the subject of two police corruption probes, including one that tapped the detective’s phones and recorded all conversations he had with Mullett. That ongoing inquiry is examining whether the now-suspended detective and union delegate Peter Lalor was linked to the murder of a male prostitute, Shane Chartres-Abbott. The second inquiry in 2007 into Detective Lalor concerned his improper use of the force’s email system to run a smear campaign against a union rival. This police inquiry also examined whether Mullett had any role in the creation of the Lalor emails. The disclosure in the Ashby briefing paper of the April meeting raises questions about the appropriateness of a politician discussing potentially sensitive issues with a senior policeman and whether the meeting was authorised by anyone in the Government or force command. Ashby’s corruption charges arise out of allegations that he leaked sensitive information to Mullett, including the existence of the secret probe into alleged links between Detective Lalor and the Chartres-Abbott murder. Ashby is facing 13 counts of perjury, 13 of misleading the director of the Office of Police Integrity and three of breaching OPI confidentiality. The decision of the union to fund Ashby’s defence from its $17 million cost fund has angered some union members, who claim he rejoined the union only after learning that he was likely to be the subject of a corruption investigation. Ashby rejoined the union after an eight-year hiatus on September 27, 2007, two days after he learned that the OPI might be targeting him. But the Ashby briefing paper contends that he had tried to rejoin the union in December 2006 during a discussion with Mullett. The paper states that “it was decided it was not an opportune time” to rejoin due to Ashby’s role negotiating a pay deal with the union. A group of police officers is gathering signatures to force the union to call a meeting to challenge Ashby’s legal funding. Mullett also is facing corruption charges arising from OPI hearings into the information leaks and will have his defence funded by the union. He has also denied any wrongdoing and resigned from the Police Association last month, leaving him entitled to a retirement payout of more than $1.2 million.”
4: THEY SERVE THEIR POLITICAL MASTERS – MAYORS, PREMIERS, PRIME MINISTERS ESPECIALLY AND NOT THE CITIZENS,
5: THEY MOSTLY SERVE THEMSELVES TOO..
Under the police act any professional policeman can be fired from his job for any of his bad behavior, even for anything he or she does after working hours, if his personal acts specially bring ill repute to the police force in general, and that includes adultery, alcoholism, drunken driving, abusive behavior now too.. and for sure should include stealing, expense account abuses, lying to his superiors and others.. for the RCMP as well.
We also still do need better police managers, beter Justice Ministers Canada wide too. The British Columbia police also have proved particularly adept at finding loopholes in the BC Police Act, the most common of which is to resign or retire just before a disciplinary hearing, since the act has no wording on how to deal with former officers. B.C.’s outgoing police complaint commissioner Dirk Ryneveld who wrapped up his six-year term with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner last week had now spent most of his time lobbying for reform of the province’s Police Act, which would boost the powers of his office as it wrestles to assert independent civilian oversight over B.C.’s municipal police departments.
police chief job Job listing for police chief Description: directs and coordinates activities of governmental police department in accordance with authority delegated by board of police: promulgates rules and regulations for department as delegated by regulating code. coordinates and administers daily police activities through subordinates. coordinates internal investigation of members of department for alleged wrong doing. suspends or demotes members of force for infractions of rules or inefficiency. directs activities of personnel engaged in preparing budget proposals, maintaining police records, and recruiting staff. approves police budget and negotiates with municipal officials for appropriation of funds. may command force during emergencies, such as fires and riots. may make inspection visits to precincts. may address various groups to inform public of goals and operations of department. may prepare requests for government agencies to obtain funds for special operations or for purchasing equipment for department. in smaller communities, may assist one or more subordinates in investigation or apprehension of offenders. in communities having no board of police, may be designated police commissioner (government ser.) ii.
…denial of bad cops and coverup of the bad acts of the bad cops is more likley..
