Outside of a handful of traffic tickets, I have had almost no direct contact with police in my lifetime. Yet, in my darker moments, I have always suspected that it would be fairly easy to run afoul of them, be it through an angry word or gesture that could, with an ill-trained or unbalanced officer, quickly escalate into something of tragic proportions. Let's just say that, with so well-documented cases of police abuse of their authority, some of which I have dealt with in this blog, I have but a guarded trust in them.
It was therefore with considerable and justifiable consternation I read the following headline in The Hamilton Spectator:
Police board won't open fatal shooting reports: Hamilton Police Board decides — in secret — to keep secret lessons from police shootings
In a closed-door meeting this week, the Hamilton Police Services Board decided to keep secret a series of reports into fatal shootings and woundings of civilians by police officers.
In the wake of last summer's fatal police shooting of Steve Mesic, The Spectator asked for the reports in an effort to understand what Hamilton police had learned from their internal investigations (as opposed to the SIU's criminal investigations) of the 11 civilian shooting incidents police have been involved in over the past decade.
Not only was this decision made in secret, but it also appears to have been influenced by the heavy-handed tactics of Hamilton Police Chief Glenn De Caire, who, in an apparent effort to stop the board from voting to release the sought-after information, issued this threat:
... releasing the reports would require him to "sanitize" his reports in the future, leaving board members less well informed about shooting incidents.
Given the very questionable shooting of Steve Mesic and others in the recent past, one cannot escape the conclusion that both Chief De Caire and the Police Services Board have things to hide from the public:
Several police services — Ottawa and Durham, for example — release all or part of the reports and discuss them in open sessions. In Hamilton that has never been the case; the 2012 reports for example are summarized in a single sentence in the Professional Standards annual report.
To state the obvious, how can concealing information that the public should have a perfect right to be justified in an open and democratic society?
The "Sanitized" position of Chief De Caire is very much like in the movie "A Few Good Men" when Jack Nicholson says "You couldn't handle the truth".
ReplyDeleteA very apt comparison, Anon.
DeleteLorne, Hamilton police sounds brutal and unethical and so does the Board.
ReplyDeleteMy worst experience was with the Ottawa police. I was on a busy street downtown and wanted to move to a side street without realizing that it was one-way and I entered the wrong way. I realized it right away and started pulling back but before I could do that there were two police cars - one in front of me and the other behind me. Police officer came to me with his hand on his gun. I thought they were going to arrest me. However, they did let me go with a ticket and hefty fine.
Nova Scotia police is known for its toughness. I was caught speeding out of Halifax and police stopped me. The officer asked me what I did for living and I told him I was a student in Ontario. He said, “fines in Nova Scotia are very high and as a student you won't be able to afford. So I am letting you go with a warning ticket. Drive carefully". I was very impressed. So there are some good ones.
Thanks for your comments, LD. You bring a real balance to the discussion here, and I too have seen both sides of the police. I live near Hamilton, and have generally felt they have conducted themselves well, although the shooting of Steve Mesic shook my confidence considerably, along with several other incidents that were shrouded in secrecy.
DeleteThe OPP, on the other hand, at least those assigned to political figures, are a different breed altogether. Years ago I was attending a small demonstration protesting the arrival of the then-premier, Mike Harris. The Hamilton authorities were quite restrained, but I can never forget the terrible tactics of the plainclothes OPP. A man was picketing with a United Steelworkers flag outside of the barricade that had been set up. As he passed by the OPP, they grabbed his flag from him. When he attempted to retentive it, they pounced on him and arrested him. He was eventually released without charges. That kind of provocation, increasingly common these days, has no place in a democracy.
Lorne, I think Harper set a very bad example during G8-G20. I understand Toronto was like a war-zone and the folks passing by were caught and beaten. He has pushed a notch up to establish a police state. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed terrible, LD, and it was what radicalized me about the police and some other issues. Almost no one was ever been held to account for those abuses, the' big blue wall' enforcing a virtual cone of silence.
DeletePlacing the G20 in Toronto is certainly also a very bad reflection on Harper's judgement. And he has the temerity to propagandize about Trudeau's alleged bad judgement? Typical Tory hypocrisy.