On Tuesday, December 1st, the Criminal Justice Branch ignored the recommendations of the Delta Police and chose not to charge the driver, RCMP Corporal Benjamin “Monty” Robinson, with impaired and dangerous driving causing death.  Without explanation, the CJB chose only to charge Cpl Robinson with obstruction.  The public has been advised that the exceptional delay and lack of charges has nothing to do with the fact that the driver responsible for the death of Orion Hutchinson is a police officer.  This is Cpl Robinson’s second pass, as he also avoided trial for his involvement in the death of Robert Dziekanski.

The case is yet another example of a police officer involved in a death not facing charges related to the death.  It should be noted that never, in the history of B.C. has a police officer faced a criminal charge as a result of killing someone while on duty. It appears that the rule may hold true for killing someone while off duty as well. In far too many cases, including Dziekanski, Boyd, Bush, St. Arnaud and countless others the CJB has acted as judge and jury, deciding on which evidence would likely be preferred by a judge and invariably preferring the police version of events.  If the CJB found Cpl Robinson guilty and pronounced judgment without trial, there would be an uproar.  But refusing to try a police officer for manslaughter has not resulted in a commensurate public outcry.

BC’s motorcycle community is looking to change that.  You can join them in a rally at 12:00 noon on December 8th at the Surrey Provincial Courthouse. Everyone is encouraged to attend and motorcyclist are encouraged to wear their jackets.  Further details are below from a Facebook posting.

Also, check out the article in the Province and Gary Mason’s article in the Globe and Mail.

Due to our failing system, a young motorcyclist by the name of Orion Hutchinson has lost his life by a suspected drunk driver and the person responsible for this tragedy, RCMP officer Cpl Benjamin “Monty” Robinson is potentially getting away with it.

Let’s show our support,

December 8 2009 @ Noon in the main lobby
Surrey Provincial Court
14340 57th Avenue
Surrey, BC
V3X 1B2

This is a peaceful Rally,

Please wear your Motorcycle Jackets to show unity

Claude Desrosiers

The BCCLA has witnessed how long it can take for investigations to take place.  Most of the complaints the BCCLA makes are unresolved for years.  One of the main problems reported to the BCCLA about the police complaint process is that if officers are found at fault, disciplinary measures are inadequate.  If Commissioner Elliott can change the process so that discipline does occur when officers are found to have broken their code of conduct, this would be a huge improvement to the system.

Discipline aside, it’s important to note that in many of the most egregious cases, the RCMP has found no fault at all: Ian Bush, Kevin St. Arnaud, Clayton Willey, and Robert Dziekanski, and that in the history of British Columbia, not a single police officer has faced a criminal charge arising from a police-involved death. What good are better sanctions if you can’t see any problems in the first place?

Check out the story in the Vancouver Sun.

After Robert Dziekanski died in the custody of the Richmond RCMP, the RCMP seized Paul Pritchard’s video. Cpl. Dale Carr publicly attacked Paul Pritchard’s motives to release the video to the public on the grounds that it would upset Mr. Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski. Mr. Pritchard had to file a lawsuit to have his property returned. He released the video to the public with Ms. Cisowski’s permission.

A writer recently discovered the RCMP had video footage of Clayton Alvin Willey’s arrest in 2002. Mr. Willey died a few hours later. Despite a notarised release from the family, the RCMP refused to release footage citing privacy concerns. The RCMP backed down after the BCCLA and others demanded the family’s request to release the footage be honoured.

This week RCMP lawyer Ellen Roberts could not prevent the release of video footage of Robert Knipstrom’s arrest. Counsel for the coroner’s office argued for the release of the video on the grounds that the family was not opposed to its release. Once again, the only entity opposed to publication was the RCMP.

It is appaling that the RCMP resorts to such exploitation to avoid accountability. It is also appalling that the BCCLA needs to point this out to the RCMP. Yet, there is little that makes sense in a system where the agency responsible for the death of a person is also tasked to investigate its own culpability. The RCMP has recognised that they face a crisis of public confidence, yet one of the main arguments against the creation of an independent unit to investigate in-custody deaths is that only the police can investigate crimes. The RCMP ought to recognise that public confidence only comes when the RCMP show us they are doing a good job, not simply when they tell us they are doing a good job.

The public, like any good investigator, wants to view the evidence. Public servants should not need to be reminded who it is they serve.

• only one officer fired on Mr. Boyd, no other police officers fired a shot;
• some attending police officers did not unholster their firearms;
• the shooting officer fired at least four shots after a direction had been given to the attending officers to “hold their fire”;
• Mr. Boyd was hit by at least four bullets and possibly five bullets after he was completely disarmed, including the final bullet that hit Mr. Boyd in the head when Mr. Boyd was crawling;
• the shooting officer said he believed Mr. Boyd was wearing body armour, and that Mr. Boyd was standing almost vertical and not crawling when he shot Mr. Boyd in the head;
• the shooting officer said he recalled shooting four bullets, but actually fired nine.

The investigation was not conducted by an independent investigative body but, as is customary in BC, by the VPD itself. It took two years of investigation to come to the decision that there is no need for a trial. This result is not surprising. A criminal charge arising from a police-involved death would have been the first in BC history. However is astonishing that the CJB argued that a criminal conviction was ‘not possible’ on the evidence even though the case of such complexity that it took two years to come to a decision. Instead of referring this serious set of allegations to the truth finding process of trial, the CJB acted as judge and jury by itself.

Unlike in BC, where a police force investigates itself after a death in custody, the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba have independent agencies called Special Investigation Units to investigate potentially criminal police action. The case of Mr. Boyd shows clearly the need for an independent investigative body in BC. It is not surprising that the public has little confidence in the police investigating themselves when police-involved homicides has never gone to trial in BC.

The BCCLA will continue to campaign for reform.  The circumstances of Mr. Boyd’s tragic death should not be kept secret and any decision regarding criminal responsibility should be made in court, and in public, not in private by the CJB.

The press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which acted as counsel for Mr. Arar, is below.

No Justice for Canadian Rendition Victim Maher Arar
Court Refuses to Hold US Officials Accountable for Complicity in Torture Abroad

WASHINGTON - November 2 - Today, a federal Court of Appeals dismissed Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year. Arar is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The court concluded that Arar’s case raised too many sensitive foreign policy and secrecy issues to permit relief.  It leaves the federal officials involved free of any legal accountability for what they did.

Maher Arar is not available to comment in person, but is issuing the following statement: “After seven years of pain and hard struggle it was my hope that the court system would listen to my plea and act as an independent body from the executive branch. Unfortunately, this recent decision and decisions taken on other similar cases, prove that the court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering. If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law.”

Said Georgetown law professor and CCR cooperating attorney David Cole, who argued the case, “This decision says that U.S. officials can intentionally send a man to be tortured abroad, bar him from any access to the courts while doing so, and then avoid any legal accountability thereafter. It effectively places executive officials above the law, even when accused of a conscious conspiracy to torture. If the rule of law means anything, it must mean that courts can hear the claim of an innocent man subjected to torture that violates our most basic constitutional commitments.”

CCR Senior Staff Attorney Maria LaHood said, “With this decision, we have lost much more than Maher Arar’s case against torture - we have lost the rule of law, the moral high ground, our independent judiciary, and our commitment to the Constitution of the United States.”

The case was re-heard before twelve Second Circuit judges after a rare decision in August 2008 to rehear the case sua sponte, that is, of their own accord before Arar had even sought rehearing.

Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained at JFK Airport in September 2002 while changing planes on his way home to Canada. The Bush administration labeled him a member of Al Qaeda and sent him not to Canada, his home and country of citizenship, but against his will to Syrian intelligence authorities renowned for torture. He was tortured, interrogated and detained in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year before the Syrian government released him, stating they had found no connection to any criminal or terrorist organization or activity.

In January 2004, just three months after he returned home to Canada from his ordeal, CCR filed a suit on Mr. Arar’s behalf against John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials, the first to challenge the government’s policy of “extraordinary rendition,” also known as “outsourcing torture.”

The Canadian government, after an exhaustive public inquiry, found that Mr. Arar had no connection to terrorism and, in January 2007, apologized to Mr. Arar for Canada’s role in his rendition and awarded him a multi-million-dollar settlement. The contrast between the two governments’ responses to their mistakes could not be more stark, say Mr. Arar’s attorneys. Both the Executive and Judicial branches of the United States government have barred inquiry and refused to hold anyone accountable for ruining the life of an innocent man.

Two Congressional hearings in October 2007 dealt with his case. On October 18, 2007 Mr. Arar testified via video at a House Joint Committee Hearing convened to discuss his rendition by the U.S. to Syria for interrogation under torture.  During that hearing - the first time Mr. Arar testified before any U.S. governmental body - individual members of Congress publicly apologized to him, though the government still has not issued a formal apology. The next week, on October 24, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted during a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing that the U.S. government mishandled his case.

In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Guido Calabresi wrote, “I believe that when the history of this distinguished court is written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay.”

Joshua Sohn of DLA Piper US LLP, Katherine Gallagher of CCR, and Jules Lobel, professor at University of Pittsburgh Law School and CCR cooperating attorney, are co-counsel in Mr. Arar’s case.

The Center for Constitutional Rights represents other victims of the Bush administration’s programs, from Iraqis tortured and abused at Abu Ghraib prison to Muslim and Arab men rounded up and abused in immigration sweeps in the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11, to Guantanamo detainees in the recent Supreme Court case.

For more on Mr. Arar’s case, including a timeline, court papers and other documents, go to http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/arar-v.-ashcroft. Additional information may be found by entering the search term “Arar” at the Center for Constitutional Rights website, www.ccrjustice.org.
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The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

The video does not have audio and begins with one suspect already on the ground and the other appearing to be  thrown to the ground from his vehicle.  Over the next three minutes of the footage officers proceed to focus on one of the suspects kicking him on the head and ribs, and applying pressure to the back, the head and the hands by standing or kneeling on them.  The suspects through most of the video appear to be lying still on the ground, occasionally looking up or slightly adjusting their body position.  Most of the physical force by the officers would follow after these slight movements.

The suspects were not actively resisting and their actions through the course of the arrest were neither threatening nor displayed an attempt at escape.  From the portion of the video available on the Internet, the Abbotsford police appear to have used excessive force.

The video can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WheWb7G5NPs

]]> http://rightscity.org/police/2009/10/27/excessive-force-of-abbotsford-police-officers-caught-on-video/feed/ http://rightscity.org/police/2009/10/27/hearings-to-be-held-for-agents-provocateurs/ http://rightscity.org/police/2009/10/27/hearings-to-be-held-for-agents-provocateurs/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:59:06 +0000 Jesse Lobdell http://rightscity.org/?p=512 Hearings will be held to investigate whether three officers from Sûreté du Québec, Quebec’s provincial police force, attempted to incite violence during the Montebello protests.  The three officers, masked and wielding a rock, were outed when their combat boots matched the police officers’ that took them down.  That, and the fact that the officers moved towards police for protection when a union leader confronted the protesters and told them to put down the rock.  No protester would seek police protection from a middle-aged unionist in a suit.

Check out the CBC story.

Check out the original CBC story with links to the video.

Check out the story.

In a wonderful piece of journalism, the National Post reported that the protest was a failure because only a fraction of students showed up to the protest, less than 10% of the 1800-student school, thereby indicating that the students support the police presence in their school.  They even interviewed a couple students to support this claim.  Look for the National Post to continue reporting on the end of student indifference with even more ironic use of statistical analyses in the coming days.

If there has been misrepresentation of police officers’ views, hats off to the union for clarifying this.  Police officers ought to be free to praise, criticise or remain silent about Insite.  But we need to ensure police officers are not attempting to influence public policy.  The police can inform public policy, but too often they attempt to dictate policy.  It is a fine line.