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25 February 2013

Canadian Association of Police Boards 157 Gilmour Street, Suite 302 Ottawa, Ontario K2P 0N8 Tel: 613|235|2272 Fax: 613|235|2275 www.capb.ca

BRITISH COLUMBIA ...... 4 Opinion: Policing not VPD versus RCMP ...... 4 Vancouver police board backs regional model as more effective, efficient ...... 5 Gangsters and growth turning Kelowna into a paradise lost ...... 7 Burnaby to switch to E-Comm dispatch ...... 10 Comment: RCMP recruitment adopting a new vision ...... 11 West Kelowna's crime rate and case load drop by nearly a third ...... 13 Coast guard admits police, fire not told of station closure ...... 14 ALBERTA ...... 15 Use of force by city police down slightly from 2011 ...... 15 Edmonton Police Commission Chair and Vice Chair Announced ...... 17 Edmonton officer guilty of insubordination relating to brother’s drunk driving case ...... 17 SASKATCHEWAN ...... 19 Saskatchewan court orders RCMP killer's father to pay $10K for defaming Mountie ...... 19 Regina Police Service explains texting behind wheel legal for officers ...... 20 Regina police expect to boost revenue with $10 fee hike ...... 20 PAPS Sergeant inducted into P.A. Council of Women hall of fame ...... 21 MANITOBA ...... 22 City needs to reduce police OT: councilor ...... 22 City Of Brandon And Brandon Police Association Finalize Contract ...... 22 Winnipeg Police Pension Plan members will not allow solvency exemption ...... 23 Police racking up overtime for ticket duty ...... 24 ONTARIO ...... 25 City gets OK to disband ...... 25 Toronto police watchdog seeks to reduce ‘unnecessary’ strip searches ...... 26 Toronto police union calls for resignation of SIU director ...... 27 Police board updates outdated policies ...... 28 Ontario’s Attorney-General rejects call to investigate SIU ...... 29 QUEBEC ...... 31 Constable 728 arrested after referring to killing spree ...... 31 Montreal police website hacked ...... 32 Quebec one step closer to provincial gun registry ...... 33 Supreme Court chides Quebec police for not clarifying informant's status ...... 35 Four Quebec officers suspended over video of brutal assault of robbery suspect ...... 36 Montreal police union head denies threatening mayor ...... 37 NEW BRUNSWICK ...... 38 Fredericton teen bullied with fake online dating profile ...... 38 Saint John plans to slow traffic down ...... 39 Moncton man arrested following graffiti investigation ...... 40 NOVA SCOTIA ...... 41 No charges for Halifax police in prisoner coma case ...... 41 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ...... 42 Stratford hiring RCMP civilian clerk ...... 42 NEWFOUNDLAND ...... 42 Security company dispatches police in wrong province ...... 42

2 NATIONAL ...... 43 Is crime in Canada really declining? MLI study questions StatsCan’s numbers ...... 43 OK for police to search cellphone on arrest if no password: court ...... 45 Atleo presses Toews on funding to police services ...... 46 INTERNATIONAL NEWS ...... 49 Corruption scandal shocks, saddens metro law enforcement ...... 49 Court: Police Don't Have to Prove K-9 Training ...... 52 Former DA to Review Pittsburgh Police Policies ...... 52 Law Enforcement and Autism ...... 54 Exclusive: Seattle police monitor blasts city for 'humiliating' him ...... 58 Area police chiefs support bill limiting arbitration for fired officers ...... 61 NYPD Commissioner says department will begin testing a new high-tech device that scans for concealed weapons ...... 62 After Christopher Dorner’s rampage, how to build community trust in police ...... 63 For Portland Police Chief Reese, the thigh's the limit ...... 65 Human Rights Watch Faults Mexico Over Disappearances ...... 67 Chief Lambasts Home Sec Over IPCC Plans ...... 68 Olympian Tries Policing For A Day ...... 70 Special Constabulary: New Study Launched ...... 71 Study Puts PCSOs On Trial ...... 72

3 BRITISH COLUMBIA Opinion: Policing not VPD versus RCMP

BY MATTHEW CLAXTON, THE TIMES FEBRUARY 19, 2013

I don't think I understand the debate over a regional police force for Metro Vancouver.

Well, I understand part of the debate. There are certainly trade-offs either way between having a big, integrated force for the entire urban area from West Van to Langley, or having local, municipal forces and RCMP detachments.

What I don't understand is Vancouver's position.

Vancouver has come out strong in favour of a regional force.

So why is Vancouver interested in joining now when it hasn't been in the past?

Since 2003, almost every police unit in the Lower Mainland has sent some of its officers to the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team - IHIT.

They're murder specialists, some of the best investigators from Surrey and Langley, the North Shore, Burnaby, and Coquitlam. Civic forces like New Westminster and Abbotsford have joined as well.

But not Vancouver. Vancouver investigates its own murders, and IHIT's remit stops at Boundary Road.

IHIT has had its successes and its failures, like any police unit. But its mission is easy to understand. In smaller communities like Langley, Maple Ridge, or Richmond, murders happen more rarely, if not necessarily at a lower rate per capita.

Keeping a specialized homicide squad on duty is not justifiable. So instead, every small and medium-sized community shares the costs of investigating murders.

We also share a number of other policing costs across borders in the Lower Mainland.

When people talk about local versus regional, do they know that the police helicopter service, or the police dog service, or various traffic and accident investigation services are already shared?

4 There are good reasons to keep local forces, and preserve local knowledge. A police officer who works a small area gets to know people, to gain the trust of the locals and to identify the frequent lawbreakers on sight.

One of the trends in the past two decades of policing has been towards neighbourhood policing, getting officers out of cars again and back among the citizens, in parks, on sidewalks and in schools.

There's been some speculation that the VPD was previously reluctant to join groups like IHIT because they would have been outnumbered by Mounties - inter-service rivalries go back to when Alexander the Great's cavalry and infantry had their first bar fight.

I think Vancouver's recent change of heart comes down to the idea that bigness itself is good, combined with Vancouver's natural notion that it should be in charge of the Metro region that bears the city's name.

Hold up there, for a minute. Creating a single, regional police force would also put command squarely in the hands of RCMP officers, or ex-Mounties if an entirely new force was created from scratch.

Vancouverites keep forgetting that they are not the dominant force in the Lower Mainland, and haven't been for a decade or so now. The suburbs outnumber the centre to such a great extent that we're creating new urban centres, like the Tri- Cities and Surrey, which in a few years will have as big a gravitational pull as Vancouver itself.

Heck, parts of Langley are approaching the density of East Van; parts of Surrey and Richmond resemble population maps of the West End.

If Vancouver is so interested in a regional force, why jump in all at once? Why not put on the training wheels, join IHIT, and see how that works out first?

Vancouver police board backs regional model as more effective, efficient

BY LORI CULBERT, VANCOUVER SUN FEBRUARY 20, 2013

Metro Vancouver would be better served by a regional police force, the Vancouver police board agreed Tuesday, embracing a key recommendation of Wally Oppal's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry report.

"The board supports a regional policing model as a more effective and efficient way to deliver policing services in the Lower Mainland," says a report by board

5 member Wade Grant, which was passed unanimously at Tuesday's police board meeting.

Board members also endorsed Oppal's suggestion that the proposed oversight body for a future Greater Vancouver police force put a top priority on communicating well with residents.

Oppal's critical report said the Vancouver police board did a poor job of receiving input from the community and acting on it between 1997 and 2002.

During those five years, dozens of women involved in the sex trade disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and their families complained of poor treatment by police when trying to make missing persons reports.

Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert Pickton was arrested in 2002, and eventually charged with killing 26 of those women. He was convicted in 2007 of killing six women.

There were 65 recommendations in Oppal's hefty report, four of them directed at police boards.

Oppal suggested that to make boards independent of municipal and provincial politics, mayors no longer serve as their chairs, but instead become nonvoting members.

It is a recommendation that Oppal, a former Appeal Court justice, first made in 1994 in an earlier report on policing, and it was echoed in a recent study of police boards by B.C.'s Justice Institute.

The Vancouver board recognizes "the inherent conflict" of having the mayor as chair, Grant's report said, but also noted it provides a "valuable link" with the city.

The board stopped short of taking a position, instead suggesting further discussion on the topic.

Grant's report backed Oppal's recommendation that more native people and marginalized citizens sit on police boards, but argued this can't be achieved "to the level desired" without expanding the board. Right now it consists of six citizens plus the chair.

Grant's report also endorsed Oppal's call for boards to receive more provincial funding to better gather and analyze their own information, so they are less reliant on the police forces they are overseeing.

Five cities in Metro Vancouver - Vancouver, Delta, New Westminster, West Vancouver and Port Moody - have municipal police forces. The rest are served by the RCMP.

6 The West Vancouver police department has come out against a regional police force, but the police board plans to discuss Oppal's other recommendations at its next meeting Feb. 28.

Delta's police chief and mayor said last month they opposed regionalized policing, arguing it only benefits major cities, not small ones.

They expressed support, though, for the "bulk" of Oppal's other recommendations.

Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu said in a report last month that his department would endorse all policing-related recommendations made by Oppal, including the creation of a regional police force.

Oppal's report, released in December, came more than two years after an $8- million inquiry was struck to examine the missing women case, and more than a decade since Pick-ton's arrest.

The former attorney general was very critical of the VPD and RCMP, noting "there was systemic bias by the police in the missing women investigation ... They (the missing women) did not receive equal treatment from police. As a group they were dismissed."

Gangsters and growth turning Kelowna into a paradise lost

BY SAN COOPER, THE PROVINCE FEBRUARY 24, 2013 To fellow diners in a café outside the Delta Grand hotel, with their muscles and tattoos, Jon Bacon and his pals including Hells Angel Larry Amero and an Independent Soldier plus the pretty, young niece of a Fraser Valley Hells Angel, were perhaps gaudy, but not too conspicuous. Since the Hells Angels expanded their presense in town starting in 2003, thugs out and about and cruising the streets and waterways of Kelowna in gleaming toys, were to be expected.

But on August 14, a typical lazy, sunny day downtown, Kelowna got its wake-up call when Bacon was gunned down in a white Porsche Cayenne in front of stunned vacationers.

The latest drug murders to shock the community, this time in West Kelowna, include an apparent innocent, 30-year-old mother Tiffany Goruk. She and Jeremy Daniel Snow, 33, were found dead Monday in a black SUV outside a high-end condo complex. Snow was a convicted drug smuggler who served time in a U.S. prison for his part in a high-profile ring.

Sgt. Ghalib Bhayani of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit says that several factors led to the influx of gangsters during the past few years, including the push of enforcement in the Lower Mainland, and the pull of attractive property

7 and fast money on Okanagan Lake. Police know, for example, that gangsters and their extended families have bought up expensive lake properties recently, taking advantage of a post 2008 real estate market dip.

Right now the Hells Angels are dominant, with “support clubs” such as the Throttle Lockers and the King Pin Crew. The Rock Machine, a biker gang known for bloody battles with the Hells Angels in Quebec, was seen in town during the past six months but may have been pressured out by the Hells Angels recently. To an extant, Lower Mainland gangs including the United Nations and Independent Soldiers are present in Kelowna, as well as less organized street- level players.

Bhayani said he can’t comment on the Bacon investigation, which is still open. He points to recent police successes, such as charges against several Throttle Lockers members in the 2011 murder of a man named Dain Phillips, as signs of success.

“At one point the gangs believed they were under the radar and untouchable, and that’s why we’ve moved up there too,” Bhayani said.

Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon says a crackdown on grow ops and gangs in the Lower Mainland displaced gangs into the Interior, so logically, as the third-largest urban area in B.C., the Kelowna district has become a major crime hub. The fertile pot growing in remote Okanagan forests, and increasing use of drug routes in southeastern B.C. — such as the Nelson corridor that the recently murdered Jeremy Daniel Snow used to access the U.S. market — make Kelowna a key drug route nexus.

“Quite clearly, what used to be a sleepy Okanagan town, has changed into a permanent city, with all the crime problems you would expect,” Gordon said.

A COCKTAIL OF FACTORS

So where did it go wrong, and can Kelowna get back on track? For University of B.C. population geography Prof. Carlos Teixeira, it’s clear that local citizens are afraid of increasingly visible violent criminals in Kelowna, and worried about the city’s growing reputation as a crime-capital. These are common topics of discussion in the UBC Okanagan campus community, although studies on the reasons why violent crime statistics have spiked haven’t been done, says Teixeira.

But it’s reasonable to suppose “a cocktail of factors” including rapid population growth, a transient population that is drawn to Kelowna’s mild climate, and a public sector that is struggling to catch up, are likely causes behind the growing criminality, Teixeira concludes.

In Teixeira’s classes students talk about the steep growth curve that Kelowna has seen: from a sleepy rural town 100 years ago, to a retirement community of 20,000 in 1970, to the fourth-fastest growing city in Canada in 2012, with a

8 current population of about 130,000. Population roughly doubles in the summer when recreation on the lakes ramps up, which makes the region difficult to police.

Teixeira says local planners must get ahead of the population growth trend and address social problems stemming from a lack of skilled and non-skilled jobs for youth, inadequate public transit, and economic imbalances caused by Kelowna’s exorbitantly priced housing benchmark, which is the fourth-most expensive in Canada.

Teixeira uses colourful terms such as “pepperoni pizza development” to describe the haphazard manner in which housing is splattered around the region, with little or no unifying thought.

“We need the local government to pay attention: Are we growing too fast. Where are we going?” Teixeira says.

'BAD DEVELOPMENT ON STEROIDS'

Gordon Price, one of B.C.’s leading city experts and a former Vancouver councillor, remembers well his charming childhood trips to Kelowna in the 1950s. There was the city park, the fruit-stands, a good bustle on Bernard Avenue, and the “Fintry Queen” car ferry in the harbour. Ironically, the iconic Fintry Queen just got the boot, to make way for a $5-million private wharf development.

Price says when the municipal government asked him to come to Kelowna to help put through an anchor mixed-use development on Bernard about 20 years ago, he was stunned by the disjointed and ugly patchwork of parking lots and strip malls. The development failed, with complaints against building height and density.

“I thought Nanaimo would be the worst example of a city being ‘malled’ to death until I went back and saw what happened in Kelowna,” Price said. “And now from what I’ve seen in West Kelowna, it is even worse. It’s bad development on steroids.”

Price says that during the years Kelowna politicians seem to have lacked the will and vision to guide smart development growth, but there is still hope.

Basically, Kelowna needs the type of turnaround that Mayor Dianne Watts and her council have started in Central Surrey. Focus on increasing transit and public infrastructure investment downtown and give developers a vision — more walkable, more dense, buildings more linked in purpose — that they can buy into.

“You have huge potential in Kelowna. There is a reason people go there. Just stop making bad stuff.”

TURNING CITY AROUND

9 Kelowna Mayor Walter Gray, a longtime municipal leader who was recently voted back into office, acknowledges some mis-steps in Kelowna, but downplays crime fears.

“I don’t get the sense that we have a population that is scared for their lives,” Gray said, noting this week’s double murder was in West Kelowna. “The Jon Bacon killing could have happened in Sicamous as much as Kelowna. He was in Kelowna because bad guys like holidays, too.”

Gray said Kelowna has upped its police force by 12 members, and with a crime reduction strategy getting underway in 2013, he believes citizens are confident that the dubious crime-capital statistics Kelowna has been tagged with in recent years will soon fade away.

When it comes to criticisms against misguided development in Kelowna, Gray points out that his council is trying to turn the city around, with plans that echo many of the urban-design successes that the City of Vancouver is known for. Bernard Avenue is undergoing a $17-million makeover that will reduce automobile traffic and “make it a people place,” Gray said. Public transit, biking and walking routes are the new focus, and Kelowna is seeking to foster new high-tech startups, build on its wine, food and recreation destination brand, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 30 per cent, by 2020.

If that sounds like a Vancouver of the Interior, well, that’s sort of the idea.

“We want to be the most desirable mid-size city in North America,” Gray said, of his new vision for Kelowna.

Back in his Vancouver office, Gordon Price is asked to consider the good and the bad in Kelowna, and prescribe an urban-planning remedy that could help the underperforming city live up to the beauty of its natural surroundings. On his computer he opens up a Google Earth satellite map and literally gasps, taking in all the potential land value and tax-base being wasted in car parks.

It’s exactly like Joni Mitchell said. They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.

“Those lots just suck the life away. They need to fill that in with transit-oriented development,” he says. “They’ve had some good ideas that lacked momentum, and they have a good economy. The important thing is to have the long-term vision and commitment.”

Burnaby to switch to E-Comm dispatch

By Wanda Chow - Burnaby NewsLeader Published: February 13, 2013 11:00 AM

10 Police dispatch services will no longer be done in-house after Burnaby council recently approved contracting E-Comm to do the work.

Currently, all 911 calls are connected to E-Comm which then transfers them to Burnaby civic employees who dispatch local RCMP services, according to a city staff report.

When the change is complete, in three to six months, Burnaby will join the 30 police and fire departments in southwest British Columbia, including Vancouver and Richmond, for which E-Comm dispatches emergency services directly. It will also handle all non-emergency calls for Burnaby RCMP.

The cost for a full year of service from E-Comm in 2013 is $2.48 million, a savings of about $100,000 for Burnaby city hall. The cost in 2014 and 2015 is expected to increase by 3.5 to four per cent annually subject to the final budgets approved by the E-Comm board of directors.

While Burnaby's current operations communications centre in the Burnaby RCMP detachment building is providing an "adequate level of service," city hall was prompted to review the service model because it is "facing multiple challenges with respect to aging equipment, spatial constraints, staff recruitment and capital upgrades," the report said.

In addition to cost, E-Comm has about 400 employees compared to the one manager and 32 communication operators who provide the service for Burnaby RCMP, allowing for better staff coverage during major events. It would provide better real-time communication between agencies in different municipalities, it is housed in a purpose-built earthquake resistant building and provides enhanced security and economies of scale.

E-Comm currently manages more than one million 911 emergency calls a year compared to about 58,000 for Burnaby's in-house police dispatch operation.

The 32 Burnaby operators represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 23 will be offered comparable positions in E-Comm (represented by CUPE local 873) as part of the service transfer and receive similar wages, benefits and the ability to retain their seniority.

Once the move is completed, Burnaby city staff will work with Burnaby RCMP to identify possible future uses by RCMP operations of the vacated space at the detachment.

Comment: RCMP recruitment adopting a new vision KATHRYN PERRY / TIMES COLONIST FEBRUARY 22, 2013

11 I’m a young female RCMP constable with an undergraduate degree in criminal justice and consider myself one of the changing faces of law enforcement in Canada.

Recent controversies have painted the RCMP in a bad light regarding the force’s treatment of female officers, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. The force offers good career opportunities for women, and women have much to offer the RCMP.

Expanding women’s numbers and their influence in policing needs to continue, and I see it is a top priority for ending harassment, and violence against women generally. It isn’t going to be easy, but little is. Police are perceived as resistant to reforms of any kind, and when it comes to women challenging the male-dominant culture, it can appear impossible. However, the force’s administration is determined to eliminate underlying anti-women biases and policies that permeate the RCMP, setting a new standard for all police agencies.

As the world prepares to mark the 100th International Women’s Day on March 8, the number of female officers serving in our police forces is at its highest level ever, with women making up more than 20 per cent of police.

The number of female officers in the RCMP has risen significantly in the past 12 years, nearing 30 per cent. This trend has been reflected in the appointment of senior positions, with several of the chief positions in the force now held by women.

Canada’s police force does a fantastic job in every province and territory, and it is encouraging to see that the officers increasingly reflect the society they serve.

As well as delivering hundreds of additional police officers in our remote communities, the RCMP also has a more diverse police force.

We are already fortunate to have females in the majority of police services, and the increasing ranks of female officers who bring a unique skill set are bringing a different perspective to all aspects of policing.

Every police service, particularly the RCMP, is committed to providing a quality service that is fair, accessible and meets the needs of all, whether in uniform or not. Key to ensuring that police services deliver on this commitment is providing equal opportunities in employment and development so that our workforce reflects the diverse communities we serve.

Collectively, police forces have contributed to better conditions and have developed a range of national guidance, including flexible working, managing disability, recruitment, career development and medical and fitness standards.

I recognize that more needs to be done to ensure that we create a work environment and culture that nurtures a stronger mix of staff working together to benefit all, and to deliver a first-class police service in every community.

12 In the RCMP, we are also looking beyond the equal-opportunity policies and best-practice initiatives to integrate equal opportunities throughout the force and into every organizational component, bringing respect and value.

I’m proud and excited to be a Mountie, just like my father and grandfather before me.

Kathryn Perry, who grew up on Vancouver Island and attended the University of Victoria, is an RCMP constable serving in rural B.C.

West Kelowna's crime rate and case load drop by nearly a third By Kelowna Capital News - Kelowna Capital News

Published: February 13, 2013 11:00 AM

The District of West Kelowna’s crime rate dropped 30 per cent in three years, according to an annual review of RCMP services in the community.

West Kelowna council was advised at its meeting Tuesday that the crime rate in West Kelowna decreased significantly over the period of 2009 to 2011 from a rate of 70 in 2009, or 70 offences for every thousand residents, to 54 in 2010 and to 49 in 2011.

In addition, the case load of the West Kelowna RCMP members also decreased by approximately 30 per cent.

Whether it is directly attributable to policing levels or not is unknown, but over the same time period, West Kelowna also had the highest officer-to-population ratio amongst 30 other municipalities with populations over 15,000. It had 21 municipal officers or one officer for 1,305 people.

The average crime rate was 66 among these communities, ensuring the rating of 49 put the district among the most crime free smaller communities in the province.

Nevertheless, the district chose to add two more officers—a school liaison officer and a drug investigations officer—in 2012.

“I know the residents of West Kelowna will find this news very encouraging as West Kelowna council has heard many people say that a safe community is their top priority,” said Mayor Doug Findlater in a release issued following the meeting. “A 30 per cent decrease is significant and it is very gratifying to see that the hard work of our RCMP officers is obviously paying off.”

13 The West Kelowna RCMP Detachment houses a total of 46 members, including 23 for West Kelowna, 16 for provincial policing, 4 for Peachland and 3 for First Nations policing.

The District of West Kelowna entered into a Municipal Police Unit Agreement on April 1, 2009 which includes the requirement of an annual report reviewing service levels, workload and calls for service. Quarterly policing statistics are also provided to Council as part of its strategic planning updates throughout the year.

Coast guard admits police, fire not told of station closure CBC News Posted: Feb 20, 2013 7:05 PM Coast Guard officials say giving advanced notice to emergency responders would have taken focus away from rescue operations.

Vancouver police and fire services were not informed of the sudden closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station on Tuesday, even though both departments had participated in an operational drill with the Coast Guard the day before.

The Coast Guard admitted Wednesday it didn't inform the agencies of the imminent shutdown of the station.

"There was no advanced notification, that is correct," Gary Sidock, of the Canadian Coast Guard's western region, acknowledged in an interview with CBC Radio One's On the Coast host Stephen Quinn.

Sidock said informing the departments about the closure would have taken the Coast Guard's focus away from its mandated duties.

"Had we given advance notification, there would've been all kinds of other activities unrelated to the proper planning and co-ordination and management of search and rescue that would've taken place," Sidock said. "We have not asked any agency to take the place of the Canadian Coast Guard."

Sidock was adamant the closure creates no increased risk to the public, but stopped short of saying Vancouver's waters are safer now that the Kitsilano station is closed.

"I'd be hard pressed to say whether they're safer. What I can say is that there is no increased risk to the public, in our view."

'Waterways at risk' Police and fire department spokesmen say Tuesday's closure caught them by surprise, and both expressed concern about the effect on safety of those on the water.

"The VPD was not given notice of the closure," Const. Brian Montague said in an email. "We are concerned that with the closure of the Coast Guard station, the

14 duties of our marine unit, which is policing, will have to take on more of a search and rescue role."

Fire Chief John McKearney agreed.

"The announcement [Tuesday] to close the Kitsilano Coast Guard station was a complete surprise," McKearney said in a release. "The temporary seasonal services announced for the harbour are no comparison to the professionally trained and equipped officers of the Coast Guard. This closure has put the safety of our harbour and waterways at risk.”

Closure first announced last spring Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced Tuesday in a notice to mariners that the Kitsilano Canadian Coast Guard Station will no longer offer search and rescue services.

The closure was initially announced last spring as part of budget cuts and drew widespread criticism.

The station responded to about 350 calls a year, and search-and-rescue services will now be handled by the coast guard base at Sea Island, in Richmond, which is 17 nautical miles away.

ALBERTA Use of force by city police down slightly from 2011

Officers have more experience and training, chief says

BY KEITH GEREIN, EDMONTON JOURNAL FEBRUARY 21, 2013

EDMONTON - Edmonton police used force 1,960 times when dealing with the public last year, a slight decrease from 2011 that chief Rod Knecht credits to increased experience and training of his officers.

Of the 39,436 arrests made in 2012, force was used in about five per cent of those cases.

“If we look back two years or even one year ago, over 50 per cent of our front- line folks had less than five years’ service,” Knecht said Thursday during a break at an Edmonton Police Commission meeting. “Our members are becoming more experienced, they are out there more, they are involved in more investigations, so the confidence level goes up.”

15 In addition, he said police are being exposed to more supervision and mentorship, and about 500 officers were given mental health training last year. Such education helps officers to better handle situations involving people who might seem more aggressive than they actually are, he said.

“It might be their mannerisms, it may be the way they talk in a non-traditional fashion,” Knecht said.

He said officers have been trained to more often use “verbal judo” rather than violence to handle people with mental health issues.

Edmonton police are required to submit a “control tactics” form each time they use any kind of force, ranging from a neck hold all the way up to firing a gun.

The 1,960 occurrences was a 1.5-per-cent drop from the previous year, but a major decrease from 3,096 incidents in 2010 and 3,273 incidents in 2009.

The only significant increase in 2012 was in the use of dog teams.

“Canine presence” cases, in which the mere presence of a dog was used to control a situation, jumped to 209 occurrences in 2012 from 168 the year before. Cases in which a dog actually bit a suspect’s clothing or body jumped to 37 from 21. In only one of these incidents was a suspect hurt badly enough to require hospitalization.

Insp. Kevin Kobi said the change is due to police using dog teams more often to support front-line officers and respond to calls, whereas previously they were deployed only when requested. He said the use of dogs in Edmonton is still below the national average.

Use of takedowns, batons, and tasers declined slightly in 2012. Officers stunned a suspect with a taser 11 times.

As for the use of guns, a weapon was brought into the “low, ready” position 685 times, a 10 per cent decrease. However, there was a 17-per-cent rise in the number of times a gun was pointed, which happened on 215 occasions. A firearm was shot only twice in 2012.

Pepper spray was used 21 times, up from 20 the previous year.

Kobi said it’s difficult to gauge how Edmonton officers compare to their counterparts in other cities, since each jurisdiction collects statistics differently.

However, he said public complaints about police use of force in Edmonton is on a trend of decline, down to 24 in 2012.

16 Edmonton Police Commission Chair and Vice Chair Announced At its January meeting, the Edmonton Police Commission appointed Mr. Shami Sandhu as Chair and Ms. Cathy Palmer as Vice Chair for 2013.

Mr. Sandhu has been with the Commission since January 1, 2010, and served as Vice Chair in 2012. He is also Chair of the Alberta Association of Police Governance. Former Chair, Ms. Arlene Yakeley, completed her six-year term with the Commission at the end of 2012.

Ms. Palmer joined the Commission on January 1, 2011, and served as Chair of the Commission’s Governance Committee in 2012. Ms. Palmer is currently the Vice President of the Canadian Association of Police Boards and chairs their Policing and Justice Committee.

Each Commission member must participate in at least one of three standing committees: Governance, Finance and Audit, and Internal Affairs. The Chair serves as an ex-officio on all three committees. Below is the committee membership for 2013.

Governance Finance and Audit Internal Affairs

Counc. Dave Loken Counc. Tony Caterina Mr. John Lilley Ms. Cathy Palmer Mr. Derek Hudson Mr. Gary McCuaig Ms. Suzanne Polkosnik Mr. John Lilley Ms. Cathy Palmer Mr. Keli Tamaklo Mr. Gary McCuaig Ms. Suzanne Polkosnik

Edmonton officer guilty of insubordination relating to brother’s drunk driving case

BY MARIAM IBRAHIM, EDMONTON JOURNAL FEBRUARY 20, 2013

EDMONTON - An Edmonton police officer accused of interfering in his brother’s drunk driving investigation was found guilty Tuesday of breaching the department’s conflict of interest policy, but escaped the more serious charges of deceit and corrupt practice.

Const. Derek Whitson, a seven-year member of the force, had been facing a disciplinary hearing for Police Act charges of insubordination, discreditable conduct, deceit and corrupt practice for interfering in a drunk driving case against his brother, Joell Whitson, in December 2010.

In his decision, hearing presiding officer Supt. Mark Logar found Whitson guilty of insubordination for trying to contact the investigating officer and for making notes

17 about the level of his brother’s impairment. Whitson had previously pleaded guilty to discreditable conduct.

“When you look at the number of attempts and when you look at the notes as they were submitted, there was indeed the type of conduct by the constable that brings him in breach of the policy,” Logar said.

In an unexpected move, Derek Cranna, the lawyer for the police department, withdrew the more serious charges of deceit and corrupt practice after finding evidence that “tends to support the constable’s version of events with respect to those two allegations.”

Bill Newton, Whitson’s representative, called it “tremendously unfortunate” that the two counts had progressed for as long as they had.

“We’re dealing with information that was clearly available to the investigators much earlier on,” Newton told the hearing.

In his testimony Tuesday, Whitson told the hearing he received a phone call from a friend who was in his brother’s truck the night of the traffic stop. The friend told Whitson his brother was being arrested, so Whitson set out trying to find out which officer may have been involved.

“I was just trying to find out if that was true, if he’d been arrested or not,” Whitson testified.

After he found out his brother would likely be taken to a Checkstop bus parked downtown, Whitson asked his sergeant for permission to pick his brother up and drive him home.

Whitson told the hearing he expected his brother to be “a mess,” but was surprised because he “didn’t see too many problems with him.”

He then made those observations in his police notebook.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have put them in the notebook,” Whitson testified. “They were personal observations.”

He told the hearing he believed he had to include the notes in the case file and asked a sergeant for advice.

“He said to me, ‘No, you took the notes, you have to put them in the file,’” Whitson said.

In previous testimony, Const. Margaret Raposo, the officer who arrested Joell Whitson the night of the traffic stop, told the hearing she received four posts through a police messaging system that she later learned came from Derek Whitson. She also received two phone calls, which she said she ignored.

18 Raposo told the hearing she was “in shock” after discovering the notes Whitson had added to the case file, which appeared to contradict her investigation.

In January, Joell Whitson was found guilty of one count of driving with a blood- alcohol content higher than the legal limit. He was prohibited form driving for one year and fined $1,150.

Derek Whitson testified he never attempted to interfere with the outcome of the investigation.

“In my mind, my mistake was making those personal observations, those surprised observations, in a police notebook,” he said.

During final arguments, Newton told the hearing Whitson shouldn’t be found guilty because he asked for permission before attending to his brother and never directly interfered with the investigative process.

“Supervision bears a bit of responsibility here,” Newton said. “The constable asked first. How can that be insubordinate?”

But Cranna argued the Whitson’s actions “were taken for personal reasons, not professional reasons.”

Logar agreed, saying he found it “troubling” that despite Whitson’s testimony that he was concerned for his brother, he never attempted to call him.

“The common sense approach in this situation would be to contact his brother,” Logar said.

The hearing is scheduled to resume March 15 for penalty arguments.

SASKATCHEWAN Saskatchewan court orders RCMP killer's father to pay $10K for defaming Mountie

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS FEBRUARY 22, 2013

SASKATOON - The father of a convicted Mountie killer has been ordered to pay $10,000 to an RCMP officer for defaming him.

A Saskatoon judge has also barred Arthur Dagenais (DAH'-zhuh-nay) from making any more complaints against the officer.

Dagenais had accused Const. Kenneth Palen of trying to kill him with a Taser during a vehicle inspection in October 2007.

19 Palen filed a lawsuit after Dagenais made the accusations on four separate occasions to RCMP detachments as well as to the Commission for Public Complaints.

Dagenais's son, Curtis, is serving life in prison for killing two RCMP officers during a pursuit near Spiritwood, Sask., in 2006.

Palen testified at the murder trial as an evidence expert.

Queen's Bench Justice Neil Gabrielson said in his ruling that he agreed with Palen's statement of claim that said Arthur Dagenais's allegations were untrue.

"I have ... reviewed the video of the inspection and I am satisfied that nothing is shown which indicates that a Tasering took place,” Gabrielson said.

The judge said it was clear that Dagenais fell down, but it looked more like he had tripped "rather than any action on the part of Palen who was not even close to Dagenais at the time.”

Palen had been seeking $300,000 in damages, but Gabrielson said there was no evidence to support that Dagenais's allegations did extensive damage to the Mountie's reputation.

Regina Police Service explains texting behind wheel legal for officers Work purposes, not personal use, makes it allowable under law Reported by CJME staff First Posted: Feb 22, 2013 4:42pm | Last Updated: Feb 22, 2013 7:34pm

A photo of a police officer holding a cellphone while behind the wheel of a cruiser has generated a lengthy discussion on the Regina Police Service Facebook page.

The picture is still up on the page with thousands of 'likes" and several hundred comments. The person responsible for commenting on the Regina Police Service's social media accounts explained numerous times that it's not illegal for peace officers and those who drive emergency vehicles to use handheld electronic devices -- but only in the course of their duties. The Traffic Safety Act is mentioned numerous times, as well as The Traffic Safety Regulations.

Regina police expect to boost revenue with $10 fee hike CBC News Posted: Feb 18, 2013 12:30 PM CST Regina police hope to raise an extra $130,000 doing criminal record checks for the public after raising the fee to $45 from $35.

20 The proposal is part of the Regina Police Service budget going to Tuesday's city council meeting.

The $45 fee is for criminal record check applications by workers who need to show their employer a clean record.

Police hope to take in more revenue with a higher fee plus greater volume — more employees getting checks.

Volunteers from school, church and community groups get their criminal record checks at no charge and that will continue in 2013, the police budget says.

The budget proposes $69 million in operating spending and $2.6 million in capital spending.

PAPS Sergeant inducted into P.A. Council of Women hall of fame

Published on February 20, 2013 Alex Di Pietro The Prince Albert Daily Herald

“Our motto this year is women nurturing, so we look at people who are giving to the public — preferably it’s a youth or young adult, and Rhonda fit in every category,” Prince Albert Council of Women president Marie Mathers said. Meakin has been selected for her accomplishments and volunteering efforts. Among her community involvement, she has organized Special Olympic events and helped organize the Law Enforcement Torch Run. She is a volunteer coach in bowling, golf and curling, participates in the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle campaign, has co-ordinated Police Ventures, mentors with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Prince Albert and is a member of the Compassionate Community Response Team. “She’s been involved with Carlton School. She’s been involved with the DARE program. She’s been involved with a lot of stuff,” Mathers added. Inductees are chosen on an annual basis after a selection committee with Prince Albert Council of Women has sifted through a number of applications. Selections are usually made around International Women’s Day, which is slated for March 8 this year. Mathers notified Meakin of her selection on Monday. “She was really surprised,” Mathers said with a laugh. “She said, ‘But me?’ And I said, ‘Yes. But you.’ She’s got a personality that is not seen in too many (people) of her age.” Meakin, who just recently gave birth, could not be reached for comment. She will be honoured at an induction ceremony, taking place at the Prince Albert Travelodge on March 2 at 2 p.m. “I’m looking forward to the afternoon, because we’ll have her father talking about her,” Mathers said. “If there is one thing about Rhonda, it’s that there are very few people who do not know her.”

21 MANITOBA Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION City needs to reduce police OT: councilor February 21, 2013 By: Staff Writer Protection and community services chairman Coun. Scott Fielding said the city needs to develop a strategy to reduce police overtime costs.

Last year, a special police traffic enforcement drive cost $860,000 in overtime, according to documents obtained by traffic activist group WiseUp Winnipeg. Fielding said the overtime cost is obviously too high, and the city needs to work with police and the new police board to develop a strategy to reduce it. He said the city should examine whether it makes more sense to devote more officers to the traffic unit, which would be cheaper than bringing in officers to work overtime. "Right now the levels are unacceptable," Fielding said.

City Of Brandon And Brandon Police Association Finalize Contract

February 20th, 2013 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brandon, MB – The City of Brandon is pleased to announce it has finalized a collective agreement with members of the Brandon Police Service.

The one-year contract with the Brandon Police Association provides a 4.44 % increase for sworn members, effective Jan.1st, 2013, with a further wage adjustment based on comparator centres as at July 1st, 2013. With this settlement, non-sworn members will receive a 2% wage increase.

The settlement also contains general language clarification, clean-up of wording and introduces a short-term, retirement incentive package. This incentive provides an enhanced retirement pay-out for individuals who have attained their “Rule of 80” (their age plus their years of service) with the City of Brandon and wish to retire prior to July 16th, 2013.

The collective agreement was ratified by the Brandon Police Association membership on February 4th, 2013, and received final approval from Brandon City Council at its regular meeting on the evening of February 19th, 2013.

The Brandon Police Association currently represents 86 sworn members and 39 non-sworn members within the City of Brandon.

22 Winnipeg Police Pension Plan members will not allow solvency exemption All other civic unions have member support for exemption Released: February 19, 2013

Winnipeg, MB ‒ As a result of the Winnipeg Police Pension Plan members’ refusal to allow a solvency exemption, the City of Winnipeg will be obligated to make annual payments to the plan in an estimated amount of $26 million each year for 5 years. Rather than raising property taxes to fund this contribution, the City has chosen to proceed with a letter of credit option, as provided by provincial legislation.

The Winnipeg Police Pension Plan (WPPP) was one of the public sector pension plans eligible for solvency exemption under the Province of Manitoba’s Solvency Exemption for Public Sector Pension Plans Regulation.

Without a solvency exemption, the City of Winnipeg’s contribution to the police pension plan must increase by approximately $26 million in 2013, for a total of $130 million over the next five years. This would be the equivalent of a 5.65% property tax increase each year for the next 5 years, equating to a 28% accumulated property tax increase.

"We’re disappointed that the plan members didn’t approve the solvency exemption,” said Chief Administrative Officer Phil Sheegl. "We proposed it in order to be consistent with other large public sector pension plans in Manitoba and across Canada, and to minimize the impact on taxpayers. Given the circumstances, we are recommending issuing a letter of credit.”

In a 2011 report approved by Council, it was recognized that the City of Winnipeg would be unlikely to default on its obligations, and a request for exemption of solvency funding requirements was determined to be reasonable and appropriate.

The request for election of exemption was a move consistent with the approach taken by other large public sector pension plans, such as the Winnipeg Civic Employees’ Pension Plan. Other major Canadian police pension plans, such as the Regina Police Pension Plan and the Saskatoon Police Pension Plan, also have a solvency exemption in place.

The Winnipeg Police Service is one of the only major police forces in Canada that does not already have a solvency exemption in place.

"In order to meet the increased cost of funding the Winnipeg Police Pension Plan, the Public Service has prepared a report recommending that the City obtain a letter of credit,” said Chief Financial Officer Mike Ruta. "This is one of the options authorized by provincial regulation, and is cost-effective for the citizens of Winnipeg.”

23 As a result of the WPPP members’ vote, the City of Winnipeg must obtain a letter of credit from a financial institution, to be reviewed annually.

Police racking up overtime for ticket duty CBC News Posted: Feb 21, 2013 8:08 AM CST The Winnipeg Police Service is spending a lot of taxpayer money on overtime for officers to ticket drivers.

Numbers obtained by Wise Up Winnipeg, a group dedicated to fighting photo radar enforcement, show police officers from different departments were pulled in to work in traffic enforcement for 627 overtime shifts between June and November 2012.

The cost? About $860,000.

Those numbers are related to Project Drive, which aimed to earn more than $1 million for the Winnipeg Police Service through traffic fines.

Last year, the police service admitted that officers were being asked to issue one ticket, per car, per shift.

So Todd Dube from Wise Up Winnipeg filed a Freedom of Information request to see how the police force pulled it off.

That's where the numbers came from. Dube calls it a cash grab and said the overtime hours would be better spent on crime prevention.

"They're stopping people for tail lights, for not having enough windshield wiper fluid," he said, adding he thinks the city is behind the push for tickets and revenue.

Police union baffled by overtime data The union that represents the city's police officers is also baffled by the data and frustrated the overtime isn't being dedicated to fighting other types of crime.

"It just seems odd to me that the city would push the service to cut down overtime in what I would think would be more important safety issues, [yet] appears to have pulled the plug out and just thrown the baby out with the bathwater with this overtime," said George Van Mackelbergh of the Winnipeg Police Association.

That focus on traffic enforcement indicates a dangerous set of priorities operating at city hall, he added.

"As a police officer, myself, it kind of tends to make me wonder why the authorization for extra shifts for break-and-enter patrols or organized crime aren't as authorized with such vigor."

24 But Mayor Sam Katz says he sees no problem with police officers putting in extra shifts.

"I think we have sufficient officers at this stage of the game, to be very frank with you. There's always been police overtime, as far as I can recall," he said.

Coun. Scott Fielding, who heads up the city's protection and community services committee, is an outspoken critic of red light cameras and has always said there should be more officers dedicated to traffic enforcement.

However, he agreed the traffic enforcement overtime numbers are problematic and said it's time for police to look at the way it manages its officers.

"There might be some aspects on the operational side that we need to take a look at," he said.

CBC News has not been able to reach the Winnipeg Police Service for comment.

ONTARIO

City gets OK to disband Feb 20, 2013 The Daily Observer STEPHEN UHLER

Some 135 years of city-owned policing has come to an end in Pembroke.

On Tuesday, Mayor Ed Jacyno informed council the Ontario Civilian Police Commission has given its approval for the city to begin disbanding its current police department as a step to bringing in the Ontario Provincial Police.

“We learned today our request has been granted,” he said, “that the commission’s decision to (allow us to) formally abolish the Pembroke Police Service has been made.” The mayor noted this clears the way for the city to start the process of dismantling the current force and clearing the way for the OPP to take over law enforcement by June 24, 2013.

Mayor Jacyno said it is sad to see the city police service go, as they had performed their jobs honourably over the years. But council had to look to the future, and with the increasing cost of policing eating up a huge portion of their budget, they had little choice but to look for alternatives.

The decision rendered by the OCPC is the result of a Section 40 hearing held in January, which is needed whenever a police service is disbanding or changing the number of personnel at work within it. The independent agency, which

25 oversees policing services in the province, has the power to decide if the disbandment of the Pembroke Police Service can go ahead, a necessary step before the city can sign up with the OPP to provide policing services for the municipality.

Council has stated it decided to disband the city police service solely for economic reasons, as the current police department has a budget of more than $6 million, representing more than 25 per cent of the entire annual budget.

For the mayor, it had come down to the ever increasing costs of maintaining a municipal police service and the ability of local ratepayers to sustain such costs, while financing all of the other expenses associated with living in a small community with a limited tax base.

On March 20, 2012, council then voted to accept the OPP contract, which offered an integrated policing model as a substitute. In it, Pembroke would become a new policing zone under the jurisdiction of the Upper Ottawa Valley detachment, using 28 officers assigned to that area and operating out of a new police building sited within the city. That is the current number of officers now serving with the Pembroke Police Service, minus Chief Dave Hawkins and Deputy Chief Drew Melon, who will both retire once the OPP take charge.

The commission also examined what severance arrangements have been made with those members of Pembroke’s police service whose employment may be terminated if the proposal is accepted, noting if nothing had been put in place within 90 days of their decision, arbitration would be imposed to settle the matter.

February 19, 2013 Updated: February 19, 2013 | 9:30 am Toronto police watchdog seeks to reduce ‘unnecessary’ strip searches By Staff Torstar News ServiceServices Board will consider a revised strip-search policy Tuesday stating these searches “cannot be conducted simply as a matter of routine policy.”

The recommendation also says that each time a strip (or “Level 3”) search is carried out, the officer must fully explain the reasons for it to the arrested person and record them.

But a police watchdog said the revised policy doesn’t go far enough. The Toronto Police Accountability Coalition is asking the force to reduce the number of “unnecessary” and “humiliating” strip searches conducted by officers, citing new data that more than half of those arrested are subjected to such searches.

The coalition, headed by former mayor John Sewell, said officers should have to conduct less-invasive searches for potential weapons or other items before a Level 3 search is required. He said officers should record reasons for conducting the more invasive search and require senior officer approval.

26

The coalition will address the issue at a police services board meeting Tuesday, following reports from Chief Bill Blair on strip searches conducted during the G20 and from board chair Alok Mukherjee on the proposed policy.

Sewell, whose long history arguing this issue at the board is well documented, said the number of strip searches still conducted by police is “crazy” and unnecessarily invasive.

“Our organization thinks that the police are strip searching many, many thousands of people that they shouldn’t be strip searching,” Sewell said, citing 2011 numbers obtained through a Freedom of Information request that show 55 per cent of people detained are subjected to a Level 3 search.

Sewell said a Level 2 search — a “close frisk” involving an intimate patdown — should suffice, especially for those detained for non-violent crimes, such as fraud.

“We think in 95 per cent of the cases, that’s what they could be doing,” he said. “They don’t pose any kind of a danger to themselves, to other people.”

On Tuesday, the board will receive a report from Chief Bill Blair following a recommendation from the G20’s Independent Civilian Review to provide the number of strip searches conducted at the Prisoner Processing Centre during the 2010 summit.

In his report, Blair said 334 such searches were carried out. Of those, 281 “search of person” templates were completed, which identify who authorized the search, why it was necessary and what was found.

For 41 searches, the chief said, templates could not be located but notes made by the officer in charge show the search was authorized. And in 12 cases there were no relevant notes or templates completed as required.

Mukherjee will tell the board about the amendments to the force’s search policy, citing a history of discussion at the board dating back to 2002 and following a 2001 Supreme Court ruling imposing limitations on police searches.

In September 2005, the board asked that the search procedure be amended to remove automatic strip searches for those held before a show cause hearing.

The board is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at police headquarters.

Toronto police union calls for resignation of SIU director Ontario's attorney general denies the Toronto Police Association's request to probe the practices of the Special Investigations Unit. The Toronto Star By: Rachel Mendleson News reporter, Published on Fri Feb 22 2013

27 The head of Toronto’s police union went after Ontario’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) on Friday, demanding the resignation of director Ian Scott and a full investigation into the way the police watchdog functions. But despite what Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack described in a news release as “serious and disturbing allegations” relating to two recent cases, Ontario’s attorney general has declined to probe the SIU. “The SIU operates at arm’s length from the ministry,” said Jason Gennaro, spokesman for the ministry of the attorney general. “This is designed to ensure that the SIU can carry out its operations without interference from government or the police.” McCormack’s concerns related to cases in which the officers involved were later acquitted. In the first, where an officer was charged with aggravated assault and discharging a firearm with intent, McCormack maintained the SIU failed to act on arrest warrants for the complainant, Phabian Rhodius. But according to Scott, who dismissed the allegations against him in a news release, his team informed Rhodius of the warrants, and “strongly advised” that he speak to his lawyer. Rhodius turned himself in several days later, he said. In the other case, McCormack said the SIU made public erroneous allegations that a 61-year-old man sustained a fracture during an encounter with a police officer. Scott disputed this charge, maintaining that medical records obtained during the investigation “support the opinion that the complainant sustained a nasal bone fracture.”

Police board updates outdated policies Carmela Fragomeni Thu Feb 21 2013 16:06:00 The Hamilton Spectator

The Hamilton Police Services Board has updated its amber alert and police body armour policies after an internal review found them not to be in compliance with adequacy standards set by the province.

Board administrator Lois Morin said the board was found to be “a bit behind” on some matters, primarily because the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services often sent its update messages to the chiefs and “some boards were left out of the loop”.

But Morin said it was the ministry who left the board out of the loop, not the chief. “It should have been the ministry sending these to the board.”

Now however, the ministry sends all its policy standards and updates to all police boards too, she said.

Because of previous problems however, the board was unaware of changes to the amber alert program policies until preparing for an upcoming audit inspection by the ministry, Morin said.

28 The updates reflect a change to Amber Alert activation that now includes considering all missing children investigations for the alert, and not just in abduction situations.

As for the body armour policy, the board didn’t have one on the books because of “an administrative error” Morin said. It now does.

The policy covers the provision of body armour at a level of protection necessary for the job and contains specifications.

Police spokesperson Catherine Martin however said the police service “has a longstanding body armour inspection procedure that is part of its use of force policy and that is also in compliance with the National Institute of Justice.”

Normally, a board policy outlines the basics of what needs to be covered and then the board directs the chief to put it into operation, says Lois Morin.

“The board outlines policy that the chief has to put in place.” Ontario’s Attorney-General rejects call to investigate SIU TIMOTHY APPLEBY AND ADRIAN MORROW The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Feb. 22 2013

Ontario’s Attorney-General has turned down a request from Toronto’s police union that his office launch an examination into the way the province’s Special Investigations Unit operates.

“We will not be conducting an inquiry,” said Jason Gennaro, spokesman for John Gerretsen.

“The SIU operates at arm’s length from the ministry. This is designed to ensure that the SIU can carry out its operations without interference from government or the police.”

The call came come from Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack, who on Friday morning issued a news release highly critical of the SIU’s handling of two recent investigations.

Mr. McCormack also demanded that in the meantime SIU director Ian Scott step aside, a suggestion that appeared to leave Mr. Scott unfazed.

“Mr. McCormack is entitled to his opinion about my leadership of the unit,” Mr. Scott responded in a statement.

“Frankly, I would have been more surprised if he issued a news release saying he was happy with the way the unit is functioning.”

29 Mr. McCormack had asked Mr. Gerretsen to examine two cases in which Toronto police officers were charged criminally, following SIU probes, and acquitted.

In both instances, the association says, the SIU acted improperly.

Established in 1990, the SIU is an independent agency that scrutinizes all police- civilian interactions involving death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.

Over the years, there has been considerable friction between the SIU and the scores of different police forces it oversees, but in general the climate has markedly improved.

Only a fraction of its investigations result in criminal charges: Last year, there were 15 cases, out of a total of 382 investigations; in 2011, the figures were 11 and 269 respectively; in 2010, there were also 11, from a pool of 281 investigations.

Mr. McCormack’s first bone of contention involves a Toronto officer who earlier this month was found not guilty of aggravated assault and improper use of his gun – discharging a firearm with intent.

At trial, it emerged that arrest warrants had been issued for the complainant, Phabian Rhodius, on charges of domestic assault and marijuana possession. The SIU investigators were aware of that, Mr. McCormack states, and as peace officers they had an obligation to either arrest him or report him to police, but did neither.

Mr. Scott responded that in fact the SIU did apprise Mr. Rhodius of the warrants, and that they advised him to speak to his lawyer about the matter. A few days later, Mr. Rhodius turned himself in.

The second case involves a Toronto officer who in April 2011 was charged with assaulting a 61-year-old man in custody at the 51 Division police station. The SIU subsequently issued a news release stating that the man had sustained a fracture.

Here, too, the officer was acquitted, and the judge concluded the man had not in fact sustained a fracture, Mr. McCormack says. And if there was no serious injury, he asks, “Why did the SIU go beyond their mandate and investigate their officer?”

There Mr. Scott disagrees.

“Medical records collected during the investigation support the opinion that the complainant sustained a nasal bone fracture,” he wrote Friday.

30 QUEBEC Constable 728 arrested after referring to killing spree BY KATHERINE WILTON, THE GAZETTE FEBRUARY 19, 2013

MONTREAL— A controversial Montreal police officer who was suspended last fall after a violent, profanity-laced arrest was broadcast, found herself in much deeper trouble on Tuesday.

Constable Stéfanie Trudeau, better known by her badge No. 728, was brought into a Montreal courtroom in handcuffs. A day earlier, during an angry visit to her union office, she had referred to the recent killing spree by former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner.

Dorner killed four people after being fired from the force. He killed himself last week during a standoff with police in the mountains outside L.A.

The Crown said on Tuesday that there was not enough evidence to charge Trudeau with uttering threats.

Instead, she signed an undertaking, called an 810, to keep the peace for one year. Under the terms of her release, Trudeau had to acknowledge that on Feb. 18, a Montreal police officer was worried about his physical safety and about damage to his property.

Trudeau, 40, was also ordered to report to a psychiatrist at a Sherbrooke hospital upon her release and to remain there for at least 15 days. You will not be released until the doctor says so, Judge Denis Mondor told Trudeau, who was tense and kept her eyes closed throughout most of the hearing. “Good luck,” the judge said.

Trudeau also agreed to not communicate with any Montreal police officers without their consent; to refrain from going to any police stations and to not visit the union office without her lawyer. Trudeau’s latest troubles surfaced on Monday after she visited the office of the Montreal Police Brotherhood, where she met with a senior police officer from internal affairs.

“She was very angry and she lost it,” a source told The Gazette.”

While she was there, officers became worried about her mental health, said her lawyer, Jean-Pierre Rancourt. “They realized that she was probably depressed and needed some help,” he said.

Later that evening, police offices went to Trudeau’s South Shore home and took her to a hospital in an ambulance. After a doctor released her at 1 a.m. Tuesday, she was placed under arrest as a precaution, Rancourt said.

31

“They didn’t want her to go home and they didn’t want to take any chances,” he said. “There was no direct threat or there would have been charges.”

Rancourt said his client is troubled by the negative media coverage she has received.

“She has two children and it is hard for her and her family,” he said. “She is crying a lot. She needs some treatment and to be under the care of a psychiatrist.”

Trudeau first gained notoriety last spring after a YouTube video showed her aggressively pepper spraying demonstrators at student march in downtown Montreal. The video garnered more than half a million views and resulted in police banning Trudeau from further demonstrations.

Last October, Trudeau was suspended by Montreal police chief Marc Parent after a video from a cellphone showed her holding a man in a headlock in a stairwell during an arrest and using foul language when relaying details of the scene to her supervisor.

The incident began when Trudeau asked artist Rudi Orchietti, who had been holding an open beer on the street, for identification.

Orchietti said he was pushed to the ground and handcuffed after being asked for his driver’s licence and insurance papers.

The footage shows Trudeau chasing another man, Serge Lavoie, up the apartment building stairs. When she caught up to Lavoie, she put him in a headlock and forcibly led him down the stairs.

One of the cellphones confiscated by Trudeau, apparently activated by accident, recorded her profanity-laced account of the incident to other police officers.

During the rant, she described people she found in the apartment as “the rats upstairs ... guitar scratchers, all Red Square types, all artists.”

After the footage was broadcast on Radio-Canada, Trudeau was suspended temporarily, pending an internal investigation which is still ongoing. At the time, Parent held a news conference to apologize for her behaviour. Trudeau is the daughter of a former police chief in St. Hubert. Montreal police website hacked Posted By: Andrew Peplowski CJAD 2/19/2013 6:16:00 AM

The Montreal Police Department internal website has been hacked again.

Investigators say the names, positions and telephone numbers of several hundred department employees have been stolen.

32

The investigation into who is responsible involves Montreal police, the Sûreté du Québec and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Officals say the hack came with a warning referring to the upcoming Education Summit.

It's the second security breach in the past few months.

La Presse is reporting this morning that the Policemen's Brotherhood is concerned the hack may have placed officers in danger and says the union has complained before about the lack of cyber security within the department.

Quebec one step closer to provincial gun registry

BY PHILIP AUTHIER, THE GAZETTE FEBRUARY 19, 2013

QUEBEC — It was in their eyes, it was in their voices.

Gun-control advocates, including the mother of a victim of the École Polytechnique massacre, descended on the National Assembly Tuesday to witness another step toward the creation of a provincial gun registry.

And while they heaped praise on Quebec’s politicians — the new registry has the support of all the parties here — they expressed anger at what has happened to their dream of better gun control in the rest of the country, where the registry has been abolished.

“I was devastated when (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper took that liberty to put at risk all the rest of Canada, but we are gutsy,” said Suzanne Laplante-Edward who lost a daughter in the Polytechnique massacre Dec. 6, 1989.

“I’m very much a Canadian — I’m not only a Quebecer — but there is no logic behind getting rid of something that has cost a lot of money to Canadians and is doing its job.

Having been elected on a campaign promise to abolish the registry, the Conservative government did, announcing plans to also destroy the existing data for the provinces.

Although Ottawa won the legal battle to abolish the registry including in Quebec, a Quebec Court ruled in Quebec’s favour when Quebec said it wanted to preserve the data for itself. Ottawa is appealing that ruling.

33 “Their (federal government’s) sole goal seems to be to please the gun lobby and nothing else,” added Heidi Rathjen, a Polytechnique survivor and spokesperson for the gun-control advocacy group Polysesouvient.

“It’s tragic for every other province. Today is a big silver lining. We went five steps back, but we’re at least taking one step forward today for Quebec.”

And it is indeed a step. Mired in a court battle with the federal government, the province does not actually possess the existing data to create the registry.

But rising in the National Assembly earlier, Public Security Minister Stéphane Bergeron decided to go ahead and present Bill 20, the Firearms Registration Act.

It is one bill the minority Parti Québécois government is assured of getting passed.

Bergeron said Quebec is acting to avoid any legal void even though a Supreme Court ruling about the future of Ottawa’s old data — which Quebec wants — is not expected until March.

The bill picks up where Ottawa left off, meaning it will require all owners of non- restricted firearms — long guns and hunting rifles included — to obtain a registration certificate for each firearm they own.

The new rules will cover the storage of firearms and requires firearms businesses to keep a record of all transactions and be subject to regular inspections.

Under the federal system, as of December 2012, 1.6 million guns were registered in Quebec and 90 per cent were non-restricted weapons.

“It (the system) is not a lemon,” Bergeron told reporters at a later news conference attended by the gun control advocates, the heads of the province’s police forces and other political parties.

“And we are convinced, we will get the data (from Ottawa). Failure is not an option.”

Bergeron, who served in the Canadian Forces as a naval cadet instructor, noted that crime with guns, domestic homicides with guns and murders with guns have all gone down in Quebec under the registry system.

Across Canada, 250 suicides have been averted.

On hand for the launch, Wendy Cukier, president of the national Coalition for Gun Control, noted that since the registry was abolished, gun seizures in Toronto have dropped 40 per cent because the police no longer have the information they need.

In Quebec, police check the existing registry, on average, 700 times a day.

34 “We have a history in Quebec,” added Montreal police chief Marc Parent. “There was an incident here in parliament, we had Dawson, we had Polytechnique, we had Concordia. We know these things can happen here.”

Supreme Court chides Quebec police for not clarifying informant's status

By Steve Rennie, The Canadian Press Published Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 6:59PM EST OTTAWA--The Supreme Court of Canada has chided Quebec's provincial police for leaving a witness to the bloody biker wars in limbo over his or her status as a confidential informant. But the high court was split in its ruling Friday over whether or not the individual was indeed a police informant -- and thus entitled to have his or her identity protected. The justices opted to send the matter back to a lower court for reconsideration. The case involves someone identified only as B who bore witness to -- and participated in -- violent crimes as part of a savage turf war between Quebec's biker gangs that broke out in the mid-1990s. "Motivated by fear for his safety and a desire for vengeance," B met two officers from an unnamed police force to given them information, the ruling says. The court's legal officer says while the masculine gender was chosen to identify B in the ruling, that doesn't mean B is necessarily a man. The police force promised B confidentiality -- and assigned him or her an informant code -- in exchange for information that implicated several people in violent crimes. The force released B because the crimes were outside its authority. The police then passed along B's information to the Surete du Quebec. Two days later, the Surete du Quebec arrested B for his crimes. B agreed to help the Surete du Quebec. Over the next few days, he continued to provide the Surete du Quebec with information about the crimes. The Surete du Quebec gave B an informant code, and the person co-operated with police for the next five years. During that time, B repeatedly asked the Surete du Quebec to clarify B's status as an informant, but never received a clear answer. B eventually pleaded guilty to one of the crimes and was sentenced. The nature of the crime and the name and location of the jail are not given in the court's ruling. The Crown ordered the Surete du Quebec to remove B's name from any information that might identify the person and to seal the documents. But a few months later, two Surete du Quebec officers visited B in jail and asked him or her to give up privileges as an informer. B refused. The Crown then went to court to clarify B's status. At the closed-door hearing, B claimed he was an informer. B pointed to the fact that the Surete du Quebec assigned him an informant code, and requested he sign a waiver of informer privilege.

35 While the judge found it odd the Surete du Quebec would ask B to give up informer privileges if he was never an informer in the first place, he ultimately concluded the Surete du Quebec never promised B informer status. The Supreme Court saw it differently. "While the SQ officers were adamant that they did not think of B as an informer, they do not appear to have shared this view with B," the ruling says. "B was promised confidentiality by the first police force because his co-operation put his life at risk. The risk did not change when he was transferred to the SQ two days later." The Supreme Court notes B repeatedly voiced concerns about his confidentiality, safety and the uncertainty and confusion he or she felt. "The fact nobody clarified for him whether the confidentiality promised by the first police force continued to apply to his dealings with the SQ could well have led him to believe that the protection he had with the first force continued pending the co-operating witness contract," the ruling says.

Four Quebec officers suspended over video of brutal assault of robbery suspect Global News : Friday, February 22, 2013 7:44 PM

MONTREAL — A surveillance video showing a robbery suspect being kicked and beaten by police officers as he lay face down and spread-eagle on the ground triggered a courtroom stir Thursday in Quebec.

The video was entered into evidence by the defence during a bail hearing for Alexis Vadeboncoeur in Trois-Rivières. The 19-year-old is accused of committing an armed robbery in a Jean Coutu drugstore in the city, halfway between Montreal and Quebec City.

Defense lawyer René Duval compared the incident to the case of Rodney King, who was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991. "It's the first time in Canada that we see a video where several police officers beat an individual to this extent," he said.

Vadeboncoeur was arrested on Feb. 2 and the violent arrest was recorded by a surveillance camera at a post-secondary institution. Before lying down on the ground, the video shows him throwing his gun to the side. He then lay down face first on the ground, with his arms extended to each side. Police cars arrive at the scene and officers are then seen approaching the prone figure and assaulting him.

The Quebec provincial police force has confirmed that it is investigating the case.

“We were asked Feb. 8 by the Trois-Rivières police force to investigate,” Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Sgt. Bruno Beaulieu said Thursday.

“We cannot comment any further because the investigation is ongoing.”

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Four officers involved in the arrest have had their guns taken away and have been suspended with pay from the municipal police force. La Presse reports that they are Keven Deslauriers, Barbara Provencher, Dominique Pronovost and Marc-André St-Amant.

The suspensions came about 10 days after the arrest, when discrepancies emerged between the arrest report filed by officers and other information sent from a third party, reportedly a security guard at the CEGEP.

The mayor of Trois-Rivières, Yves Lévesque, was shocked and disappointed by the video. "When we see the way that this was handled, it's certain that people will want answers."

Montreal police union head denies threatening mayor Yves Francoeur wants Michael Applebaum to retract statements made at press conference CBC News Posted: Feb 22, 2013 12:15 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 22, 2013 8:51 PM ET The president of Montreal's police union is demanding an apology from Mayor Michael Applebaum, who said earlier today that he was threatened by the union's top man.

The mayor said he spoke on the phone Friday morning with Yves Francoeur, who told him if he didn't change his mind about police scheduling by 6 p.m. today, he would launch personal attacks against him.

Applebaum said Francoeur gave him an ultimatum to extend a police-scheduling pilot project to next year.

The project, which involves 3,000 police officers, allows them to work three days a week with extended hours.

Francoeur said it allows the police department to extend coverage on peak hours and does not overwork officers, unlike the shift rotations they are usually subject to.

"The objective was to avoid having police officers alternate shifts on days, evenings and nights. All recent studies show it, it's not good for your health," he said. "The new schedule is a benefit for everyone and I told the mayor this morning that it's a benefit for citizens too."

The mayor said it was decided not to continue with the program after consultations with police officials and the director of the city's human resources department.

37 Francoeur said he suggested the city keep the project going until January 2014. He said eight of the 13 months the pilot project was running were overshadowed by student protests in Montreal.

"I told him I want an answer before 6 p.m. this afternoon because if you don't tell them at the City of Montreal ... you wait for weeks and weeks," he said.

Francoeur said he has talked to his lawyers and wants Applebaum to retract the comments he made about being threatened.

Applebaum said Francoeur's ultimatum took things too far.

"He clearly stated that as a result of my decision, the police brotherhood would be on my back," he said.

Applebaum said he will not give in to threats and ultimatums.

"It's deplorable that a police officer openly threatens the mayor of Montreal."

Francoeur admitted that he told Applebaum that the union has a plan to respond if the pilot project is not extended, and that Applebaum will be held accountable.

In an interview with CBC Radio's Homerun, Applebaum said he would not bend to Francoeur's request.

NEW BRUNSWICK Fredericton teen bullied with fake online dating profile

CTV Atlantic Last Updated Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013 6:40PM AST

A Fredericton high school student recently kicked out of her private school for dying her hair pink had just started at a new school when she became the subject of a bogus online dating profile.

Keanna Boer learned that a fake profile bearing her pictures and contact information as well as a sexually graphic message had been posted on PlentyofFish.com.

Boer has left the school and police are now involved in the matter.

Victoria Boer says her daughter is the victim of cyberbullying after someone posted a fake online dating profile bearing her pictures and contact information.

38 “Not only is it dangerous, but it is damaging to children, to anyone, to have something like that posted without their knowledge,” says Victoria Boer, the girl’s mother. Fredericton Police are trying to track down the computer IP address from which the fake profile was posted. “These kids think it is so funny and we’ll just post this about someone and they’ll get a good laugh, but what they don’t realize is that on these websites there are predators out there looking for people,” says Victoria Boer. Legal action against such a form of cyberbullying is limited; one of the only recourses available is invasion of privacy laws. “But it is very underdeveloped in Canada right now and it’s not clear that it would afford some of the remedies to, for example, somebody of a negative Facebook profile or some other dating site profile which paints them in a negative light,” says Robert Danay with the University of New Brunswick’s faculty of law. Child and youth advocate Christian Whalen says laws need to change with the times. “We need to adopt Canadian law to the reality of our social context,” says Whalen. “Who are on social media the most? It’s young people. What are the issues really coming in the form of cyberbullying, very much involving young people and adolescents?” For now, the Boers are speaking out because they say keeping quiet won’t change anything. “Our only goal is to help our daughter and hope that at some point in the future it makes a change in something and how we manage Facebook, Plenty of Fish, all our websites.”

Saint John plans to slow traffic down Traffic-calming measures to be implemented this year CBC News Posted: Feb 8, 2013 2:29 PM AT The City of Saint John hopes to begin tackling some of its top traffic-calming ideas before the end of the year, says the manager of pedestrian and traffic safety.

A traffic-calming policy was introduced last April, following a number of complaints from citizens, said Tim O'Reilly.

Since then, more than 100 citizens have submitted suggestions for ways to slow traffic down, he said.

"We do a consultation with individual citizens. So whether it's myself, or someone who works with me, we talk to a citizen who has a concern … we do it on a one- off basis and that's the way we've been doing it," he said.

Some of the options being considered include narrowing streets, adding more speed bumps, and changing speed limits — all in the hopes of making roads safer for both motorists and pedestrians.

39 "We're using the rest of this winter to help identify … what the highest priority projects are out of the hundred or so requests we have," said O'Reilly.

Changes can't come soon enough for west side resident Mary Ellen Carpenter, who has been advocating for safer streets.

"I've seen two pedestrian accidents here myself — and plus all the near misses," Carpenter said on Thursday, standing at the corner of Lancaster Avenue and Duke Street West.

"When you're at the intersection, you can't see the vehicles coming up the hill, they can't see you," she said.

There were 16 pedestrians struck by vehicles last year, according to the Saint John Police Force.

In 2011, there were 29 pedestrian-vehicle accidents and in 2010, 24, they said.

Moncton man arrested following graffiti investigation

CTV Atlantic Published Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013 1:33PM AST A Moncton man has been arrested in connection with several graffiti incidents in the area. RCMP say the arrest was made following an investigation by Const. Chris Fader, whose interest in graffiti was sparked by his 11-year-old daughter. “Last spring we were driving through Moncton and it was my daughter who pointed out several buildings that had graffiti painted on them,” says Const. Fader. “She wondered why people would do such a thing, so I thought I would find out, because if my daughter was thinking that, so were many other people.” Fader took a course to learn more about graffiti and then documented all the markings he would find in three Moncton-area communities, noting the tags, or signatures, used. Police say Fader was able to identify markings on about 10 buildings in Greater Moncton. The graffiti resulted in thousands of dollars in damage and cost to property owners to remove the paint. RCMP executed a search warrant at the home of a 27-year-old man last Wednesday, where they seized hundreds of graffiti-related items. The man, whose name has not been released, is due to appear in court at a later date. RCMP say more charges could be laid as other people are investigated in connection with the case.

40 NOVA SCOTIA No charges for Halifax police in prisoner coma case Man slipped into coma for five days after laying in police cell CBC News Posted: Feb 22, 2013 12:06 PM AT No criminal charges will be laid against a Halifax Regional Police booking officer after a suspect in a robbery slipped into a coma while lying in a police cell.

Instead, Nova Scotia's Serious Incident Response Team has asked the Halifax Regional Police to review "whether the booking officer breached HRP policy regarding when and how he conducted cell checks," according to a statement released Friday morning.

Jonathan David Hill, 27, was arrested after an early morning robbery at the Needs convenience store on Chebucto Road on June 13, 2012. He was taken to the Halifax Regional Police station at 3:15 a.m.

The Serious Incident Response Team said Hill co-operated with police and video surveillance showed there were no physical confrontations between him and officers at any time after his arrest.

Hill was eventually taken to a cell and he laid down on a bench.

Seven hours later, when officers went back into his cell to wake him for his court appearance, he was unconscious and officers were unable to wake him. Emergency Health Services was called.

Hill was in a coma for five days and then in recovery for more than a week.

The Serious Incident Response Team said officials suggested Hill's initial unconsciousness was caused by ingesting cocaine, cannabis, alcohol and other substances.

The team's report also concluded his condition was likely aggravated by remaining motionless for a lengthy period of time.

While the team found that "any inaction was not sufficient to constitute grounds to justify a criminal charge," it made a formal referral to the Halifax Regional Police for a disciplinary review to determine if the booking officer breached the force's cell check policy.

The booking officer's name has not been released.

Hill pleaded guilty to robbery and wearing a mask in October and was sentenced to four years in prison.

41 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND Stratford hiring RCMP civilian clerk CBC News Posted: Feb 18, 2013 1:41 PM The Town of Stratford plans to hire a civilian clerk to work in its RCMP office.

That means residents won't have to cross the Hillsborough Bridge anymore to do business with the RCMP .

The clerk will help with tasks such as criminal record checks.

A security upgrade is required for the office, but the town isn't sure exactly what that will cost. The town is budgeting best it can, Coun. Randy Cooper said.

"We've budgeted an amount to do that, which would really be a six or seven month time frame this year because already we're into February. And we're waiting to hear what the requirements would be from the RCMP and Public Works Canada," Cooper said.

The town is hoping to have the clerk working by the fall.

NEWFOUNDLAND Security company dispatches police in wrong province CBC News Posted: Feb 20, 2013 4:13 PM NT An alarm that was triggered at a house in St. John's prompted the security company to alert the authorities – in another province.

On Feb. 14, something triggered the alarm at Patrick MacDonald's house. The alarm company called the police, but they never showed.

When the homeowner called the company to see what happened, he received some alarming information.

"They said, 'Yes the police were called, but they don't go to there.'"

"That's when I said, 'Well, what do you mean, they don't go? That's what they're supposed to do, if there's a security alarm,'" MacDonald said.

He then asked why the police wouldn't go to his house.

"I said, 'Where did you call them?' And they said, 'Saint John.' I said, 'Saint John, New Brunswick.' And they're like, 'Yes.'

42

"So I was like, 'Do you realize I live in St. John's, Newfoundland?' And that's when they realized."

Dispatch in Saint John answered the call.

Isolated incident? The security company, Reliance Protectron, formerly Vox-Com, said this incident appears to be an isolated case.

They said whoever signed MacDonald up for the service five years ago mistook St. John's for Saint John.

The emergency dispatch centre in New Brunswick said this type of mix-up isn't uncommon, and they do get calls like this from time to time.

The company has offered MacDonald one month free of charge for the mistake. But he's now planning to change security companies.

"You expect, if your alarm goes off, that someone's going to be there," he said.

Reliance Protectron said this should never have happened.

The company plans to get in touch with the homeowner, and to do a thorough review of all of its customers in St. John's to make sure the emergency contact numbers are for St. John's, Newfoundland, and not Saint John, New Brunswick.

NATIONAL Is crime in Canada really declining? MLI study questions StatsCan’s numbers

Issues raised about methodology. Key findings & trends omitted. Questions raised about measuring crime. MEDIA RELEASE OTTAWA, February 21, 2013 – Statistics Canada is creating an incomplete portrayal of crime in this country because of the way it collects and collates data, a Macdonald-Laurier Institute study says. “The Statistics Canada data is a gold mine of information on crime in Canada but the methodology chosen is providing Canadians with a less than complete and relevant picture of crime and crime trends,’’ noted Scott Newark, a 30-year veteran of the criminal justice system and author of the study. The former Alberta prosecutor and former executive officer of the Canadian Police Association takes issue with the annual report, Police-reported Crime Statistics in Canada, by Juristat, a Statistics Canada publication, on several fronts:

43 - The report only reflects the number of incidents reported to police or to which they have been alerted, not the actual number of criminal incidents in the country. The two are vastly different. Canadians are estimated by Juristat to be reporting only 31% of crimes, including because they believe that nothing will be done by the justice system or even out of fear of retribution. - StatsCan only reports one crime – the most serious – in an incident. For example, in an case involving drug dealing, weapons, assault and flight from police by an offender on bail and probation, only what was deemed to be the ‘most serious’ offence would be reported by Juristat. On a positive note, police services across the country are moving towards counting and reporting all offences and facilitating public reporting of crime. - No information is offered on criminal records and other characteristics of offenders, despite availability and relevance of such data to the performance of the criminal justice system. Constant reoffenders account for a disproportionate amount of crime in Canada. In Ottawa, for example, 80% of the city’s break-ins are committed by 5% of the charged offenders and Juristat itself recently confirmed that 59% of persons charged with homicide in 2011 had a previous criminal record, most for violent offences. Juristat’s Crime Severity Index brings an inappropriate element of subjectivity to the assessment of overall crime. The index, designed to help differentiate importance of violent from minor crime, attributes a weight to a crime based on the subjective sentence handed down by a judge, not on objective severity of the crime itself. - Juristat does not always report crime data for both the number and the rate per 100,000 population. Sometimes, crime is increasing in absolute numbers but not as quickly as the population. That can lead to contradictory conclusions about whether crime is rising or falling. Also at issue is what Juristat doesn’t report. On February 4, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said that as part of a plan to reduce rising costs of policing, Ottawa is looking to make the bail and extradition regimes more efficient and streamline the justice system. The Minister also noted that 15% of offenders are responsible for 58% of all crime so clearly the relevant information is available somewhere. Unfortunately, Juristat no longer specifically reports on bail violations, Mr. Newark notes, even though earlier reports showed these offences rose almost 50% from 1998 to 2007. “Nor does Juristat report shootings and stabbings separately, although police services and media track these data in various levels of detail.” Mr. Newark also says that Juristat omits key findings and trends in its Highlights section that would provide a more balanced and accurate view of crime in Canada than the general conclusion that `crime is down’ that some commentators suggest. “That Canadians are not reporting crime is itself a legitimate and important issue. Ignoring that fact, which Juristat does when analyzing trends in crime, is not appropriate,” he says. In 2011, MLI pointed out the same errors in methodology and offered recommendations on how to address them. However, the latest Juristat report shows that only one recommendation has been implemented so far. It has

44 included relevant offender profile not previously provided in its 2012 Homicides in Canada Report. This time, Newark is proposing 13 reforms he believes Juristat should introduce in next year’s report, including the creation of a Most Serious Violent Crime category that includes first- and second-degree murder, manslaughter, attempted murder and aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. In addition, the study urges reporting of crimes committed by persons on bail, probation, conditional sentence, parole or subject to deportation for past crimes as well as more historical reporting that includes tables for crimes and category crimes which include volume and rates and provide data for the reporting year, and the preceding five- and ten-year comparative data. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION OK for police to search cellphone on arrest if no password: court By: Allison Jones, The Canadian Press February 21, 2013 TORONTO - The right of police officers to look through someone's phone depends on whether there's a password, Ontario's highest court has ruled. It's all right for police to have a cursory look through a phone upon arrest if it's not password protected, but if it is, investigators should get a search warrant, the Court of Appeal for Ontario said in a decision released Wednesday. The court's ruling comes in the case of a man who appealed his robbery conviction, arguing that police breached his charter rights by looking through his phone after his arrest. Kevin Fearon was arrested in July 2009, after a jewelry stall at a flea market in Toronto was robbed, and police found pictures of a gun and cash as well as a text message about jewelry on his phone. The court denied his appeal, saying that police were allowed to look through Fearon's phone "in a cursory fashion" to see if there was evidence relevant to the crime, but after that they should have stopped to get a search warrant. The court says if the phone had been password protected or otherwise locked to anyone other than its owner, "it would not have been appropriate" to look through the phone without a search warrant. The Appeal Court judges referenced a decision in a murder case in which the judge did not allow evidence from a personal electronic device because it "functioned as a mini-computer," which has a high expectation of privacy. The contents of that device were only extracted by a police officer using specialized equipment in that case, the Appeal Court judges noted. "There was no suggestion in this case that this particular cellphone functioned as a 'mini-computer' nor that its contents were not 'immediately visible to the eye,'" the court said in its ruling. "Rather, because the phone was not password protected, the photos and the text message were readily available to other users."

45 Defence lawyer Sean Robichaud sees that approach as failing to appreciate the extent of information many people keep on their cellphones. "For all intents and purposes these days they're handheld computers which carry more data and private information than one would typically keep in their room," he said. "There really is no limit to the amount of information one can get off a cellphone, provided the person has set it up in that fashion." The courts have recognized in other decisions the high expectation of privacy people have on computers, and Robichaud said in this day and age those precedents should extend to cellphones. "A person's phone and has all the same capabilities of what would be on a computer," Robichaud said. "There certainly is a distinction that's drawn in law between laptops and cellphones, but that distinction from my point of view is artificial from a technological standpoint. It really makes no sense." The court declined to create a specific new rule for all cellphone searches. "It may be that some future case will produce a factual matrix that will lead the court to carve out a cellphone exception to the law," the ruling said. "To put it in the modern vernacular: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'"

Atleo presses Toews on funding to police services AFN national chief 'hopeful' the new minister gets to work right away By Susana Mas, CBC News Posted: Feb 23, 2013 6:12 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 23, 2013 9:06 PM ET It's crucial that the new minister of aboriginal affairs and northern development hit the ground running and get to work right away to tackle the urgent issues facing First Nations communities, says National Chief for the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper named New Brunswick MP Bernard Valcourt as the new minister overseeing aboriginal affairs one week after accepting the resignation of John Duncan.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, Atleo told host Evan Solomon he's very hopeful that Valcourt, whom he described as a "veteran politician" will step into his new role with "a sense of urgency" to follow up on the long-term commitments the prime minister made with respect to treaty talks and comprehensive land claims.

With most of the hard work still ahead, Valcourt will be faced with other "pressing issues," according to Atleo, like "the safety and security of our communities... or the human rights crisis that continues to exist in First Nations communities."

On Tuesday, Ghislain Picard, the AFN Regional Chief for Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) will travel to Ottawa, alongside other chiefs, to press Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to commit to long-term funding for aboriginal police services in the next federal budget.

46

Funding aboriginal police services At stake are funding agreements with 18 community police services that are set to expire on March 31st and an ask for approximately $30 million in renewed funding, said Picard.

Also in an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, Picard said a lack of renewed funding for aboriginal police services would affect 30 aboriginal communities including some 230 police officers, thus endangering the safety of First Nations.

According to Picard, while this government prides itself on being champions of public safety, there is a double-standard when it comes to the safety of First Nations communities.

"It's totally unacceptable," Picard said.

Picard took his plight to the national chief, who in turn, wrote a letter to Toews this week urging the public safety minister to meet with Picard and the First Nations leadership in Quebec and Labrador.

"I did pledge to stand with him [Picard] and the Chiefs of Quebec and Labrador to press for… the minister and the federal government to heed and respond to what I believe is part of a broad dire condition of underfunding in our communities," Atleo said.

Chiefs from Quebec and Labrador have been trying to meet with Toews since the 2011 budget when the federal government announced a 19 per cent cut in the funding agreements to First Nations police forces, Picard explained.

"But really to no avail," said Picard.

According to Atleo, "this is not an issue that is new to these last few days or this last week. We've communicated with the federal government and with the minister, and I would again urge the minister to meet with the leadership in Quebec and Labrador and heed the call... to address this fundamental issue. If there is one element that is absolutely critical... that's public safety."

"We have a higher incarceration rate than we do a graduation rate," Atleo said.

Picard explained that the federal government funds aboriginal police services at a rate of 52 per cent, with provincial governments funding the other 48 per cent.

A spokesperson for Toews said, "while policing is primarily a provincial responsibility, we work with our provincial counterparts to keep our communities safe."

"Federal investments in dedicated policing in First Nations and Inuit communities has made a significant contribution to improving public safety in First Nation and

47 Inuit communities for over 20 years," said the spokesperson, adding they could not comment "on any potential future budget decisions."

As for the letter Atleo send Toews, "we will be reaching out to the AFN in the near future," said Julie Carmichael, the director of communications for the minister of public safety.

The Chiefs from Quebec and Labrador will be calling on the Opposition parties to intervene in their call for renewed federal funding to aboriginal police services.

On Monday, Atleo will be appearing at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal when hearings into allegations that Canada discriminates against First Nations children begins.

The national chief will make an opening statement advocating the need for equity and fairness for First Nation children.

The hearings are expected to continue until August 2013.

'Shift in the status quo' needed Atleo said he'd spoken with Roger Augustine, the AFN Regional Chief for New Brunswick and P.E.I., who has had some dealings with Valcourt in the past, and that Augustine expressed "some positive sentiments about the potential to get right to work."

"We do need to see a significant shift in the status quo," said Atleo adding that "every minister of aboriginal affairs operates within a box that's too overly confined for us to make progress on."

The national chief said First Nations not only need to see the prime minister take the lead on aboriginal affairs but they "also need a minister who will have the ear of the prime minister."

Atleo said Valcourt has signalled that he would like to meet with the national chief at his earliest convenience.

"I appreciate receiving that signal and we will arrange for a conversation as quick as possible," Atleo said.

Valcourt's appointment comes at a challenging time in the relationship between the federal government and First Nations.

It was just six weeks ago that Harper committed to greater ministerial oversight after meeting with Atleo and other First Nations leaders, a meeting brought to the fore by the Idle No More movement and a six-week-long hunger strike by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Since then, the federal government and the AFN leadership have been meeting to discuss treaty implementation issues and land-claim settlements. And the AFN

48 just concluded an internal meeting "to reflect on the work up until now," Atleo said.

As for the much talked about follow-up meeting between the prime minister and the national chief, Atleo said while it is on their minds "any opportunity to meet with the prime minister must be based on the potential for real progress or to overcome obstacles or challenges in the way."

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Corruption scandal shocks, saddens metro law enforcement By Bill Torpy and Steve Visser The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Posted: 9:31 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013

All eight Forest Park police sergeants were called to the department Tuesday for routine training. Victor Middlebrook and Andrew Monroe, two solid officers recently promoted to sergeant, were teamed up and told to head to their training station. They then walked into a room filled with federal agents and their boss, Chief Dwayne Hobbs, who was having one of the worst days of his 40-year career. The two sergeants were being arrested, accused of being part of a group of Atlanta area officers who allegedly served as bodyguards for agents posing as drug dealers. Hobbs was flummoxed when federal agents briefed him on the charges earlier in the month. The gregarious Middlebrook, 44, was admired by the community and two years ago was voted by his comrades as the department’s Officer of the Year. Monroe, 57, was a ramrod-straight former military man with 11 years on the force. But the two allegedly received $24,000 last fall to stand guard for what they thought were multi-kilo cocaine deals. “What’s most egregious was they were doing it behind the badge, which makes it worse in my book,” said Hobbs. “It was sickening to think that two weeks ago I trusted those guys. And to some extent it makes you look around and say, ‘Who else?’ ” Police officers in six different metro departments and in the Federal Protective Services are likely processing many of the same confusing thoughts. Seven metro area officers, two former DeKalb County jailers and a federal contract officer all allegedly sold their badges. A close examination by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of affidavits, court files and interviews with police officials shows that several of the officers arrested last week were eager to be corrupted. The charges are the most widespread case of police corruption seen in metro Atlanta in years. In 1996, a group of Atlanta officers, mostly from Zone 3 in Grant Park, were convicted of shaking down drug dealers. And six years ago, several

49 Atlanta narcotics officers were convicted on corruption charges after a 92-year- old woman was killed in an illegal raid. But those two scandals were limited to corrupt cops in the same unit. In the current case, the corruption has metastasized among a much wider, more disperse group of officers. The accused come from the DeKalb County Police Department, as well as forces from Stone Mountain, Atlanta, Forest Park and MARTA. Some had problems with alcohol or domestic issues. Many had financial problems. At least three — including Middlebrook — have filed for bankruptcy. Last week’s charges were shocking. Officers often guarded the illicit transactions while in uniform, sometimes even using their patrol cars as a bonus. Payments ranged from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. Some eagerly helped plot the operations, gave suggestions to make them go more smoothly and even talked about the stark possibility they might have to shoot someone. After hearing two such violent suggestions last month, federal authorities shut down the 18-month operation. Five civilians were also arrested in the sting, allegedly helping hook up the street gang with the cops. The operation started in August 2011, when a street gang associate told agents for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that some Atlanta area cops served as bodyguards for drug deals. Investigators say a dirty cop standing guard during a drug exchange is a valuable asset for dealers, ensuring they will not be robbed by other criminals or busted by the law. The informant put the word out among gangdom for cops to provide protection. Three civilians — Jerry Mannery Jr., 38, of Tucker, and Shannon Bass, 38, and Elizabeth Coss, 35, of Atlanta — allegedly stepped up, saying they had the names of such cops. DeKalb Police Officer Dennis Duren was allegedly the first, meeting with Bass and the informant Oct. 3, 2011, at a Stone Mountain IHOP to plan their operation. The next day, the trio met two undercover agents at a nearby Publix parking lot and exchanged 3 kilos of fake cocaine for cash. Duren allegedly strolled the lot in uniform, guarding the deal. Seemingly, Duren got shorted his first time out. The informant allegedly gave Bass $2,200 for his work in the deal. Bass told the informant he was keeping $1,500 for himself and would give the officer just $700. But Duren couldn’t object. Chief Hobbs said once an officer accepts a bribe, there’s no going back. “If that officer says yes (to joining corrupt activities), then that other person owns you for the rest of your life,” he said. A day later, Bass, Duren and the informant met again at IHOP to evaluate the transaction. Duren and the informant agreed the exchange didn’t go down “quickly enough to avoid detection,” an affidavit states. Later, Duren allegedly agreed to bring his squad car while guarding drug deals. But he needed a bonus: $3,000, not the agreed upon $2,200. Duren allegedly took part in four deals with 3 kilos of fake cocaine each time. By the following April, the enterprise was apparently pulling in eager and even ambitious cops. Mannery allegedly said he had three cops for the operation, including Stone Mountain Police Officer Denoris Carter. Carter, 42, had worked at the 16-officer force for two years since being laid off from East Point during cutbacks. A uniformed Carter allegedly sat in his patrol

50 car guarding a deal on the edge of town. Later, Carter allegedly used his squad car to provide escort service to a dealer driving 10 kilos to a deal. Carter, a training officer well-versed in working with procedures, was apparently eager to please. At one meeting at an Applebee’s, the officer asked the informant if he was satisfied with his services, especially the escort. It seemed that Carter got comfortable, even brazen in his dealing. Authorities say that one drug deal took place in front of Bev’s Place, an eatery on Main Street in the small town. During the deal, Carter allegedly stood in uniform near his patrol car in the parking lot. By early this year, the participants in the operation were going beyond eager to almost aggressive. On Jan. 3, Monyette McLaurin, 37, a former DeKalb jail officer who had been recruited, allegedly told Bass that he would shoot the buyer at the drug deal if necessary. All he needed was a signal. McLaurin had quit working at the jail in April 2011, picked up a DUI later that year in Gwinnett County and is upside down in debt with more than $500,000 in mortgages on properties worth substantially less than when he bought them in the mid-2000s. A 2011 bankruptcy filing said he had $399,653 in general unsecured debts. Attorney and former police officer Bill McKenney said financially squeezed cops can be vulnerable, especially those who grow close to informants or people they meet while working extra jobs at clubs. “The bad guys know the financial situation of officers,” he said. “They’re going to go pick somebody out of the herd who is weak and financially susceptible.” “At least one of them was known to be a little too friendly with the bad guys,” McKenney said of those arrested. “If he was working a club and they would come in, he would go over and shake hands with them or exchange a couple of hugs.” In mid-January the sting operation got potentially dangerous, authorities said, when DeKalb Police Officer Dorian Williams, 25, allegedly entered the operation. Williams allegedly asked for a premium — $6,000 — for wearing his uniform and driving his squad car during the drug deals. On Jan. 24, he allegedly drove his squad car to an Ingles on Rockbridge Road and guarded a drug deal. Days later, he allegedly instructed Bass to quickly leave with the cocaine if anybody got shot. Then, feds say, their sting got scary. On Jan. 30, Williams sat at an Applebee’s and talked about what should happen if other cops rolled up on the deal. Authorities say he suggested transactions should take place at a high school parking lot because backpacks would not draw suspicion. Bass told him the next deal would have a new buyer. “Williams then explained that he may have to shoot this new buyer if things do not go well, saying, ‘I gotta (expletive) kill him. I just can’t shoot him.’ ” Two days later, Williams allegedly sat watch in a Sam’s Club parking lot while another deal went down. The feds then pulled the plug on the operation. Last week, local department chiefs had to help perform a dreaded job — arrest one of their own. At the Stone Mountain department, Chief Chancey Troutman called Carter into his office, where agents grabbed him and put him under arrest. “He looked stunned and dropped his head,” Troutman said. “He couldn’t do anything but cooperate. They interviewed him for two and a half hours.”

51 Told that many of those arrested had money problems, Troutman responded, “I think all of us have cash problems — I know I do — but I go out and work an extra job. And I’m the chief of police.” Then Troutman rounded up his troops. The next shift was ready, so he gave them a pep talk. “You are going to hear people say bad things about you and call you a dirty cop, a crooked cop,” he told them. “Hold your head up and do your job.” Court: Police Don't Have to Prove K-9 Training SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CREATED: FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The Supreme Court says police don't have to extensively document a drug- WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says police don't have to extensively document a drug-sniffing dog's reliability in the field to uphold its work in court.

The high court in a unanimous decision Tuesday overturned the Florida Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Aldo, a drug-sniffing police dog.

That lower court threw out drug evidence obtained against Clayton Harris during a 2006 traffic stop. Aldo alerted his officer to drugs used to make methamphetamine inside a truck. But two months later, Harris was stopped again, Aldo again alerted his officer to the presence of drugs but none was found.

The Florida court said in every case police have to bring records, including a log of performance in the field, to establish the dog's reliability in court. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling.

Former DA to Review Pittsburgh Police Policies MORIAH BALINGIT SOURCE: PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE CREATED: FEBRUARY 19, 2013

A former Washington County district attorney with a reputation for cracking down on police corruption has been appointed to review Pittsburgh Police Bureau regulations that govern outside employment. Feb. 19--A former Washington County district attorney with a reputation for cracking down on police corruption has been appointed to review Pittsburgh Police Bureau regulations that govern outside employment for officers following revelations about a private business venture whose partners included Chief Nate Harper and several police officers.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced Monday that Steven M. Toprani, who served one term as district attorney in Washington County, would immediately begin

52 reviewing the bureau's policies. He is charged with writing a report and making recommendations on how to change and strengthen the policies.

City solicitor Dan Regan said he is still in talks with Mr. Toprani, now a private defense attorney, about his compensation.

The mayor's announcement came two weeks after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Chief Harper, Cmdr. Eric L. Holmes, Sgt. Barry Budd, Officer Tonya Ford and Tamara L. Davis, who works in the police personnel and finance office, formed Diverse Public Safety Consultants LLC in February 2012. The chief insists the company was dormant and that they were reserving the name for future use.

Cmdr. Holmes, who was promoted last year from sergeant, also held a full-time job as the interim director of public safety for Slippery Rock University from August 2007 to July 2008, earning $81,000 that year. Chief Harper apparently allowed then-Sgt. Holmes to work the job. Mr. Ravenstahl called the arrangement "unacceptable."

The mayor has said that Cmdr. Holmes' employment with Slippery Rock was improper, regardless of whether it violated city code or bureau policy. He wants bureau policy to be amended to ensure that officers are prohibited from holding full-time jobs outside of the bureau.

Bureau policy already is restrictive regarding outside employment for city police officers. It permits only "outside employment that will not require the use or potential use of law enforcement powers by the off-duty employee." It also stipulates that the "employment is of a non-police nature in which police powers are not a condition of employment and the work provides no real or implied law enforcement service to the employer."

It's unclear whether any of those involved with Diverse Public Safety Consultants ever performed any work in connection with the company. But on a website that has since been taken down, the company said it provides a wide range of services including training security guards, performing background checks, providing executive protection and supplying interim police chiefs.

Both the company and Cmdr. Holmes' second job with Slippery Rock University clearly violate the policy, said Beth Pittinger, executive director of the Citizen Police Review Board.

But it's not just what the company purported to do that troubles her, it's the fact that the chief formed a business with several subordinates, including one -- Cmdr. Holmes -- whom he later promoted. She believes it could disturb the flow of authority in the bureau.

Mr. Toprani, who did not return phone calls for comment, distinguished himself as the chief prosecutor by attempting to straighten up police departments in Washington County. During his tenure, he initiated an audit of the California

53 Borough police record room, which uncovered reams of mislabeled and missing drug evidence.

Mr. Toprani empaneled the county's first-ever grand jury to investigate police corruption.

Two years into his term, Mr. Toprani had already charged five police officers from various departments with corruption, including one who was accused of selling drugs from his police cruiser and tipping off drug dealers to upcoming raids.

"One of my goals has been to come up with policies and procedures that elevate law enforcement in this county," he said in April of 2010.

Law Enforcement and Autism BY PAMELA KULBARSH CREATED: FEBRUARY 15, 2013 Officer.com

Calls related to an autistic individual can be challenging at best. Recognizing autism, understanding the risks, and learning methods of interaction is critical for a successful crisis resolution. It started out as a Peeping Tom call in progress. Two units respond, the suspect is sitting on the porch. As officers approach a teenage boy seems indifferent, like he is in his own little world. Suddenly he reaches for one of the officer’s shiny badges. The cops go hands on and suddenly all hell breaks loose. Back up arrives code three which only makes matters worse. The light bars are flashing, sirens wailing, everyone is screaming. The suspect is more than resistant, appears completely oblivious to pain, and is attempting to flee. A responding medic notices a medical bracelet on the suspect’s risk…he is autistic. Calls related to an autistic individual can be challenging at best. Recognizing autism, understanding the risks, and learning methods of interaction is critical for a successful crisis resolution.

Autism is a complex developmental disability; a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain. Autism, sometimes called “classical autism”, is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders. Persons with autism are estimated to have up to seven times more contacts with law enforcement agencies during their lifetimes. Yet, only 20% of patrol responses related to autistic individuals are related to criminal activity. Interacting with a child or adult who has an autism spectrum disorder will challenge your experience, training and patience.

Autism interferes with the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. It typically appears during the first three years of life. The disorder makes it hard difficult to communicate with others and relate to the outside world. Autism affects each individual differently, many function well in society; they may have regular employment in a supervised or unsupervised workplace. They may live in traditional, assisted living homes, or

54 have a caregiver with them at all times. There are degrees of autism which are usually described as low or high functioning.

Autism is the fastest-growing American developmental disability, with an annual growth rate of between 10-17%. The prevalence is estimated at 1 in 88 births, and is 4X more prevalent in boys than in girls. By way of comparison, this is more children than are affected by diabetes, AIDS, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy or Down syndrome, combined. This disorder knows no racial, ethnic, income, educational, life-style or social boundaries. As a law enforcement officer you will probably handle many calls related to autistic individuals.

It is crucial to remember that autism is not a mental illness; however, individuals with autism can develop mental illness just as anyone in the population can.

Types of Calls for Service

Contact with an autistic individual may occur anywhere in the community. The initial call for assistance to law enforcement may first appear as a domestic disturbance, or child abuse, as a caregiver is forcing the individual into a home or a car. There will be calls to assist the FD for medical assistance; approximately 25% of individuals with autism will have seizures by the age of 21. Other calls may involve reports of a suspicious person related to strange behavior or trespassing. There are prowler calls, as an autistic individual enters another person’s home, car or business. They may peer into windows. Of course there will be the welfare checks, as they may run into oncoming traffic. There will be calls for a missing person at risk; children and adults with autism are prone to escape when left unattended or when care providers turn their backs. Tragically, these so-called runners are often attracted to water sources such as pools, ponds, and lakes. Without a fear of real danger and in spite of not knowing how to swim, they jump in.

Recognizing Persons with Autism

Law enforcement responders may unexpectedly encounter a person with autism. Individuals with autism look like any other person; however, behavioral clues do exist that an observant officer can use to help indicate they are dealing with an autistic individual. Subtle cues on scene generally depend on the functionality level of the autistic person. Recognition of the behavioral symptoms of autism and the techniques of approach can reduce risk factors to both the individual and the first responders. In most cases, the person will have difficulties following your verbal commands and reading your body language. They may attempt to flee or resist medical treatment. Autistic individuals often have a high level of pain tolerance.

50% of people with autism communicate non-verbally. They may not respond to your verbal commands, and may cover their ears, look away, or run away when approached. • They may toe walk, have a pigeon-toed gait or a running style.

55 • They may appear psychotic, or under the influence of alcohol/drugs. • Their responses reflect changes in their sensory perception: lights, sirens, canine partners, odors will escalate repetitive behaviors (pacing, hand flapping, twirling hands, self-hitting, screaming). • Some will attempt to present an autism information card or wear medical alert identification • They may not recognize police vehicle, badge or uniform or have any inkling of what is expected of them if they do. • They frequently appear argumentative, belligerent, or stubborn. They may consistently ask “Why?” or respond "No" to all questions. • They may parrot (repeat exactly) what the officer says. • They will have difficulty interpreting your body language. • They are generally poor listeners. • They may have a passive monotone voice, and pronounce words unusually. • They may have difficulty judging personal space; standing too close or too far away from you. • They frequently perseverate on a favorite topic when they feel uncomfortable; rambling about favorite sports teams, train, bus or plane schedules, city names, foods, etc. • They are consistently very honest, (sometimes too honest), they do not lie, are blunt, but not very tactful.

Tips for Law Enforcement Responders

No matter what, responding officers must always consider their own personal safety, as in any call.

Typically, persons with autism do not understand the implications or consequences of their behavior; especially aggressive actions. An autistic person may flee when approached by an officer, and fail to respond to an order to stop. Others may react by dropping to the ground and rocking back and forth. They will avoid eye contact with the officer. Officers should not interpret these actions, in and of themselves, as a reason for increased force. Be aware that autistic individuals react to their environment: bright lights, sirens, K-9s, different smells, loud voices, or touching may cause an individual with autism to react in a fight or flight manner.

You may learn the person has autism from your dispatcher, someone at the scene, or the person themselves.

• Make sure the person is unarmed and maintain a safe distance; they may suddenly invade your personal space. • Evaluate for injury, remember pain tolerance is high. • Assess for seizure symptoms or injury, request a paramedic response as appropriate.

56 • Talk calmly and softly in direct, short phrases: “Stand up now.” or “Get in the car.” • Your uniform, gun, handcuffs, etc may frighten him/her; reassure him/her that no harm is intended. • Indicate a willingness to understand and help. • Avoid quick motions or gestures. • Avoid slang expressions. • Allow for delayed responses to your questions or commands. Repeat or rephrase as needed. Understand that a rational discussion may not take place. • Consider use of pictures, written phrases and commands, and/or sign language. • Avoid pointing or waving. • Check for medical alert tags or an autism handout card. • Model calm body language and behaviors. • Get information from caregivers at the scene about how to best communicate with and de-escalate the person’s behavior. • Do not stop repetitive behaviors; unless there is risk of injury to yourself or others. • If possible, decrease sensory stimulation (sirens, flashing lights, crowds). • Use geographic containment and maintain a safe distance until aggression diminishes. • Remain alert to the possibility of outbursts or impulsive acts. • Assess for symptoms of psychosis; delusions or hallucinations. • Do not express anger, impatience or irritation. • If possible, allow the person to de-escalate themselves without your intervention. Throw them a blanket or a towel, to allow them to self-soothe. • Touching the autistic person may cause a protective "fight or flight" reaction, especially on the shoulders or near the face. Announce your actions before initiating them.

In Custody

If you take an individual into custody and suspect (even remotely) the person may have autism, alert jail authorities; it is essential that the person be segregated. Additionally, contact the DA about the case for further advice or directions. These individuals do best in isolation. Seclusion from other inmates will also reduce the risk of abuse and injury by the general jail or prison population toward the autistic person. The individual should be placed on the detention facility’s mental health roster for psychiatric evaluation.

What If a Crime Has Been Committed?

Whether as offender or victim-witness, persons with autism will present dilemmas in the interview and interrogation room. Their concrete answers, conceptions, and reactions to even the most standard interrogation techniques can confuse even the best trained detectives. When questioned, they are likely to repeat words or copy body language. They may not respond to questions/commands/directives at all.

57

The Autistic Suspect: Individuals with autism frequently confess to crimes they did not commit or make misleading statements in order to please the detective. Their inappropriate responses, such as lack of eye contact, giggling, indifference or lack of remorse can lead to a misinterpretation of guilt. The interviewer must ask very specific and clear questions. Avoid questions that may be interpreted as a suggestion to the person. “What did you do?” is a more appropriate question than, “Did you steal the watch?” Establish timelines with the person; where, what, how, who questions are best. Ask questions that require a narrative response instead of a yes/no answer. Autistic individuals seldom lie; be alert for a spontaneous disclosure of evidence. Avoid body language and metaphorical questions that may confuse the individual.

Autistic Victims of Crime: Due to their vulnerability, people with autism are frequently the victims of crime. As your uniform and equipment may frighten them, try to interview them in plain clothes. Consider having a person the victim trusts present at the interview. Be patient; take time to establish a rapport. The victim may only give an evidentiary statement once (consider video or audio taping the interview).

Conclusion

Fortunately, more developmentally disabled individuals now carry some form of medical alert so that if they cannot speak, their identity and type of disability can be determined. Officers must recognize the characteristics of autism, and understand the associated risks to intervene appropriately.

Additional Resource

Autism and Emergency Services Training Book

http://www.autismnd.org/Documents/ems.pdf

Exclusive: Seattle police monitor blasts city for 'humiliating' him BY BRANDI KRUSE on February 21, 2013 @ 4:04 am KIRO Radio The court-appointed monitor in charge of overseeing Seattle Police Department reforms sent a pointed email to city officials after they questioned expenses he and his team billed to taxpayers.

Documents obtained by KIRO Radio through public disclosure show an ongoing discussion between the mayor's office, the City Attorney's Office, the city's budget office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Police Assessment

58 Resource Center (PARC), which is the Los Angeles-based consulting firm headed by monitor Merrick Bobb.

Bobb and his firm were chosen to oversee a settlement, or "consent decree," between the Department of Justice and the city after a federal investigation found that Seattle police officers had a pattern of using excessive force.

The city has budgeted $800,000 over the next year to pay for costs associated with the monitor, which include Bobb's base pay of $250 per hour.

As part of the settlement, Bobb and his team are authorized to bill expenses to the city in the course of their work. Such expenses include rent at an apartment in Seattle, furnishings for the apartment, travel and a daily allowance to cover food.

But in January, the budget office told Bobb's firm it had an issue with certain items being put on the city's tab, including "alcohol and alcohol-related expenses," expensive meals, toilet paper and a $35 Egyptian cotton pillowcase.

Overall concerns included a lack of itemized receipts, missing or incomplete receipts, charges that exceeded set limits, possible double charges, charges for items not allowed under city travel policies and charges on days when the team was not scheduled to work.

On Jan. 17, the city called a meeting with Bobb and his staff to address the items, during which the team was reminded that items they expense are subject to public disclosure and could "paint the Monitor or City in a bad light."

The city also questioned why the team did not provide a breakdown of their work during hours they billed to taxpayers. A member of Bobb's staff told the city that they "did not want to be subject to additional scrutiny for what they were doing with their time" while on the job.

Several hours after the meeting, Merrick Bobb sent an email to the city to express his frustration with what had occurred.

" ... we decline in the future to go through the humiliating, time-consuming, and obstructionist process we went through this morning where we were required to justify each pillowcase in the Seattle apartment, a toolkit to put together furniture bought at IKEA, or a $5.99 corkscrew, among other trivialities," Bobb wrote in the email, which was sent to the budget office, the City Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice.

"Although we are happy to answer legitimate inquiries, we cannot abide being treated as if we were suspects being grilled about theft from the city," he continued. "We are professionals and expect to be treated as such."

Bobb wrote that a delay in approving the team's December invoice would put "unnecessary roadblocks and obstacles" in his path.

59 He went on to say that the city was putting its agreement with the DOJ in jeopardy.

"I'm not certain that we can currently say we are getting cooperation from the city regarding the monitoring or movement toward full and effective implementation of the consent decree," he wrote.

Read the full e-mail from Merrick Bobb (PDF)

That line in particular concerned a source within the city, which is why they brought the email to KIRO Radio's attention on the condition of anonymity.

Bobb is in charge of reporting the city's progress to the DOJ and could put the city at risk of federal penalties if he decided they violated the settlement agreement by questioning his expenses.

The city sent Bobb an email the following day to respond to his concerns.

"We approached this conversation and the one on the previous bill as a discussion of which items in the bill might be problematic for any City consultant," the email read. "We hope we can continue to respectfully raise issues without jeopardizing your view of the City's overall cooperation and movement toward compliance with the Agreement."

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Seattle city attorney said any issues between Bobb and the city have been resolved and that their office was simply "educating the Monitoring Team about City guidelines on expense reimbursement."

Reached by email, Merrick Bobb sent KIRO Radio a statement. In it, he said he and the city were still "feeling their way" through the monitoring process.

"We each took a tone we later regretted, followed by mutual apologies," he wrote.

Bobb said his team has taken a "careful and prudent approach to how Seattle taxpayer money is spent," and called the conflict a "small dust-up."

The Justice Department declined to comment on this story.

The police department declined to comment on this story.

The mayor's office declined to comment on this story.

A second source who works for the city told KIRO Radio that city officials are afraid to speak openly and honestly on the matter. The source was "paralyzed with fear" about potential repercussions for speaking badly about the monitor.

60 Area police chiefs support bill limiting arbitration for fired officers

Sen. Brian Crain: "The public should not be subjected to a junkyard dog - that's me saying that, not the chiefs - in a uniform." By RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer Published: 2/23/2013 1:57 AM

Tulsa-area police chiefs spoke out Friday in support of legislation that would strip the right to arbitration from officers who have been fired for using excessive force.

Senate Bill 854 by Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa, stems from a case in which an arbitrator ruled that Owasso Police Lt. Mike Denton was improperly fired for excessive force, even though the arbitrator agreed that Denton was out of line when he elbowed a prisoner in the face three times in June 2011.

The arbitrator's decision was later overturned by Tulsa County Associate District Judge Dana Kuehn.

"The arbitrator said, 'Yeah, he used excessive force, but he shouldn't have been fired,' " Crain said. "The public should not be subjected to a junkyard dog - that's me saying that, not the chiefs - in a uniform."

SB 854 says collective bargaining agreements - which in Oklahoma include a provision that termination disputes will be settled by arbitration - would "not apply to police officers that were found to have used excessive force in performing their duties and were terminated for that act."

Under Crain's bill, an officer challenging termination would have to go to district court.

At least eight area police departments were represented at the news conference in the Indian Nations Council of Governments office in downtown Tulsa. City managers and mayors from several other municipalities also attended.

Those speaking included Owasso Interim Police Chief Scott Chambless and Tulsa Deputy Police Chief Dennis Larsen.

The thrust of the comments from them and others was that arbitrators tend to favor officers and have little or no law enforcement experience. They said keeping officers who have used excessive force or otherwise acted improperly undermines public trust and department discipline.

Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police President Clay Ballenger said he was "surprised that chiefs of police and cities would be for this."

61 Ballenger said relying on the courts to decide termination cases will be more expensive than arbitration and will make cases susceptible to a long appeals process.

"I don't think they understand the ramifications of this," he said.

NYPD Commissioner says department will begin testing a new high-tech device that scans for concealed weapons The device, which tests for terahertz radiation, is small enough to be placed in a police vehicle or stationed at a street corner where gunplay is common

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2013, 10:27 AM

The NYPD will soon deploy new technology allowing police to detect guns carried by criminals without using the typical pat-down procedure, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.

The department just received a machine that reads terahertz — the natural energy emitted by people and inanimate objects — and allows police to view concealed weapons from a distance.

“If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation, for example a weapon, the device will highlight that object,” Kelly said.

A video image aired at a Police Foundation breakfast Wednesday showed an officer, clad in a New York Jets jersey and jeans, with the shape of a hidden gun clearly visible under his clothing when viewed through the device.

The department will begin testing the high-tech device for use on the street. The device is small enough to be placed in a police vehicle or stationed at a street corner where gunplay has occurred in the past.

OUR NEW GUN LAW: RUSHED AND WRONG

Kelly, who first discussed the possibility of using this technology last year, said the NYPD has been working with the London Metropolitan Police and a contractor “to develop a tool that meets our requirements.”

“We took delivery of it last week,” Kelly said at the gathering at the Waldorf Astoria. “One of our requirements was that the technology must be portable ...

62 “We still have a number of trials to run before we can determine how best to deploy this technology. We’re also talking to our legal staff about this. But we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve made over the past year.”

GOV. CUOMO SIGNS GUN CONTROL BILL

The New York Civil Liberties Union last year raised concerns about “virtual pat downs,” and some security experts have said false positives could lead to unjustified stops.

Opinion: After Christopher Dorner’s rampage, how to build community trust in police

By Sunil Dutta, February 15, 2013

The Washington Post

Sunil Dutta is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. The views expressed here do not represent the LAPD.

Christopher Dorner, the former L.A. police officer who died Tuesday after allegedly going on a murder spree, said racism was behind the Los Angeles Police Department’s decision to fire him in 2009, after he accused another cop of kicking a mentally ill man. In a perverted mission of vengeance, Dorner allegedly killed two civilians and two officers.

“I know I will be vilified by the LAPD and the media,” Dorner wrote in an online manifesto. “Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name.”

Given its history of scandal, the LAPD has spent a decade building a kinder, gentler organization and making significant strides in community-based policing. Even past detractors, including civil rights lawyer Connie Rice, admit that the LAPD has changed since the early 1990s. But people still associate the department with events of 20 years ago: the acquittal of officers accused of beating Rodney King, the subsequent L.A. riots and the resignation of Chief Daryl Gates.

The department’s problems aren’t all in the past, either: In November, a jury awarded former officer Pedro Torres $2.8 million after finding that officials retaliated when he verified claims about an allegedly racist supervisor. During the past decade, 17 officers have won million-dollar-plus verdicts in lawsuits claiming harassment, discrimination and retaliation. African American officers, including some supervisors I’ve spoken with, say in private that they don’t

63 feel like they are part of the system and don’t trust it.

Indeed, some people even sympathize with Dorner, despite his unconscionable acts. “He’s been a real-life superhero to many people,” Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill told CNN. “People aren’t rooting for him to kill innocent people — they’re rooting for somebody who was wronged to get a kind of revenge against the system. It is almost like watching ‘Django Unchained’ in real life.”

Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would reopen the case that led to Dormer’s termination — not to appease an alleged murderer but to prevent the ghosts of the LAPD’s past from being resurrected.

While Beck made a wise move, it doesn’t go far enough to assure people of the LAPD’s integrity. We need to change the way complaints against police officers are adjudicated, putting investigative power in the hands of the people.

As long as police have existed, officers have been accused of racism, brutality and covering up for their friends. In the past, a lack of accountability often meant that police organizations did not pay serious attention to or even record citizen complaints. As a result, many citizens still don’t trust police departments to investigate their own. Similarly, officers do not trust internal affairs investigators or disciplinary processes.

I worked as an internal affairs investigator in the LAPD for about three years. When I visited police divisions to look into complaints against officers, I was usually greeted by the same question: “Who are you going to burn today?” Officers often believed that internal affairs was out to get them on flimsy charges.

At the same time, when I interviewed community members who had filed complaints against officers, I was disappointed to learn that, despite my reassurances and best efforts to conduct impartial inquiries, many complainants believed that a fair investigation was simply not possible. Nor do misconduct investigations satisfy a skeptical public. If an officer is exonerated, the community often believes that malfeasance is being covered up.

Police serve the community — any concerns about their integrity must be transparently, expeditiously and judiciously resolved. Relying on cops to police cops is neither efficient nor confidence-inspiring.

The solution? Abolish internal affairs units and outsource their work to external civilian agencies.

Police have slowly started to incorporate civilian oversight in their misconduct investigations. For example, the LAPD’s office of inspector

64 general has oversight over the department’s internal discipline. Yet, while the inspector general’s staff receives copies of every personnel complaint filed and tracks and audits selected cases, it does not have the authority to impose discipline. Nor do most civilian review boards, which are not empowered to conduct independent investigations. This leads detractors to say that such boards are ineffectual.

Police have long resisted external oversight. Some of us say that those who aren’t in uniform do not understand the intricacies of law enforcement. Won’t civilian investigators be harsher toward officers — unsympathetic to the challenges faced by beat cops battling armed bad guys?

These self-serving arguments perpetuate archaic policies. Outsourcing misconduct investigations to civilians would directly address community concerns about the “blue wall of silence.” Officers who fear retaliation for reporting misconduct would feel more comfortable working with an external agency. In this system, complaints such as Dorner’s about the vindictiveness of superiors would all but disappear.

Using sergeants and detectives as internal affairs investigators costs police departments a lot. These supervisors are paid more and have more seniority. Assigning seasoned officers to internal affairs also depletes the number of field personnel who could prevent mistakes and misconduct by patrol officers in the first place. Outsourcing misconduct investigations would be far less expensive and would let veteran supervisors do the jobs they should be doing.

And why shouldn’t every police contact with the community — every traffic stop, every interrogation — be recorded on video? If Dorner and his partner had had a cop-cam, his claim that his partner used excessive force might have been resolved the same day. There’s just no excuse for not recording police contacts with the public. Technology has made cameras effective and affordable. Some officers already record their arrests to protect themselves against false allegations of misconduct. This should be standard operating procedure.

If even one citizen thinks that Dorner may have had a point, that’s too many. The only answer to those worried about police conspiracies is transparency. Only by opening our doors can we build trust, and truly serve and protect.

Opinion:For Portland Police Chief Reese, the thigh's the limit By Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian February 09, 2013 at 2:22 PM

65 Every new Portland police chief inherits a stack of baggage. With his tone-deaf handling of a touchy male captain and the sex crimes unit, Chief Mike Reese added his own suitcase to the pile. Last week, the personable chief met with The Oregonian editorial board to describe some of the challenges of overseeing a large police bureau with ongoing personnel woes. He tries to uphold high standards, he said, and keep troubles from weighing down the force. But he faces constraints at every turn, he added, such as an arbitration system that often forces the bureau to take back problem employees.

"That damages our organization," Reese said. "It damages community trust."

Yet the chief -- now in the third year of his tenure -- isn't just stoically responding to difficult circumstances. These days, he's also creating them by making decisions that undermine the same community trust he's trying to rebuild.

In a 5-1 vote, the Portland Police Review Board urged Reese last year to fire then-Capt. Todd Wyatt after finding that he inappropriately touched female employees on the thigh and elsewhere, and flashed his gun and badge at a motorist during a road-rage incident, as The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein has extensively reported. The review board found Wyatt to be untruthful, which often has career-ending consequences in a profession that demands integrity.

Reese himself characterized Wyatt in unflattering terms. In a lengthy letter drafted by the city attorney's office and signed by Reese, the chief described an internal investigation that relied on multiple credible witnesses, including Washington State patrol officers. The letter leaves the impression of Wyatt as a hot-tempered bully who makes insulting and inaccurate snap judgments about civilians, says demeaning things about women and engages in unwanted thigh- touching at work.

Yet Reese chose to demote Wyatt to lieutenant rather than fire him. And then, inexplicably, Reese assigned Wyatt to a supervisory role in the sex crimes unit.

Sorry, but that is the one place in the bureau where a handsy bully cannot go.

It's possible to see why Reese chose a lesser penalty than firing, to reduce the risk of being overturned in arbitration: A city facing big budget deficits might be reluctant to take on another expensive and time-consuming legal fight. It's also clear why Reese had to hastily transfer Wyatt away from sex crimes after learning that, oops, one of the women affected by Wyatt's actions worked there. ("That was a mistake on my part," Reese said.)

Yet the chief continued to defend his initial decision to make Wyatt a supervisor overseeing very sensitive sex crime investigations that primarily involve female victims. Wyatt's behavior toward women was inappropriate and unwanted and unprofessional, but not sexual, the chief explained.

66 I can confirm that he was sitting in a regular chair and not a time machine from the 1980s. But this nuanced defense of unwanted touching hasn't been in style for a long, long time.

A 2007 city audit of Portland's rape response found that the system needs improvement for victims of sexual assault. Patrol officers treat victims well and write good reports, the audit found, but detectives often see sex crimes as a less desirable assignment -- in part because of very high turnover among supervisors.

"Many detectives who do come to work in the sexual assault detail," auditors said, "are waiting until other assignments open elsewhere."

With that history in mind, it becomes even more problematic for the chief to treat the sex crimes unit as a dumping ground for a problem supervisor.

The majority of victims of sexual assault don't go to the police, national crime surveys have consistently shown. Victims fear being judged, demeaned and touched by strangers; they fear people with power will side against them. In the aftermath of this unseemly saga, women in Portland who are sexually assaulted may be more wary about asking the police for help.

That's a real crime, since the majority of Portland police would love nothing more than to catch bad guys and help people in need. Repairing the damage from the Wyatt decision will be a new challenge for Reese.

And, of course, for the next chief.

Human Rights Watch Faults Mexico Over Disappearances By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD Published: February 20, 2013 The New York Times

MEXICO CITY — Nearly 150 people and possibly hundreds more have disappeared at the hands of Mexico’s police and military during the drug war with little or no investigation of the cases, a human rights group said Wednesday, as it called on the new government to account for the country’s missing.

The organization, Human Rights Watch, said in a report that Mexico has “the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades.” The group found a litany of cases in which witnesses reported people had been abducted or were last seen with the military or the police, never to be seen again.

Altogether the group documented 149 such cases in the past six years, after the previous president, Felipe Calderón, began his term with heavy deployments of military and federal police to combat exploding violence. The group’s investigation found 60 cases in which witness testimony and other evidence demonstrated that local police officers had colluded with cartels in abductions.

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“These are not isolated,” José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said. “This is absolutely shocking.”

Human Rights Watch said it had investigated an additional 100 disappearances but could not conclude that state security was responsible or involved.

Often, when family or friends asked the authorities, they were told their loved ones were not there or had not been taken.

In one of the more egregious episodes, the group documented more than 20 cases of abductions without explanation by Navy personnel in June and July 2011, some recorded on video by enraged family members. The Navy later acknowledged it had come into contact with several of the men but denied they were being held; all remain missing.

The Interior Ministry, which received the report Wednesday, declined to comment, but President Enrique Peña Nieto has said he would be more attentive to the victims of violence, who themselves are often divided over how Mexico should respond. The group urged the government to investigate the cases and establish documentation procedures. Documenting deaths and disappearances in the drug war has proved difficult, because police agencies, especially at the state level, are often weak or corrupt and thorough investigations are rare. In none of the 250 cases Human Rights Watch found have there been any convictions.

Mr. Calderón’s government had compiled a list of 25,000 people reported missing in the past six years, but government officials and human rights groups have said it is incomplete and flawed. Among other problems, the list fails to distinguish how many were eventually found or how many people left by choice, though Human Rights Watch said it nevertheless suggests the scale of the problem of disappearances. An Interior Ministry official told reporters Wednesday that the list would soon be released, though a version of it had been leaked to news organizations and a human rights group in December.

Tallying the dead at the hands of organized criminal groups has also been challenging, with inconsistent criteria to determine whether a homicide is related to the fight against and among organized crime and drug gangs. Nevertheless, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, the interior secretary, recently told a radio program that 70,000 people died in the drug war in the past six years, while acknowledging the information was incomplete.

Mr. Calderón, constitutionally limited to one, six-year term, stepped down Dec. 1 and is now a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government . His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Chief Lambasts Home Sec Over IPCC Plans

68 Vice-president of ACPO says Theresa May's proposals to withdraw officers from forces for secondment to the IPCC is "poorly thought out".

Date - 21st February 2013 Courtesy of - Nic Brunetti - Police Oracle 8 Comments ACPO Vice-President Tim Hollis has slammed the Home Secretary for planning to take resources away from forces’ professional standards departments across England and Wales - and transfer them to the “under pressure” IPCC.

Humberside Chief Constable Hollis, who is set to retire from the Service at the end of March, issued his own statement on February 20 saying Theresa May’s ideas were “poorly thought out” and “would not achieve what is intended”.

He said the announcement made by Mrs May last week, that officers and staff would be seconded to the IPCC to help with its demanding workload, appeared to contradict the purpose of introducing police and crime commissioners to make policing more accountable locally.

He said: “Only last November, we had elections for police and crime commissioners.

“The government made it clear that this was all about introducing greater accountability and giving the public a greater say in how policing is delivered locally. That’s particularly important as we strive to deliver continuing budget cuts.

“Now, as a result of a national agency, the IPCC, being under pressure the Home Office appears to regard local forces as a convenient source of extra resources and, somewhat euphemistically, refer to it as the ‘rebalancing of resources’.

“That’s a new one on me and not a proposal that I can recommend to my police and crime commissioner.”

CC Hollis said that the move from the Home Secretary also appeared to contradict public opinion – and that of the Home Affairs Select Committee after its own inquiry into the IPCC said it needed less staff with police backgrounds to increase public confidence.

He said: “This appears to go directly against the recent recommendations flowing from the Home Affairs Select Committee who had scrutinised the work of the IPCC and been critical of its performance.

“The HASC criticised the IPCC for employing too many retired police officers. They recommend reducing the number from 30 per cent to 20 per cent. And remember, they only employ retired police officers.

“Now the Home Secretary appears to be proposing not only to increase the numbers of police in the IPCC, but to transfer serving officers.

“How does that add up?”

69 “The suggestion that the IPCC lacks public confidence because so many complaints continue to be investigated by the police is not new.

“I remember when the former Police Complaints Authority were criticised for exactly the same reason. Their replacement by the IPCC was meant to address that problem.

“Have they failed? And how will more cops in the IPCC help?”

CC Hollis also said the Home Office’s statistics over the IPCC – which were often used to criticise the Police Service – were highly selective and needed context.

He said: “They (the Home Office) state that 31 per cent of appeals of the investigation of complaints by local forces are successful but that figure varies considerably.

“In Humberside during 2011-12, only six per cent of such appeals were upheld.

“Why are they not seeking to improve the performance of poorly performing forces and raising standards and public confidence that way rather than penalising all forces and taking resources away at a time when we need them most?”

Olympian Tries Policing For A Day

Medal winner tries out public order training to mark anniversary of milestone for women in policing.

Date - 23rd February 2013 Courtesy of - Jack Sommers - Police Oracle A London 2012 Olympian has swapped for hockey stick for a baton to mark the 80th anniversary of female officers receiving warranted powers.

Women could not the Police Service until 1918 and, at this time, they had to be 45. They did not receive personal protective equipment and, for 15 years, had no powers of arrest.

To mark the anniversary Sally Walton, who was part of the bronze medal winning women's hockey team, was invited by West Midlands Police to see if she could cut it as a officer for the day on February 20.

Her tasks for the day ranged from restraining a violent person armed with a baseball bat to being petrol bombed and firing a Taser.

Ms Walton said: “It was a fantastic experience. I’ve looked from afar on what the police do so it was great to be involved in their training and get a hands-on experience. My particular highlight was the petrol bombing and using the long shield to restrain a violent person.”

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Force spokeswoman Sgt Samantha Price added: “Sally, along with members of Team GB, did a fabulous job and showcased the country at its best. But just 12 months before this it was a very different story, with cities across the country witnessing disorder and looting.

"Both of these events needed a very different policing response. And when people saw officers dealing with the disorder in 2011, few would probably have thought that those officers in their protective clothing and helmets were someone's mum, sister, wife or even grandmother.”

Special Constabulary: New Study Launched

Survey aims to establish a comprehensive picture of the work undertaken by volunteer officers.

Date - 24th February 2013 Courtesy of - Cliff Caswell - Police Oracle 4 Comments Special constables of all ranks and backgrounds are being urged to take part in a comprehensive study of their role launched by a major think-tank.

The probe, which is being carried out by the right-of-centre Policy Exchange, is aiming to provide a picture of the current state-of-play with the volunteer officers, the activities in which they are involved and their aspirations going forward.

In an interview with PoliceOracle.com Rory Geoghegan, Policy Exchange Crime and Justice Consultant, said the latest study was part of a wider programme of research.

He added: “We are looking to work with organisations such as the Association of Special Constabulary Chief Officers (ASSCO) and ACPO in this study.

“It had struck me that the role of the Special Constabulary is often spoken about by the likes of the Home Secretary, police and crime commissioners and chiefs but more often than not it is in very simplistic terms.

“This is an opportunity to find out how officers feel themselves. We want to know what their experiences are of the role – and how they feel about issues such as training.

“Ultimately we want to know who makes up the Special Constabulary today.”

As previously reported on PoliceOracle.com Sir Peter Fahy – the ACPO lead on Specials – predicted that the volunteer officers will become more important to policing going forward.

Joining as volunteer is – in several forces including the Met – now one of the only entry routes to being considered for a full-time career in full-time policing.

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Chief Officer Debbie Potter, ASSCO Chair, said the survey could provide interesting results. She added: “We welcome the interest shown by Policy Exchange in the Special Constabulary at a time the officers are being used more and more.

“While many volunteers have the intention of joining to be regular officers, it is important not to forget career specials who give many hours to their communities.”

Study Puts PCSOs On Trial

Experiment in high-crime areas examines whether focused visible patrolling can cut crime.

Date - 22nd February 2013 Courtesy of - Jack Sommers - Police Oracle 24 Comments An experiment placing PCSO patrols in high-crime areas will provide the Police Service with concrete data on whether the non-warranted staff members are effective in deterring offenders, academics have said.

The ongoing study, drawn up in partnership between West Midlands Police and Cambridge University, has seen 80 high crime “hotspots” identified within the force’s Birmingham South LPU.

Forty of these are being chosen at random to receive three PCSO patrols per shift for a year – in addition to officers’ regular policing duties.

“It would be incredibly beneficial in establishing what works and what doesn’t work” The approach, which is the brainchild of former ACPO officer-turned academic Neil Wain, allows for a simple and straightforward comparison between areas receiving the extra PCSO patrols and those that have not.

The experiment began in December last year and will conclude in November. The force will then examine whether the extra patrols had any impact on the number of crimes reported and call-outs in the hotspots.

The learning will be disseminated nationally and internationally through the new College of Policing and Cambridge University and it will be covered on PoliceOracle.com.

Mr Wain, who retired from Greater Manchester Police as ACC last year, said the experiment would determine the value of PCSO patrols, as well as the value of visible patrols generally, in deterring crime.

72 He added the length of the experiment would iron out any seasonal variations or other differences between hotspots, such as the presence of CCTV, which might cause changes to the crime rate.

Mr Wain said PCSOs are being used because the force had been reluctant to commit PCs. But he maintained that warranted powers were irrelevant as the focus of the study was on the deterrent value of patrolling.

He added that the research would have “great benefits” to the Police Service by establishing the effectiveness of patrols in preventing crime.

Mr Wain added that establishing the value of PCSOs could also inform chief constables who are having to decide whether to cut non-warranted members of staff to cope with central government reductions to force budgets.

“In terms of value for money, it would be incredibly beneficial in establishing what works and what doesn’t work,” the former ACC said.

In the West Midlands experiment, PCSOs are briefed in advance on the issues of each hotspot and are expected to remain there for around 15 minutes per patrol.

Mr Wain said this was regarded as the optimum time for a patrol to deter crime in a location, based on research from the United States. The GPS tracking in radios records the amount of time of the patrol is active.

Each of the hotspots is 150 metres in diameter with a 100-metre outer layer to establish whether the patrols are displacing crime just beyond the area of operations.

Mr Wain added this was only the second “hotspot policing” experiment in England and Wales, despite a great deal of research in the USA.

Last year, British Transport Police and the University of Cambridge presented the results of Operation Beck, in which high crime platforms at London Underground stations were identified and extra patrols assigned to deter crime.

During the operation, there were 1,150 fewer call-outs over six months, according to the academics involved.

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