Toronto Star: Adding Balance to Police Reviews
“To
Serve & Protect”. Here is again the “Toronto Police Academy- Academy of Sadists
Criminals and Vicious Assassins”. The Mainstream Media paint as a combat school
of Cherubim’s. Most of the courses revolve around what they call
"counter-blamelessness warfare." Who are the "terrorists?"
We have to ask that question. THEY ARE BABIES AND SMALL CHILDREN WITH
DISABILITIES. THEY ARE THE ELDERLY. They are innocent young women. They are secondary
school students… (Causing face or brain injuries)
Cops,
complainants welcome proposed independence for officer misconduct hearings
WENDY GILLIS CRIME REPORTER
CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/THE CANADIAN
PRESS FILE PHOTOUnder the new regime, an independent
disciplinary system would ensure public complaints against officers aren’t
handled by police services themselves.
For a citizen whose complaint about
a police officer results in a professional misconduct charge, walking into the
ensuing hearing may be, well, jarring.
Ontario police tribunals have the
look, feel and customs of a typical courtroom — except in the place of a judge
in robes is a high-ranking police officer in uniform. The prosecutor also wears
a police uniform.
Add to this equation a lawyer hired
to represent the accused cop, and the complainant may be forgiven for thinking
everyone is on the same team.
But questions about impartiality are
not unique to complainants. The accused officers, too — whose jobs may be on
the line — have their own concerns about an employer with, say, an axe to
grind.
“There’s a reason it’s referred to
as a kangaroo court by police officers,” said Peter Brauti, a sought-after
police lawyer who often represents officers at misconduct hearings.
If passed, a massive set of policing
legislation tabled at Queen’s Park Thursday would establish the Ontario
Policing Discipline Tribunal, a body with the specific task of adjudicating
disciplinary matters and ensuring public complaints aren’t handled by the
police services themselves.
The current system, which allows
police chiefs to appoint both the hearing officer and the prosecutor, would be replaced.
Under the new regime, an independent adjudicator would act as the de-facto
judge and independent counsel from the Ministry of the Attorney General would
act as the prosecutor.
The proposed change comes as a
direct response to a recommendation from Court of Appeal justice Michael
Tulloch, who in a report on police oversight released earlier this year said
both police and complainants see the process as “rigged.”
“This is a much more intelligent way
to get to the truth: independently,” said former Ontario ombudsman André Marin,
who called the current system “incestuous.”
Howard Morton, a criminal defence
lawyer and former head of the Special Investigations Unit (which probes deaths,
serious injuries and allegations of sexual assault involving police) said the
change could result in tougher penalties for officers, which he calls “way too
lenient” under the current regime.
“I think bringing it within the
ministry (of the Attorney General) may well result in more thorough prosecution
in some cases,” Morton said.
Ahigh-profile case currently before
the Toronto police tribunal would, under the proposed legislation, be heard by
an independent adjudicator. In fact, that is exactly what lawyer Selwyn Pieters
has asked for.
Pieters’ client, Waseem Khan,
complained to the Office of the Independent Police Review (OIPRD) about the
conduct of Toronto police during the arrest of a man near Ryerson University
earlier this year. Toronto police Sgt. Eduardo Miranda faces two professional
misconduct charges, in part for telling Khan he could not video record the
arrest with his cellphone (citizens have a right to record police if they are
not obstructing their actions).
The misconduct case is ongoing, and
as it stands Khan “doesn’t feel that he can get a fair hearing,” Pieters said
in an interview Friday. He supports the province’s proposed changes and said he
hopes it will help his client’s case be heard before a retired judge.
“This new legislation will work well
for everybody and we’re embracing it. And hopefully Mr. Khan gets to benefit
from it,” Pieters said.
Brauti, who is Miranda’s lawyer,
said he “absolutely” supports having the case tried before a retired judge.
“I’d like to see all disciplinary
matters be referred outside of the various police services, and move toward
independent adjudication,” he said. The system proposed by the government could
work, Brauti added, but stressed the importance of neutral individuals being
tapped to hear the cases.
Renu Mandhane, chief commissioner of
the Ontario Human Rights Commission, said she supports both the independent
adjudication of police misconduct cases as well as the new proposed complaint
system.
As recommended in the new
legislation, the agency known today as the OIPRD would be renamed as the
Ontario Policing Complaints Agency.
Within the next five years, the
agency would no longer refer any of its complaints back to the police service
where the complaint originated for an investigation, as currently happens. It
would conduct all of the investigations itself, at arms-length.
Mandhane added that she hopes
stronger police oversight mechanisms proposed throughout the legislation will
allow for more robust adjudication of complaints that involve systemic issues,
such as racial bias. Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca
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