Another Indictment Of Police Leadership

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am a regular critic of the police. While recognizing the at-times difficult job they have and the very real potential of becoming jaded because of the criminal element with which they must deal, I have never had any sympathy, understanding or tolerance for the abuse of power that some regularly engage in.

Similarly, I am frequently offended by those who lead institutions but refuse to take responsibility for the dysfunctions that occur under their watch. We have, for example, Stephen Harper's declarations that he knew nothing about the Nigel Wright payoff of Mile Duffy; while I do not believe the Prime Minister, even if it were true, responsibility, and blame, as they say, resides at the top.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, about whom I have written many times, strikes me as one who enjoys the perks of power but refuses to accept responsibility when things go wrong with his troubled force. The G20 debacle is probably the most egregious, but hardly the only example of his failure as chief.

A story in this morning's Star offers the most recent indictment of Blair's leadership. The Supreme Court made a definitive ruling on police strip searches in 2001, forbidding the authorities to strip their suspects completely naked, declaring it a breach of Charter Rights. Despite this, however, Toronto Const. Sasa Sljivo declared during the trial of Lerondo Smith, charged with drug trafficking and breaching conditions ... that he has stripped “hundreds” of people completely naked as part of routine searches.

Two things are striking about this admission. First, Sljivo averred in court that he was unaware of the Supreme Court ruling, and second, he told the court that he was trained by his coach officer, a police mentor, to strip-search people fully naked.

The story goes on to say Toronto police adopted those rules (i.e., the prohibition laid out by the Supreme Court) in its procedure information sheet regarding “searches of person.”

My questions are few and simple:

If the rules have been clearly set out by the Toronto police, how is it that Const. Sljivo has carried out hundreds of improper searches, apparently endorsed by his training officer?

Does the Toronto constabulary regard the Supreme Court ruling as one more honoured in the breach than in the observance?

What kind of environment has the 'leadership' of Chief Blair fostered that this could happen not once, not twice, but hundreds of time?

How many others engage in this illegal practice?

Predictably, questions sent to police spokesman Mark Pugash about the pervasiveness of these searches and whether anyone has ever been disciplined for conducting them went unanswered.

Stripping prisoners naked is a time-honoured practice of torturers to break people down. It has no place in a democracy. Chief Blair has some serious police misconduct to answer for.

Chief Bill Blair And Secrecy

Presiding as he does over a very troubled organization, it is perhaps not surprising that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair prefers a cloak of secrecy to cover how he manages his force. But it is difficult to see whose interests, other than those of the good chief, are served by refusing to share with the public how he deals with his officers when they abuse citizens.

One of the first casualties of this refusal to shed light is surely public trust, a fact attested to by letters to The Star, one of which you can read below:

Re: Cops used ‘torture’ to get confession, top court rules, Dec. 13

Thanks to the Star for reporting on the sickening story of police brutality. Torture is a crime; police are not authorized to use force to obtain “confessions.” Charges are supposed to rely on evidence of criminal activity by the suspects, not by the police.

We pay the police to uphold the laws of our society, which include our civil and human rights. When police impunity is such that police believe that brutalizing people (and telling them to lie) is “part of the job”, it’s (past) time for our governments and courts to start to protect Canadian rights.

They might start by giving the SIU real teeth; police should be forced to respond promptly and honestly to SIU requests for information. There were many police who violated police rules and the rights of Canadians at the G20 several years ago, yet only one or two seem to have been called to account. Every one of the police identified as having broken any rules (such as not wearing proper identification) should have been punished appropriately. The courts should make the police fully accountable for violations of people’s rights. The police violations of Canadian human and civil rights should no longer be tolerated.

Karin Brothers, Toronto

The general public is not the only segment harbouring grave misgivings about those who 'serve and protect.' A hard hitting Star editorial in this morning's edition, entitled Toronto police secrecy undermines public trust, makes clear that the chief's evasions and subterfuge have no place in a democracy:

Undue secrecy when police investigate their own only saps public confidence that justice is done when an officer breaks the law. For that reason, if no other, Toronto’s police board should reveal reports that Chief Bill Blair prefers to keep hidden.

The reports refer to a specific offence allegedly committed by Toronto police: failure to co-operate with Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, the outside agency summoned whenever police are involved in a fatality or serious injury, or are accused of sexual assault.

The editorial goes on to observe that while Blair asserts that he has investigated all of the concerns brought forward by the SIU, he insists they remain confidential, only to be shared with the Toronto Police Services Board. Not even the SIU is privy to what he claims to have done. This stands in stark contrast to other police services that make the result of investigations public, excising only the most confidential information.

So who is Blair really protecting here?

There are many reasons I am glad not to be a resident of Toronto; the fact that it has a largely unaccountable police force led by a man who seems contemptuous of the public is among my chief ones.

Police Torturers And Their Enablers

It is heartening to know that the Hamilton police are discharging their duties responsibly, as attested to by a video that went viral this week. However, to believe that all is well in policeland would be but a comforting illusion.

Yesterday, Kev reported on the 'excesses' of some Toronto police whose actions, described by the Court of Appeals' judge as 'torture under the Criminal Code', led to the staying of a conviction against the victim. Incidentally, two of the officers involved in the abuse, Jamie Clark and Donald Belange, received promotions, no doubt rewards for their 'exemplary' work.

Where does responsibility for the rot reside? As in all institutions, it must be placed on the shoulders of the leadership, in this case the office of Chief Bill Blair, who frequently seems more adept as a politicians than he does as Toronto's top cop. And the Toronto Police Services Board, led by Alok Mukherjee, has to be seen as one of the chiefs chief enablers.

A report by former Special Investigations Unit director Ian Scott suggests that Blair virtually ignored over 100 letters Scott sent to him alleging that officers repeatedly violated their legal duty to co-operate with the provincial watchdog. Blair's spokesperson and pet poodle, Mark Pugash, disputes this, asserting: “All of the points he raised were dealt with..."

Where the truth resides is something the public is not allowed to know. As reported in today's Star, the Toronto Police Services Board refuses to make this information public:

Chair Alok Mukherjee said Thursday the board has “considered” publishing the reports, but has not because certain information must be kept confidential under the Police Services Act, such as the names of officers involved in disciplinary matters or classified police procedures.

This stands in contrast with several other police services boards in the province, which release the chief’s reports at public board meetings, with confidential details removed.

Ottawa, for example, publishes its reports online, leaving out only the names of the officers involved. [I]n Durham, reports are only kept secret if their disclosure would threaten public safety or personal privacy.

Meanwhile, the good people of Toronto are expected to remain content with this from Chief Blair:

“In every single case without exception, I have reported to the oversight authority that the statute says I’m supposed to, which is the police services board.”

But the chief said he doesn’t think those reports should be made public.

“That is at the discretion of the board, and there are aspects of those reports which quite frankly deal with issues of personnel, which are not appropriate to be made public.”

We live in a troubling time when, on many levels, the Canadian public is being treated with an indifference that borders on absolute disdain, even contempt. However, despite the best efforts of the Harper cabal to establish a Canada that is more secretive and repressive society, a process that seems to be infecting all levels of governance, we still enjoy basic freedoms as a putative democracy; full disclosure of police misconduct is required and demanded unless the police motto "to protect and serve' is to be seen as little more than a cruel irony.

The Insular World Of The Police Mentality

I have written several posts in this blog about institutions and their many shortcomings, shortcomings that seem directly proportional to their age. The longer one exists, the more prone an organization seems to becoming increasingly insular, self-referential, and self-reverential.

One of the institutions most frequently targeted here is law enforcement. Whether examining local or national forces, it is clear that the temptation to overstep, misuse and abuse authority is too much for some to resist. Failure to seriously acknowledge that fact only leads to a greater likelihood it will recur, often more frequently or on an even larger scale.

Perhaps the most notorious instance of police abusing their authority and subsequent organizational inertia in responding to it was the G20 Summit of 2010 in Toronto. The details of that infamous weekend are well-known, and I have posted about it numerous times; in the aftermath of that weekend of mayhem, a G20 Criminal Investigative Project was formed to pursue and bring to justice the non-police criminals who contributed to the violence of that weekend.

As The Star's Rosie DiManno reports in today's edition, despite the legacy of illegalities perpetrated by the police and their commanders, that Project is today to be given a team award originating with Professional Standards:

[It is] being presented to some of the 82 members of the Toronto Police Service who are being honoured on Thursday along with a handful of officers from other law agencies

As Ms DiManno tartly observes:

There is little to feel proud about in the aftermath of that weekend of wreckage and trampled rights. Goodness, a slew of lawsuits against police for alleged abuse of force are still winding their way through the courts. And much of this city lost faith in its upholders of law and order, unprepared as they were to avert the chaos that erupted, then overly zealous in response to top-down orders that they “take back the streets.”

But that reality doesn't seem to exist in Policeland, it would seem.

The authorities, however, should be aware that it has not been forgotten in the larger world of public opinion.

SIU Versus Toronto Police: An Update

As noted the other day, there has been an ongoing jurisdictional battle in the case of alleged police brutality victim Tyrone Phillips. The complaint, filed by Phillips to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, could not be investigated by the SIU because Toronto Police, citing provincial regulations, refused to hand it over to SIU head Ian Scott, despite the fact that Phillips had given his permission to do so.

Resolution appears to be at hand. As reported in today's Star, the complainant was able to obtain his original report from the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, and the SIU was planning to pick it up today.

Let's hope that this is the end of an unseemly episode in which the pursuit of justice seems to have been the least consideration of the warring fiefdoms.

Toronto Police: Again and Again and Again ....

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By that standard, perhaps both the Toronto Police force and I are insane; I seem to periodically write essentially the same blog post about their misbehaviour, and they seem to keep practising a disturbing pattern of conduct that cries out for remediation.

The latest case of alleged police brutality was reported yesterday in The Toronto Star:

Ian Scott, director of the Special Investigations Unit, (the body that probes incidents of serious injury and death in which police officers are involved) said Wednesday he was unable to conduct an “adequate” probe into a brutality complaint made by Tyrone Phillips, who alleges police beat him up during his arrest outside a nightclub.

Toronto police, Scott said, have refused to provide the SIU with Phillips’ complaint, first filed to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, a provincial agency that probes grievances against police, then forwarded on to police.

The story, laughable were it not for the seriousness of the incident, outlines what seems to be a bureaucratic and jurisdictional dispute between two provincial bodies that, upon closer examination, suggests once again that Chief Bill Blair is continuing a policy of opacity that shields his officers from any real accountability.

Hiding behind the strict letter of legislation, his spokesperson, Mark Pugash, offers fatuous reasons for not releasing the formal complaint filed by Phillips, who alleges he was beaten severely by police and placed under arrest for no apparent reason, sustaining a serious concussion in the process, one that medical records verify.

As reported in today's Star, while the victim has given permission for the release of his complaint to the SIU, all that police spokesman Mark Pugash seems interested in doing is disingenuously carp about the fact that SIU head Scott went to the media to complain about his force's intransigence:

Pugash asked Thursday why Scott “went through the exercise he did yesterday with the inflammatory and quite offensive news release.”

Meanwhile, the larger issue of police brutality seems to be getting lost in this jurisdictional 'pissing match.'

And according to The Star's Rosie DiManno, there is sufficient blame to go around:

Each party has wrapped itself in the piety of rules. Yet those purported rules, as interpreted, have resulted in nobody doing the morally correct thing.

Scott has a complaint and a complainant. The police information sworn out after Phillips’ arrest would include the badge number of the arresting officer. That’s an obvious starting point for the SIU investigation. The subject officer isn’t compelled to submit to an interview — another failing of the Police Act. But it doesn’t require an investigative reporter to chase down the basic facts of the incident: Witness officers, if there were any; booking officer, or anybody else who came in contact with the accused; hospital records, to which the patient is entitled.

Ultimate responsibility for the conduct of the men and women of the Toronto Police force rests with 'teflon' Chief Bill Blair, a man apparently more deft at maneuvering to protect his own career than he is at holding himself and his force to account. As DiManno pointedly asks,

What did Police Chief Bill Blair do with Phillips’ complaint? What was the outcome of the mandated police investigation before the grievance was sent on to the SIU? It should be noted that the Police Act does, in fact, allow the chief to divulge information contained in a complaint received, under various exceptions to the nondisclosure guidelines, which shouldn’t be there as masking layer anyway.

Both excellent questions, the answers to which, if past performance is any indication, will not be forthcoming.

Two 'Politicians' Speak

Now frequently the new last refuge of the scoundrel, the passive voice is very popular with politicians far and wide, even if they don't hold elected office.

In response to a comprehensive report by retired judge John Morden on the police brutality and abuses of Charter Rights committed during the June 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto that cast the Police Services Board in a particularly bad light, Board chair Alok Mukherjee admitted “mistakes were made,” but stopped short of apologizing for the board’s inaction in G20 planning.

The other politician in this sad episode, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, acknowledged “lessons learned” from a new report criticizing the Toronto Police Services Board’s inaction on G20 summit planning, but denied a fundamental communication problem between police and the civilian body tasked with overseeing them.

What those lessons were, the good chief declined to say. And, of course, he refused to apologize for anything.