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11 January 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 RCMP opens new $1B headquarters in Surrey, B.C...... 4 RCMP constable receives threat after deciding to run for office ...... 4 Men with UN gang ties arrested after visit to Port Coquitlam shooting range ...... 6 Editorial: Restoring faith in the RCMP ...... 7 Municipal police forces fold joint tactical team ...... 9 ALBERTA ...... 10 Cash rewards may not often help, but also can't hurt, police say ...... 10 Council approves new approach to RCMP hiring ...... 12 How ‘Canada’s coolest’ Mountie is helping the RCMP’s reputation ...... 13 SASKATCHEWAN ...... 15 All Regina police cars will soon be equipped with video cameras ...... 15 Crime down, but Regina police chief seeks budget increase ...... 15 EPS adds four new officers ...... 16 Taser announcement in Sask. is on the horizon ...... 17 Regina police use new system to catch drunk drivers ...... 18 MANITOBA ...... 19 Domestic Violence Death Review Committee Report Complete ...... 19 Councillor calls for more police in Winnipeg schools ...... 20 ONTARIO ...... 21 Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair: Bring back photo radar to save cash ...... 21 Toronto police officers get house arrest for corruption ...... 22 Crime Stoppers working well, Toronto police say ...... 23 Misconduct case for Toronto police officer in G20 ‘kettling’ put over ...... 24 Opinion: Police chief puts cart before horse ...... 25 Chief Blair would rather cut stations than frontline officers ...... 27 Ottawa police confirm secret test of licence scanner ...... 29 No public input, no scanners, says Ottawa police board head ...... 31 Watchdog drops probe into alleged Toronto police beating after force refuses to hand over statement ...... 33 The Saturday Interview: Bill Blair says he’ll quit as Toronto’s Police Chief ‘when I’m finished’ ...... 35 New Appointment To Ottawa Police Services Board ...... 37 Toronto police covered more than $4-million in officers’ legal costs in past four years ... 38 Judge slams police for inaction on aboriginal blockades ...... 41 Chris Lewis: What I learned about realistic policing ...... 43 Innisfil claims it's overpaying for policing ...... 44 Matt Gurney on police oversight: No one can watch our watchers ...... 46 QUEBEC ...... 47 Quebec judges accused of buying drugs from police informant put on review ...... 47 Montreal womens' groups decry handling of Pamela Jean case ...... 49 Shining a light on justice at the Police Ethics Committee ...... 50 Saint-Bruno criticized for police presence at council meetings ...... 54 NEW BRUNSWICK ...... 55 Woodstock police credit federal funds for lower crime ...... 55

2 NOVA SCOTIA ...... 56 Study urged of domestic violence among police ...... 56 Drug dealing taking on nastier edge ...... 57 Cape Breton Regional Police Report Released ...... 59 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ...... 60 High school students lobby for police officer ...... 60 Crimes prevented with data analysis, say police ...... 60 NEWFOUNDLAND ...... 61 NATIONAL ...... 61 Privacy watchdog seeking compromise for Tories’ Internet surveillance bill ...... 61 Mountie suing RCMP over probe into top-secret Ottawa operation ...... 63 The Minister of Public Safety Announces Changes to Criminal Code List of Terrorist Entities ...... 65 Long-gun firearms sales 'open to abuse,' says Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer ...... 66 Gazette:Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations ...... 69 INTERNATIONAL NEWS ...... 75 Gaps in F.B.I. Data Undercut Background Checks for Guns ...... 75 Cuomo to Press for Wider Curbs on Gun Access ...... 78 Citizen Review Board: After years of irrelevancy, new police watchdog is off to a solid start ...... 81 New York Is Moving Quickly to Enact Tough Curbs on Guns ...... 82 Convicted New Orleans police see opportunity in officials' errors ...... 85 EDITORIAL The Bid to Stop Gun Trafficking ...... 87 Justice Department Enters into Agreement to Reform the Puerto Rico Police Department ...... 88 Legal Curbs Said to Hamper A.T.F. in Gun Inquiries ...... 89 NYPD SUE! Surge in lawsuits vs. Police Department part of costly trend for the city ...... 92 Connecticut Police Departments Discourage Civilian Complaints ...... 94 Opinion: Milwaukee Police Commission should be reformed ...... 96 Fullerton, Calif., Police May Get Oversight Panel ...... 97 St. Louis' new police chief wants to study civilian review ...... 98 Met Reorganisation: Cuts In CID And Supervisors ...... 101 Chief: Re-organisation Has Delivered Efficiencies ...... 103

3 BRITISH COLUMBIA RCMP opens new $1B headquarters in Surrey, B.C. CBC News Posted: Jan 8, 2013 5:18 PM PT Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 7:31 PM The B.C. RCMP is getting ready to move into its new $1 billion headquarters in Surrey, federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced on Tuesday.

About 2,700 RCMP employees from 25 different E Division units will start moving into the new facility this month according B.C.'s Commanding Officer, Craig Callens.

"A move of this magnitude requires significant planning and coordination. We need to remain fully operational while in the process of moving," said Callens.

"Our staff has been preparing for our move for a long time and we are excited to take occupancy of this purpose-built space that will serve us well for many years to come."

The new headquarters is located at 14200 Green Timbers Way in Surrey, in an area commonly referred to as Green Timbers.

It was built as a public-private partnership by the federal government and a consortium led by Bouygues Building Canada, which will maintain and operate the facility for 25 years, as part of the fixed-price contract worth $966 million.

RCMP constable receives threat after deciding to run for office By Martin van den Hemel - Richmond Review Published: January 09, 2013 7:00 AM Long-time local resident and Richmond Mountie Gary Law’s political aspirations took a troubling turn recently when he says he became the target of threats that were serious enough for him to turn to his fellow RCMP officers for help.

Law told The Richmond Review Tuesday that he decided last month that he’ll be seeking a nomination to run for a political party in Richmond Centre during the upcoming provincial election. Not long after announcing his desire to seek public office, Law said he was contacted by somebody he knows in the community who tried to dissuade him from pursuing a career in politics.

It was shortly after that conversation, Law said, that he began to receive threatening text messages on his cell phone, as well as threatening phone calls.

“Recently, I have been asked by someone not to run for election,” Law said. “And then after, I received threatening text messages and even phone calls.”

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Law said because there’s a police investigation underway, he won’t reveal the nature or content of the threats, whether they are directed at just him or also against his family, or the precise timing.

“I take this very seriously,” he said. “I am sure I’m in good hands.”

Asked whether he believes the threats are linked to the person who deterred him from running for a political seat, Law said he doesn’t know.

“I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, or related. I think this is the job of the RCMP to find out.”

He said he reported the incident to local police on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012 and then revealed what happened during a meeting with four Asian journalists at a local home last week.

The Richmond Review learned of the threats on Friday, when a reader questioned why the newspaper hadn’t covered the story that was all over the Asian media.

When asked why he didn’t let the English-speaking media know about the threats, Law was apologetic, and said “humans do make mistakes.”

His intent was not to exclude the mainstream media, or speak exclusively to Asian media, he said.

“In the future, if I do (make) some announcement...I will be inviting everybody else.”

He added: “Everybody living in Richmond is important to me. Their ethnic background or something else is not important to me.”

Aside from the threats, Law said he’s been the subject of a smear campaign, and has sought the advice of a lawyer “if things get out of hand.”

Law said he’s been approached by three political parties to run under their banner, but has decided not to reveal which party he will be seeking the nomination for.

He expects to make that announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Richmond Board of Education trustee Grace Tsang has announced she is seeking the riding’s Liberal nomination.

Rob Howard, the current Liberal MLA for Richmond Centre, is not seeking re- election.

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Men with UN gang ties arrested after visit to Port Coquitlam shooting range

Police allege they were using weapons at the PoCo range despite court- ordered firearms bans

By KIM BOLAN, VANCOUVER SUN January 9, 2013 Two men with ties to the United Nations gang are accused of target shooting at a Port Coquitlam gun range last month, despite each being under court-ordered firearms bans.

Now Matin Bin Laden Pouyan and Bi Dong Lam are in custody charged with violating those bans.

Pouyan, 31, and Lam, 25, were being watched by anti-gang police with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit when they visited the PoCo indoor range on Dec. 19.

“Officers made observations of them attending a firearms range in Port Coquitlam and allegedly firing off guns,” CFSEU’s Sgt. Lindsey Houghton said Tuesday. “We received great cooperation from the gun range. We obtained evidence from the range that was forwarded to Crown counsel.

DVC Indoor Shooting Range manager Wesley Yen said in an emailed statement Tuesday that anyone using the facility has “to confirm in writing that they are not subject to any limitation or prohibition with respect to firearms.”

“In the extremely infrequent event that it comes to our attention that a person who has used our facility is subject to a prohibition from doing so, we are committed to cooperating fully with police and firearms regulatory officials as necessary,” he said.

Pouyan and Lam, who are well-known to police across Metro, were arrested Dec. 21 in Langley, near 90A Avenue and 204th Street. They are due to appear in Vancouver provincial court on Thursday.

Pouyan has four separate court orders banning his use of guns.

The most recent was issued in June 2011, when he got a lifetime ban and two years less a day in jail for a series of firearms convictions related to a 2009 arrest.

At the time, police described Pouyan as “a significant figure in organized crime” and said some of the seized weapons were in a secret compartment in his vehicle.

6 The 2009 arrest came just months after shot several times and nearly killed in a Kitsilano parking lot. He refused to cooperate with the police investigation.

After a Wild West shootout in Richmond’s Dover Park in early 2007, Pouyan was arrested and charged with illegal gun possession. He pleaded guilty in September 2007, getting a two-year sentence.

When Pouyan was convicted in 2007, he was already under a lifetime firearms ban handed to him after he opened fire in a crowded Abbotsford nightclub on Valentine’s Day 2004.

In June 2004, B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Grist handed Pouyan the 18- month term requested by Crown but wondered “whether this range is sufficient in light of the seemingly increased illegal presence of these highly destructive weapons.”

“Denunciation of offences involving gun use expresses the value Canadian society places on a freedom from the fear associated with widespread access to this form of deadly force,” Grist said in his June 28, 2004 sentencing.

Pouyan had fired a 9-mm Glock in the City Limits Cabaret. He “was seen loading the pistol on the street before entry to the crowded nightclub,” Grist noted.

“He apparently was going to deal, in some fashion, with one or a number of individuals inside of the premises. When he found them, there were words exchanged and Mr. Pouyan drew and fired the gun.”

Pouyan missed his target and hit a wall.

Lam’s record is not as long as Pouyan’s, but includes a 10-year firearms ban ordered in 2007 when he was convicted of break-and-enter stemming from a home invasion in Langley.

He was also found guilty of impaired driving in September 2007 and given a day in jail and a year-long driving prohibition.

He was charged and acquitted in a 2009 shooting at a Surrey house party.

Editorial: Restoring faith in the RCMP TIMES COLONIST JANUARY 3, 2013

Canadians want to believe in the RCMP. Most of us grew up with it as a symbol of not just law and order, but the nation. Most of us see its rank-and-file members as passionate officers dedicated to protecting us.

So when polls like one this week from Ipsos Reid show our faith is eroding, we know that faith was not shed easily. In B.C., which has the largest RCMP division

7 and about a third of Canada’s Mounties, it’s disturbing to find the lowest levels of confidence.

The poll found that the percentage of respondents who said rank-and-file officers were doing a good job dropped 13 points to 69 per cent since a similar survey was done five years ago. The proportion who believe the top brass of the force is doing a good job dropped 15 points to 46 per cent.

In B.C., 33 per cent think the leadership is doing a good job and 58 per cent think the lower ranks are doing a good job; 54 per cent think the force is professional and treats people fairly. All those numbers are well behind the figures for other provinces.

Significantly, the poll found that only 45 per cent of respondents here thought the force would be able to stop harassment of female officers and only 39 per cent said the RCMP treats its own employees fairly and equitably.

It’s not surprising that British Columbians should have more doubts about the force. With 9,500 employees in B.C., the chances are much greater that something bad will happen here than in Saskatchewan, where there are 1,300 members. Indeed, some of the most high-profile controversies embroiling the force happened here, including the death of Robert Dziekanski after being tasered and the first allegations of sexual harassment of female officers.

Those incidents affected all the areas where faith is slipping: the competence of individual members, the conduct of the leaders and the force’s treatment of its own.

A few high-profile incidents shouldn’t shape our opinion of an organization of dedicated professionals who are out in our communities every day doing work that we all rely on. But the cases we have seen over the past few years suggest structural problems that need to be fixed and a management team that seems unable to fix them.

The top brass promised to repair the culture that allowed sexual harassment to flourish, but has met the specific allegations with denials and painted one of the women as a drunk.

Canadians have an increasing suspicion that the RCMP is solid at the bottom and rotten at the top.

Perhaps it is just that our vision of the Mounties in Canada’s younger days was too rosy. The RCMP was probably not as good as we thought in those days, and it’s probably not as bad as we think it is now.

While we must not turn a blind eye to systemic problems that demand correction, we must also look critically at the incidents that have plagued the RCMP and realize that some indicate nothing more than human beings doing an incredibly difficult job. Sometimes they make mistakes and show human weakness.

8 Society doesn’t benefit when citizens lose faith in the police. We must believe in them and they must know they have our trust because when citizens and police work together, our communities are safer. We are on the same side.

RCMP officers across the country do an excellent job. They will do a better one if the force can fix the problems within to restore public confidence in a vital Canadian institution.

Municipal police forces fold joint tactical team

Abbotsford forms own ERT, while Delta, Port Moody and New West have deals with larger forces for heavily-armed support

BY KEVIN GRIFFIN, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 8, 2013 METRO VANCOUVER -- Police officers needing heavily armed backup in Abbotsford, Delta, Port Moody and New Westminster have new phone numbers to call after a 10-year deal for the joint municipal emergency response team expired.

The joint tactical team included officers from the four municipal forces who would rush from across the region to a trouble spot with their automatic weapons, sniper rifles, specialized rescue gear and Bearcat armoured vehicle. Such teams – called ERT in Canada, but typically S.W.A.T. in the U.S. — are trained in rescuing hostages, arresting barricaded or heavily armed suspects, and protecting civilians and other police officers who are at risk.

The agreement for a joint team expired on Jan. 1.

Abbotsford, the fast-growing city that used the joint municipal team the most, will now have its own team. Delta has reached an agreement to have the Vancouver Police ERT back up its small team of eight ERT-trained officers. Port Moody will also use the VPD team, while New Westminster police will call on the RCMP’s Lower Mainland ERT when they need armed assistance.

One aim for the four local police forces is to get help to their officers faster than was possible when the ERT had to assemble from far-flung corners of the region. Smaller communities also expect to save money under their new arrangements.

Abbotsford Const. Ian Macdonald said the only difference the public may notice in Abbotsford is that the response time to incidents may be reduced because team members won’t have to travel around the region any longer.

“Much like we did years ago, we are going with our own emergency response team,” he said by phone. “It’s going to be 17 members in two different platoons for 24/7 coverage.”

9 He said Abbotsford needed the joint ERT team far more often than the other member communities, with between 100 to 150 incidents in 2012. Port Moody, by contrast, had only one call-out last year.

The last time New Westminster needed an ERT call-out was during an armed standoff last Nov. 8 at the Starlight Casino. And in that case, the RCMP ERT, which services Metro communities policed by the RCMP, arrived first and was replaced by the joint municipal team once its members arrived.

MacDonald said the Abbotsford ERT has inherited the Bearcat armoured rescue vehicle purchased two years ago for the joint ERT.

“We paid for 40 per cent of it and we have paid the depreciated balance to our former partners,” Macdonald said.

Delta Const. Ciaran Feenan said Delta has an agreement with Vancouver police to use its ERT as backup. Initially, Delta police will call on its own eight-member team. The VPD team would be called in if the incident requires more ERT resources, he said.

He expects the budget of $390,000 for Delta’s emergency response team in 2012 to remain unchanged for 2013.

In New Westminster, the police force expects to save about $100,000 year from the about $400,000 annual costs of the former arrangement cost by using the RCMP team, Chief Constable Dave Jones told the New Westminster News Leader newspaper.

ALBERTA Cash rewards may not often help, but also can't hurt, police say

BY MARIAM IBRAHIM, EDMONTON JOURNAL JANUARY 8, 2013 EDMONTON - Despite a spotty record over the past three decades, Edmonton police say their unsolved homicide rewards are an important option when a case turns cold.

The rewards are offered as a way of motivating witnesses to come forward in cases where police have exhausted their leads and found no suspects.

"I would say that in most homicides, if not all, someone out there knows who is responsible and providing a monetary reward is often the leverage we need to get this information from witnesses," says homicide unit Staff Sgt. David Christoffel.

10 There are currently 30 outstanding homicide rewards and one arson reward totalling nearly $1.3 million offered through the Edmonton Police Commission.

The oldest seeks information about the May 1992 killing of 52-year-old Adolph Gurnick, who was found dead in a north side alley in what police suspect was a robbery. That reward has been renewed a half-dozen times, increasing from $5,000 to $40,000 in the two decades since the killing, and remains unclaimed.

The most recent rewards were posted in March 2010, seeking information related to the killings of 11 men. Each offers $40,000 and is up for renewal in March 2013.

Christoffel acknowledges that in most cases, witnesses who come forward do it out of a moral obligation and not a desire for cash, "but there's going to be the odd instance out there."

Of dozens of rewards offered since 1978, police have paid out just four times.

According to an April 2005 report to the police commission, $35,000 has been paid out in three cases: Once in 1978, again in 1992 and finally in 1999. The report doesn't list which homicides the rewards were associated with, but does note the information led to convictions in three murders.

Another reward was claimed in 1988, but was not included in the commission report, according to police spokesman Chad Orydzuk, who could not say how much the reward was worth.

Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, says while the promise of a payoff may not always be enough, it doesn't hurt to offer one when there are few other options.

"Everybody will be happy to pay if information leading to arrest and conviction comes in," he says.

A payment was made in 2011 from the $100,000 Project Kare reward fund, set up six years earlier to bring forward witnesses in cases related to missing people in the province, including more than a dozen linked to the sex trade.

The Mounties wouldn't confirm the amount of the payment, which came after Thomas Svekla was convicted of murdering Theresa Innes.

Most rewards are claimed through Crime Stoppers, a popular police tool more effective at getting witnesses to come forward because of the strict anonymity it boasts.

"The rewards through the commission are a last resort and it's an opportunity for us to renew some interest in the file," Christoffel says.

11 In May, homicide squad veteran Staff Sgt. Bill Clark said the rewards haven't been useful in bringing new information forward, perhaps because the public isn't aware they exist.

The rewards aren't widely publicized. Orydzuk says a website scheduled to be launched this month would promote the rewards and provide information on unsolved cases.

Council approves new approach to RCMP hiring City will ask for more officers than it needs to get as many as it requires By: Peter Boer | Posted: Saturday, Dec 22, 2012 06:00 am St. Albert Gazette St. Albert will not add any new police officers in 2013, but it will be asking the federal government for more than it needs in order to get as many officers as it requires.

Council on Monday endorsed the plan put forward by administration to ask Ottawa for a total of 61 RCMP officers. The city’s full complement is 54, but because of maternity and other leaves, as well as officer transfers, the detachment is seldom fully staffed.

“We struggled with getting the full complement we’ve asked for in the past,” Jardine said, calling the approach an “overask program to work towards what we have in the budget.”

In an interview earlier this month, Insp. Kevin Murray, commander of St. Albert RCMP detachment, said the local force only has an average of 48 officers available at any one time.

“We need to build up those additional positions and try to work towards that,” Murray said.

According to Murray, asking for five more officers than required would total 61 RCMP members. Given the historical vacancy rate of 10 to 13 per cent, that would mean between 54 and 56 members available for the detachment.

“What we’re trying to do is build up the force with that kind of cushion,” Murray said.

Council learned during a workshop with RCMP’s K Division during budget negotiations that the city only pays for the officers it actually uses. While the city is supposed to have 56 Mounties, it only pays for the 48 that actually work during the course of a budget year.

That means the city sees a surplus in money that is allocated for police officers but not spent. Typically that money is plowed back in to general revenues, but

12 the idea of establishing a reserve fund to pay for new officers is starting to gain support on council.

That reserve account could also pay any costs if, by asking for 61 officers, the city actually ended with more than 56 RCMP members in any given year. Jardine said staff will prepare a policy along those lines for council review in 2013.

“It seems counter-intuitive to ask for more than you need in order to get the ones you do need,” said Coun. Wes Brodhead.

Asking for more officers also comes just a month after administration recommended hiring two new officers a year for the next three years, then withdrew the request for 2013, saying it couldn’t hope to fill those positions next year.

A new request for more officers will likely make it into the 2014 budget. These RCMP members would not be part of the overask program, but would boost the actual complement by two members each year.

How ‘Canada’s coolest’ Mountie is helping the RCMP’s reputation DIANA MEHTA The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, Dec. 25 2012, 9:41 PM EST Last updated Tuesday, Dec. 25 2012, 9:41 PM EST

He’s been called Canada’s coolest cop and has become somewhat of a celebrity in his southern Alberta community, but Constable Doug Sokoloski insists his story is just one example of the many positive gestures made by Mounties on the job every day.

The 49-year-old RCMP officer who lives in Pincher Creek, Alta., shot into the national spotlight after an Internet video showed him rocking the drums during an impromptu jam session with a group of campers he came across on a patrol.

The entire episode – which went viral after it was posted on YouTube this summer – took just four minutes but generated a lasting sense of goodwill towards the force. “It’s a good news story,” Constable Sokoloski tells The Canadian Press. “I’m not going to end up in a big band or gain any popularity or riches out of it but if it enhances the image of policing and of the RCMP, and it makes our job easier to do, you know, then go with it.”

Constable Sokoloski, who primarily deals with traffic incidents and acts as a spokesman for the Mounties in Pincher Creek, believes the small positive acts carried out by officers on a daily basis go unnoticed far too often.

“We get chastised for the few bad things we do, but every day there’s thousands of good things done by police officers in our communities,” he says.

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Indeed, the popular drumming video provided a welcome boost to the perception of the Mounties in a year when the RCMP’s image has been battered by allegations of harassment and abusive behaviour within the force.

In his community, Constable Sokoloski takes a hands-on approach to policing and focuses on building meaningful relationships with residents. Those bonds, he says, have undoubtedly been strengthened by all the buzz generated by the widely circulated video.

“From a work perspective it’s made the job a lot easier and people want to approach you a lot more,” he says with a chuckle. “I think it’s made it easier for the other members in the area too.”

The 17-year veteran of the force says he typically plays the guitar, and used to rock bars in Saskatchewan in the 1980s with a band called Shy Boy. On occasion, he hammered away at the drums as well.

The incident which took place in July was just one part of a regular patrol for Constable Sokoloski, who was driving along a rural forest access road when he spotted a set of drums through the trees.

After chatting with the campers who were playing their instruments in the woods, Constable Sokoloski asked if he could join in. “I had never met the guy before, I didn’t know what he was playing, so I just got a feel for it and I just played a beat,” he recalls. “I’ve never seen people jam in the forest before.”

The video of Constable Sokoloski rocking out in the woods has since garnered more than 900,000 views on YouTube. The clip’s popularity prompted him to display his musical prowess in public once more over the summer.

This time, it was at a community parade during which he and two other Mounties rocked out on a float for 45 minutes.

“We just basically played some 12-bar blues, kinda rock with an edge in our red serge,” he explains. “We wanted to bring the RCMP closer to the community and we were kind of going off the theme of the original video and it was remarkable the response we got.”

Constable Sokoloski hopes to participate in next year’s parade in some way as well and, going forward, is more than happy for his musical escapades to reveal a lighter side to the force.

“It was never intended to be anything more than just a basic standard day,” he says of the episode in the woods. “But I think any time you get some positive spin you have to keep the momentum going.”

14 SASKATCHEWAN All Regina police cars will soon be equipped with video cameras Global News : Thursday, January 03, 2013 6:35 PM

What started as a pilot project in 2011 with five cameras being added to one car has now expanded to seven cars with two cameras each (one facing the front and the other facing the back seat). The goal is to have the equipment in all fifty vehicles within the next few years.

Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Popowich said the expense is being rolled out over five years because of the cost, which is about $10,000 per vehicle.

The addition of the cameras will help officers do their jobs.

“Sometimes it can be an important way of gathering evidence,” Popowich said. “It can also be very important in the case of a public complaint in that it can give some clarity to a story without simply having to rely on one, or more than one person's account.”

This technology was installed in Moose Jaw’s police cars a decade ago. Saskatoon police announced on Wednesday it is now in all of their vehicles.

Crime down, but Regina police chief seeks budget increase CBC News Posted: Dec 19, 2012 6:12 PM CST Last Updated: Dec 19, 2012 Police in Regina say that, overall, crime is dropping in the city — by about 10 per cent compared to a year ago — but the service still needs a budget increase.

The latest report, prepared for Regina's board of police commissioners, shows decreases in property crimes, theft under $5,000 and mischief offences.

There was, however, a small increase in auto thefts — 15 more incidents resulting in a 1.6 per cent increase in that category.

While crime numbers are dropping, the need for more resources has not.

"Ninety-three per cent of our budget is comprised of salaries and benefits," Chief Troy Hagen said Wednesday. "Even though crime is going down, there is a variety of reasons we need to continually sustain the police service."

While Hagen said he will be asking for an increase in the police budget, the details were not released on Wednesday.

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Instead, Hagen's presentation was made during a closed-door meeting of the board.

EPS adds four new officers January 9, 2013

By Chad Saxon One police department’s bad luck has turned into some good luck for the Estevan Police Service.

The EPS had its ranks swell in December when it graduated four new officers from the Saskatchewan Police College in Regina. Initially the EPS was only expecting to have two new officers — Constables Landon Polk and Paul Chabot — but received word that the RM of Wilton near Lloydminster had decided to switch from a municipal police force to the RCMP.

That switch meant the two officers Wilton had in the college — Constables Mischa Shewchuk and Michael Hamel — were without a place to work once they graduated. EPS Chief Del Block was able to do some quick work and when the pair graduated from the police college on Dec. 14, they were hired to work for the EPS.

“It’s a win-win for the police department and the city of Estevan,” Block said. “We got two recruits fully trained, with no cost. It was a savings of about $40,000 to the City.”

The new officers come at a good time, Block noted. They lost Sgt. Gary Eagles to retirement in 2012 and expect another retirement in 2013. They also have two officers on leave at the moment.

“We have one surplus officer at the moment and that will be taken up in 2013 with retirement,” Block said. “We are sitting in a nice spot right now. I can get the traffic section going again. That was just starting to pay dividends and I had to pull the traffic guy off and you can see it in the city. We can direct the officers wherever we have a priority.

“I’ve said over the years, we have gone from a proactive police force to a reactive police and with these new officers I am hoping we can be more proactive and do some more stuff to prevent crime instead of just reacting to it.”

Block added the EPS might be able to pick up some of the Wilton police department’s equipment, notably two fully equipped 4X4 trucks.

“We don’t have a 4X4 for patrol and if we get a winter storm, then we are borrowing and taking from other sections. (The trucks from Wilton) are fully ready to go to work and I can probably acquire both of them for the price of getting one brand new one on the street.”

16 Taser announcement in Sask. is on the horizon

BY HEATHER POLISCHUK, THE LEADER-POST JANUARY 6, 2013

City police officers are hoping the new year brings an old tool back into the hands of front line officers with an announcement expected soon about the use — or possibly the continued lack thereof — of conducted energy weapons (CEWs).

It’s been just over five years since the Regina Police Service pulled CEWs — commonly referred to as Tasers — from most members as it awaited a decision from the Saskatchewan Police Commission on what to do with the controversial weapons. By mid-2008, municipal police forces across the province were told the commission — the body that regulates Saskatchewan’s city police forces — was restricting the use of the weapons to SWAT members, and then only in tactical situations.

Since then, the commission has continued to look at the issue and has received submissions from a number of fronts, including those representing municipal police services.

It’s unclear when the announcement is coming, but Corrections and Policing spokeswoman Judy Orthner said it’s expected shortly.

“The Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed basically,” she said. “All I can tell you is that we’re just working with the police commission to set a date for the announcement.”

Orthner would provide no hints as to what the announcement might entail.

Regina Police Service Chief Troy Hagen, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police, and St. Sgt. Evan Bray, RPS member and president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers, weren’t sure what to expect but both hoped the announcement would herald the return of CEWs to all members. While both said their associations will respect, as they always have, whatever the commission decides, they maintain CEWs are a valuable tool to help keep both police and the public safer.

“It provides one more option in terms of use of force that’s non-lethal,” Hagen said. “When confronting a suspect, for example, that’s wielding a knife in a threatening manner — obviously distance is a consideration, and depending on the suspect’s actions — that type of instance can afford an opportunity to safety arrest the suspect without resorting perhaps to deadly force ... Obviously it’s a safe option for the officer and, as importantly, it’s the safety of the suspect or culprit as well. We always want to use the least amount of force possible in any circumstance.”

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Bray described the Taser as a use of force option “that helps protect our members, protect the public and, very importantly in this, protect the subject themselves as well.”

While some members of the public remain opposed to CEW use, Bray said plenty of work over the past few years has gone into examining and reviewing the effects the weapons have on people based on, for instance, the state of their health at the time the Taser is deployed. He said policy ensuring all those subjected to CEW use get immediate medical attention — a policy the RPS has in place — can help.

Hagen said any use of force, be it by use of a weapon or by “dynamic” or physical blows, are subject to formal review and scrutiny, with CEW use being no different. Both Hagen and Bray said their associations welcome any additional guidelines the commission wants to put in place.

“There’s a high degree of scrutiny in terms of any use of force, and CEWs would fall under the same umbrella,” Hagen said. “The chiefs’ association has certainly been working towards if they were to be reinstated that there be a provincial guideline, really a standard policy, throughout the province in terms of its usage and reporting.”

“We’ve been very upfront with members of the commission saying that we don’t expect we’re going to get them back without any sort of oversight guidelines and policies and procedures that are going to be attached to them — we, in fact, welcome that,” Bray said. “We just feel that it’s a use of force option that ultimately is going to assist in public safety in our communities.” Regina police use new system to catch drunk drivers CBC News Posted: Jan 4, 2013 9:46 PM CST Last Updated: Jan 4, 2013 9:23 Regina police officers are changing the way they track down drunk drivers in the city and it's already making a difference, officials say.

A few months ago, they decided to get rid of checkstops, which they call static enforcement, and instead go mobile.

Checkstops are not only time consuming, but are red flags for people trying to avoid being stopped, especially with people posting checkstop locations on social media sites.

Now officers are working hand-in-hand with Report Impaired Drivers, a program that encourages other drivers to call if they suspect there's an impaired driver on the road.

Police have a handful of cars that are roaming the city each night, with the goal of finding drunk drivers.

18 With the new system, Regina police have charged 103 people with impaired driving in December of last year alone.

In Saskatoon, where officers are still using checkstops, 37 impaired drivers were charged in December.

The department in Regina said the sample size may be small so far, but the roaming system will be the way they do things for a while.

MANITOBA

Domestic Violence Death Review Committee Report Complete Government Accepts Recommendations January 9, 2013

The Manitoba Domestic Violence Death Review Committee has completed its first report and the provincial government has accepted all of its recommendations, Justice Minister Andrew Swan announced today.

"Significant work has gone into reviewing the circumstances of a domestic violence tragedy. We are committed to identifying factors and making changes that could save lives in the future," said Swan. "This was not an easy process for the committee and I thank them for their ongoing efforts."

Work to address the committee's recommendations has begun and is in co- ordination with the province's Domestic Violence Strategy released in November. As more reviews are completed, trends and patterns will be identified and additional recommendations made, Swan said.

Recommendations from the first report include:

* ensuring all police officers have direct access to cameras when responding to domestic violence calls so that injuries to victims can be photographed immediately;

* requiring ongoing domestic violence training for medical professionals and police agencies;

* developing a public awareness campaign that specifically targets youth and promotes healthy relationships, as well as domestic violence support services for family members including advertising the domestic violence toll-free number as a

19 resource for families who have loved ones involved in these relationships;

* reviewing and exploring the use of risk-factor checklists and the implications for police, victim services, prosecutions and corrections, and reporting to the advisory committee on the findings;

* reviewing and exploring services available to family members impacted by domestic homicide that offer practical assistance, and recommending where and how families can receive this support; and

* reviewing and exploring the creation of an information-sharing protocol with animal welfare services in recognition that domestic violence is often linked to cases involving animal cruelty.

The Domestic Violence Death Review Committee can review selected criminal justice cases, identifying trends, risk factors and patterns. The committee explores the history, circumstances and conduct of the perpetrators, victims and their families. It can interview people close to the situation who may have insight, such as friends, family or even the perpetrator. Community and systemic responses are examined to identify possible gaps and points of intervention that might avoid similar tragedies.

Extensive work has gone into ensuring the committee and its working group respects the privacy rights of victims and conducts its work in a sensitive manner, the minister said.

Now that the review committee's work on the first report is complete, Manitoba Justice will be working with stakeholders across the province to implement the recommendations, Swan said, adding the committee will also undertake further reviews, and recommendations from those cases will be provided to the justice minister as they become available.

The Manitoba Domestic Violence Death Review Committee includes representatives from Manitoba Justice Victims' Services, Prosecution Services and Adult Probation Services along with the Family Violence Prevention Program, Manitoba Status of Women, Manitoba Women's Advisory Council, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Winnipeg Police Service, RCMP and RESOLVE, which is a regional family violence research network.

Information and the videos supporting the Break the Silence campaign are available at www.manitoba.ca/stoptheviolence.

Councillor calls for more police in Winnipeg schools CBC News Posted: Jan 2, 2013 1:14 PM CST A Winnipeg city councillor wants more police officers in schools.

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There are currently 11 officers in the School Resource Officer program and Coun. Paula Havixbeck wants to see that increased to 15.

She intends to put forward a motion later this month asking the city to pump more money into the program.

Havixbeck says the current officers have helped deal with bullying and encouraged kids to stay in school.

"We should be looking at 15 School Resource Officers and that's to make sure that, if they want them, every school division can have access to them. Currently, only two school divisions do," she said.

Havixbeck recently went to Calgary to look at that city's program, where the ratio is about 2,000 students for every officer.

In Winnipeg, the current ratio is closer to 5,000.

Havixbeck estimates it would cost $1.5 million annually to have the added officers.

ONTARIO Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair: Bring back photo radar to save cash Published on Tuesday January 08, 2013 Carys Mills The Star Staff Reporter As Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair searches for ways to save his force money, he says it’s time to consider reintroducing photo radar and expanding red light cameras.

Photo radar, however, has been contentious in Ontario.

The NDP introduced the cameras to catch speeders in 1994, but the practice was killed by Tory premier Mike Harris 11 months later. Later, a private member’s bill that would have allowed municipalities to install the cameras near schools and construction sites was defeated.

But according to Blair, it’s time to take another look at radar cameras, as well as expanding the use of other technology to catch people running red lights and making illegal turns.

“His position is that police officers are a very expensive resource to use for something which technology can do, and much more economically,” said Blair’s

21 spokesman, Mark Pugash, adding the force isn’t looking to increase revenue and there would be large warning signs.

The service’s budget was capped at $927.8 million in December and a hiring freeze was put in place. Blair was told to find $6.7 million in “efficiencies” to accommodate the cutbacks that are being made to his and other city departments.

In the search for cash, there’s been talk of measures that include consolidating police divisions.

More effective use of technology would also improve safety and traffic flow, Pugash said. However, the idea of reintroducing radar is only at a discussion stage, so there are no specifics available on the number of officers it would free up, or the potential savings.

There are already 87 red-light cameras, circulated among 114 Toronto intersections.

Having cameras on site “also means police officers can be deployed in areas where their skills are needed,” Pugash said. “A camera will ensure everybody who breaks the law gets caught.”

Toronto police officers get house arrest for corruption CBC News Posted: Jan 4, 2013 1:00 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 4, 2013 6:40 PM An Ontario Superior Court judge has sentenced five former Toronto police drug squad officers to 45 days of house arrest in a landmark police corruption case.

The investigation and prosecution of members of the Toronto Police Service's Central Field Command “Team 3” drug squad has cost more than $12 million and spanned more than a decade with numerous appeals and retrials.

In June, a jury convicted the five of attempting to obstruct justice for covering up a warrantless search of a heroin dealer's apartment in the late1990s.

Three of the officers were also convicted of perjury.

However, the jury also acquitted the former drug officers of more serious charges, including extortion, theft, assault and conspiracy, after a six-month trial that heard from 30 witnesses, including numerous drug dealers.

The officers sentenced Friday are:

John Schertzer, 54. Nebojsa (Ned) Maodus, 49. Joseph Miched, 53 Raymond Pollard, 48

22 Const. Steven Correia, 45, who is the only one of the five to remain on the police force, suspended with pay. In passing sentence, Justice Gladys Pardu called the officers’ actions an "extremely serious" breach of trust, but she also emphasized the impact that the long proceedings have had on the men and their families, calling it catastrophic.

There was "no evidence of a pattern of criminal misconduct," she said, suggesting the officers only rushed the search in a bid to shorten their work day

"Some people would say it's a great result," said defence lawyer Peter Branti. "But if you're somebody who's lived through it, you know, nobody's going to be uncorking the champagne tonight."

All five of the officers say they are considering an appeal.

Crime Stoppers working well, Toronto police say TIMOTHY APPLEBY The Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, Jan. 09 2013, 4:55 PM EST

Crime Stoppers works and proof is in the numbers, says Detective Darlene Ross, who co-ordinates the Toronto program.

In 2012, she told the launch of International Crime Stoppers Month at police headquarters Wednesday, a record 9,972 tips were received, resulting in the seizure of $8.6-million worth of drugs and $1.2-million in stolen property.

Among the crimes in which the anonymous information led to arrests were the brazen Eaton Centre murder in June; the mass Danzig Street shooting in July, which killed two people and injured 23; and a sexual-assault cold case that had lain dormant for 20 years.

Worldwide, the dozens of Crime Stoppers groups are estimated to have helped police clear more than 200,000 cases.

The program is a conduit for people to anonymously supply police with information about crimes that have been or are going to be committed. Cash rewards of up to $2,000 are available if the tip leads to an arrest.

Retired police officer Gary Grant, who founded the Toronto program 29 years ago and is now its chair, said the organization has never been in better shape, with technology proving ever more useful.

In the beginning, tips usually came via a pay phone in the street. Now there are numerous ways to help.

23 After the special Toronto Crime Stoppers app was introduced in July, allowing tipsters to report crimes in real time via Smart phones and tablets, it was downloaded more than 14,000 times in the next week.

Also on hand for Wednesday’s presentation were Police Chief Bill Blair, Toronto Police Services Board chair Alok Mukherjee, provincial Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Madeleine Meilleur and Lorne Simon, media director for Toronto Crime Stoppers. Misconduct case for Toronto police officer in G20 ‘kettling’ put over COLIN PERKEL TORONTO — The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, Jan. 08 2013, 12:51 PM EST

A senior police officer allegedly responsible for two notorious “kettling” incidents at the infamous G20 summit in 2010 had his case put over for two months Tuesday to allow time for disclosure.

Superintendent Mark Fenton faces five separate charges related to the incidents in which police boxed in and arrested numerous people in the downtown core.

Supt. Fenton, who was the major incident commander at the time, is accused of making an illegal arrest, unlawful detention and harming the reputation of the police force.

He has pleaded not guilty and none of the allegations has been proven.

Speaking for the prosecution, lawyer Brendan van Niejenhuis asked Tuesday that the case be put over until March 4, saying the disclosure process was a “laborious process.”

According to the notice of hearing, the first incident occurred on Saturday June 26, 2010, hours after a small group of vandals rampaged through the downtown, smashing windows and setting police cruisers alight.

Supt. Fenton is alleged to have ordered officers to box in a “large group of civilians” on the Esplanade, arrest them for breaching the peace, and take the detainees to a notorious detention east-end centre set up for the summit.

“You gave and maintained these orders notwithstanding that you neither found those so contained committing a breach of the peace nor did you have reasonable grounds to believe that those so contained had committed or were about to join in or resume a breach of the peace,” the charge states.

According to the allegations, Supt. Fenton directed those arrested to be held for 24 hours without assessing whether there were grounds to do so and “failed to monitor the status of the detentions.”

24 In the second incident, the following afternoon, police kept scores of people — many who happened to be in the area for reasons unrelated to the G20 — standing for hours at a downtown intersection despite a torrential downpour.

Supt. Fenton gave the kettling orders just six minutes into assuming command that day.

He is alleged to have ordered those detained to be arrested for conspiracy to commit mischief or breach of the peace and taken to the detention centre without reasonable grounds to do so.

“You repeated and maintained these orders notwithstanding the onset of sustained, severe and inclement weather,” the charge states.

It was only when Chief Bill Blair intervened four hours later that those still kettled, soaked and shivering in the cold, were released.

Mr. Van Niejenhuis also asked the case against Inspector Gary Meissner be put over for the same reason to the same date.

Insp. Meissner is charged for allegedly ordering officers to arrest five people at a University of Toronto gymnasium early Sunday, June 27, and charge them with participating in an unlawful assembly, allegedly without doing anything to confirm the suspects had done anything illegal.

He, too, has pleaded not guilty and the two charges against him have not been proven.

Police, who faced scathing criticism for trampling civil liberties, arrested more than 1,000 people over the summit weekend. Wed Jan 09 2013 07:19:05 Opinion: Police chief puts cart before horse By Andrew Dreschel The Spec Hamilton Police Chief Glenn De Caire’s decision to pitch his hotly contested proposed budget directly to the public is many things.

It’s cheeky, it’s cocky, it’s chutzpah on parade.

But mainly it looks like a deliberate end run around the directions given him by his masters, the seven-member police services board.

Starting Thursday night, De Caire is commencing three community town halls to explain why he’s asking for a $6.4 million or 4.75 per cent increase.

That’s all well and good and has the comforting patina of openness and community engagement, which is always a welcome tilt from police.

25 Trouble is, far from approving his proposed increase or giving De Caire directions to present it to the public, the board actually instructed him to find more savings.

By taking his proposals on the road before reporting back with additional cuts, the chief is clearly bypassing the board and marching to his own drum and bugle corps.

Not surprisingly, city councillor and police board member Terry Whitehead, a vocal opponent of the increase, is more than a little taken aback by the tactic. He calls it “highly improper.”

“It’s the board’s budget, not the chief’s budget,” Whitehead says. “The chief’s been asked to do better, so how can he go out and sell a 4.75 per cent increase in the light of the fact he’s been given directions to do better?”

It’s an interesting question. The answer seems to be that since nobody told De Caire not to promote his proposed budget, in the absence of orders, he’s happily putting the cart before the horse or, perhaps, even signalling there may be no more cuts coming.

Whitehead expressed his concerns to police board chair Nancy DiGregorio and the Ontario Association of Police Service Boards, the provincial umbrella group.

DiGregorio couldn’t be reached by this column. But Whitehead says she isn’t remotely fussed by the chief’s move.

According to Whitehead, OAPSB basically says it’s up to the board to define its expectations of the chief. In other words, if the board didn’t want De Caire to present his numbers to the public, it should have told him.

“It’s clear that it’s irregular, but at the end of the day, we have to look in the mirror as board members and provide objectives and clear directions,” says Whitehead.

“Obviously, this board has failed to do that. That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in.”

Lesson learned.

Plainly, De Caire has the bit between his teeth and is prepared to make tracks. The board should have known that, given the chief’s threat to appeal to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission if the board or city council tries to impose a budget he considers insupportable.

According to police spokesperson Catherine Martin, De Caire’s town hall presentations will be based on his revised $142-million budget and 4.75 per cent increase, not the original $143 million or 5.25 per cent requested.

She notes, however, that some information from the original request may surface as relevant background material.

26

“We’ll start with an overview and then open the floor to questions,” Martin explains.

Thursday’s meeting is at Mohawk College. The next is at Bennetto Community Centre on Jan. 14. The last is at Stoney Creek Municipal Offices on Jan. 15. All sessions are 90 minutes and start at 7 p.m.

Whitehead acknowledges the more the community understands the budget, the better. He just feels a little finessed. Perhaps that’s appropriate given that this thing is taking on the tone of an aggressive chess game.

Faced with a divided police board and a cash-strapped city council in no mood for large increases, De Caire is taking his cause, crime stats and emotive message of community safety to the grassroots.

How it plays out remains to be seen. But it’s a safe bet De Caire won’t tamely roll over and play dead when he finally reports back to the board on Jan. 21.

Chief Blair would rather cut stations than frontline officers Toronto's top cop praises Canada's tough gun laws in wide-ranging interview CBC News Posted: Jan 8, 2013 9:31 AM ET Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair would rather consolidate police stations than cut frontline officers as he tries to meet a request to freeze the force's budget for the coming year.

Blair made the comments on CBC Radio's Metro Morning Tuesday, speaking with host Matt Galloway about the challenges of keeping Canada's largest city safe in a time of tightened police budgets and new concerns over gun violence.

Blair spent the first part of the interview talking about the force's 2013 budget, which was was frozen by the Toronto Police Services Board. Blair was critical of that decision but said the force has no choice but to do more with less.

“We’ll have the resources to do our job, there are some challenges in this budget," he said. "We’re now going into our third year of a hiring freeze. As a result, we have fewer officers available to do certain jobs."

He said the hiring freeze hinders his ability to replace retiring officers, which he said number about 180 each year.

“If you don’t replace them, you have 180 fewer. That’s just simple math. 2012 was another year of significant crime declines," he said.

27 Although Blair said the hiring freeze won't make the city unsafe, he pointed to hiring increases made after the so-called summer of the gun in 2005, which he said put 400 more officers on the street.

“It has made a difference," he said. "We’ve seen significant reductions in the violence from 2005. If you’re going to reduce the number of officers, our ability to do some of those things will be reduced.”

He also said the hiring freeze will somewhat hinder efforts to increase diversity on the force.

“Our ability to continue to make progress along that line is slowed," he said. "When you’re not hiring, you can’t bring in an increasingly diverse workforce.”

The Toronto police budget will have to stay at $927 million for the year, and the plan includes $6.7 million in cuts that are not yet allocated, which Chief Bill Blair will have to find.

Possible merger of 54, 55 Division Galloway also put a question to Blair that came from a Metro Morning listener, who asked about a proposed plan to merge two of the city's division offices, specifically 54 and 55 in the east end.

54 Division serves an area just north of Danforth Avenue and east of the Don River stretching to Victoria Park Avenue, while 55 Division serves an area just to the south.

Blair admits he's looking at the merger, saying the cost of administering each of the city's 17 divisions could be better spent on officers.

“I’m doing everything possible to keep as many of my officers in the community delivering service," he said. “If we can consolidate and operate with 16 divisions instead of 17, there are some real savings that can be achieved.

“If I’m faced with the challenge of having fewer officers out in the community, I’d much rather take them out of the administrative functions then out of the front line.

“A police station in your community does have some value, I’m not discounting that. But at the same time we have to find the most efficient and most economical way to provide police services in this city. The city is facing real financial challenges and we have an obligation to do our part."

Stopping the flow of U.S. guns Galloway also asked Blair about how Toronto can guard itself against gun violence. In August a gang shootout at a block party on Danzig Street in Toronto left two dead and 23 wounded.

Blair said stopping the flow of guns into Canada from the United States is key because 70 per cent of guns used in Toronto shootings originate south of the border.

28

“We live next door to the largest handgun arsenal in the world," said Blair. “They are obtained by people intent on smuggling them into Canada.”

'We live next door to the largest handgun arsenal in the world' —Bill Blair, Toronto police chief Blair supports Canada's tougher gun laws, which he said have helped keep Toronto's homicide rate run 10 times lower that Chicago's, a city roughly the same size.

“I’m very proud of the history and the culture of gun control in this country," he said. "The differences between the safety of our cities and the safety of U.S. cities is stark and I think the reasons are rather obvious: There are a great deal more guns in their communities.

"I think it’s something that we should be protective of, something that we should be proud of, and something that we should ensure is maintained in this country. We have safe cities and we don’t want to regress to where others have found themselves."

He said Toronto police work closely with U.S. law enforcement agencies to curtail the cross-border gun trade.

“It’s a very effective relationship," he said. "There’s lot of intelligent sharing that goes back and forth. A lot of good investigations have resulted.”

Blair also said that law enforcement and education go hand-in-hand when it comes to dealing with gun violence.

“You can’t just deal with the supply of guns, you also have to deal with the demand for guns," he said. “We have to go into our communities and work with those young people who would make that choice to use a gun to commit a criminal office and we have to help them make better choices.” Ottawa police confirm secret test of licence scanner

By Ian MacLeod, The Ottawa Citizen January 8, 2013 OTTAWA — City police won’t discuss their plan to outfit patrol cars with optical scanners that automatically record and investigate the licence plate numbers of thousands of passing motorists and their movements.

Since fall, Ottawa police have twice denied to the Citizen the testing of an automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) system on an unmarked cruiser patrolling west-side streets.

29 Confronted with that information again last week, the service admitted it just concluded a successful trial of the technology and hopes to purchase one of the units.

Otherwise, though, it seems police want to keep the public in the dark about the crime-fighting technology that privacy advocates say could be misused as a indiscriminate surveillance tool.

“It would not be appropriate to release any news to the press at this time,” an Ottawa police spokesman wrote in a Friday email cancelling an anticipated interview on ALPR.

How Ottawa plans to use and safeguard the technology remains a mystery, though basic information about how it works is well known.

ALPR was pioneered in Britain to combat the Irish Republican Army. It typically involves up to four all-weather, high-resolution infrared cameras mounted near each corner of a patrol car’s roof. Whenever another car passes the cruiser — in either direction, or parked — the cameras record the licence plate numbers, time and locations, plus a photograph of the vehicles.

The system can operate day or night and supposedly read up to 5,000 Canadian or international plates a minute, up to a differential speed of 320 kilometres an hour and across three lanes of traffic.

The plate number is automatically cross-checked with various databases for matches related to outstanding criminal warrants, stolen vehicles and driving infractions, such as uninsured or suspended drivers.

If a plate receives a positive “hit,” an alert sounds to notify the officer, who then manually re-enters the plate into the database from an in-car computer to confirm the violation.

Several Canadian police departments use the technology, including some RCMP detachments, some Ontario Provincial Police cruisers and municipal police in Toronto, Sudbury, Gatineau and Cornwall.

Police say the system simply automates the existing manual method of checking licence plates on an in-car computer, reducing officers’ driving distractions and catching more criminals, dangerous drivers and other offenders.

In the Ottawa trial, it’s believed the system scanned about 2,800 plates during a typical shift, resulting in about 30 hits a day. Each unit costs about $25,000 to $30,000.

But privacy experts say there are hidden costs, especially when the identities and locations of law-abiding motorists or “non-hits” end up in police databases.

30 That was the case in November when British Columbia’s privacy commissioner said the collection of data on non-offenders by Victoria police violates privacy laws.

Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said changes must be made to the police department’s plate recognition program after an investigation suggested the technology could be used as a surveillance tool. The decision could lead to stricter laws to prevent police from keeping data on drivers with no criminal backgrounds or those under no suspicion.

In the case, Denham found Victoria police transferred “hit” as well as “non-hit” data to B.C. RCMP, which deleted the data after 30 minutes.

But Denham said any extended use of the information would not be authorized under B.C. law. And she concluded sending the non-hit data to the RCMP is not in line with privacy laws.

“This information is not serving a law enforcement purpose and therefore, VicPD cannot disclose it to the RCMP,” Denham said in her report.

She wants Victoria police to reconfigure their system so data can be deleted immediately after the system determines a licence plate and driver are not under suspicion for any offence.

“Collecting personal information for traffic enforcement and identifying stolen vehicles does not extend to retaining data on the law-abiding activities of citizens just in case it may be useful in the future,” she said.

Meanwhile, a politician in the South Carolina legislature last week unveiled a bill to ban the technology altogether in the state.

No public input, no scanners, says Ottawa police board head

Privacy commissioner chides service for secretive trial of licence plate reading technology

By Ian MACLEOD, Ottawa Citizen January 8, 2013 OTTAWA — Any decision to arm Ottawa police with automated licence plate readers will only come after a full public discussion about privacy safeguards, the head of the police board vowed Tuesday after learning the service had quietly tested the surveillance gear on unsuspecting motorists.

“We should talk about it, it should be public knowledge,” police service board chair Eli El-Chantiry said after a Citizen story reported city police wouldn’t discuss a recent two-month trial of a mobile optical scanner that recorded and investigated the licence plate numbers of thousands of passing motorists.

31 “It should have been (disclosed), not hidden,” El-Chantiry said. “I can assure you we will not agree to anything that’s going to contradict (Ontario’s) privacy commissioner” Ann Cavoukian, who chided police Tuesday for not consulting with her office about the trial.

“They should be talking to us … to ensure they meet all the privacy requirements,” she said in an interview. “In the society that we live in, you don’t track the whereabouts of individuals and vehicles unless they’ve broken the law. That’s a discussion we had with (other) police, and I say that very respectfully.

“But they have to use these technologies to catch the bad guys and never to impinge on the freedoms of law-abiding citizens,” Cavoukian said.

For their part, police now blame the episode on poor internal communications.

Since fall, they twice denied to the Citizen the testing of an automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) system on an unmarked cruiser patrolling Westboro and area streets.

Confronted with that information again last week, the service admitted it had just concluded a trial of the technology and hoped to purchase one of the units. But it then cancelled an anticipated interview on ALPR and refused further comment.

The department appeared to reverse itself after that story was published Tuesday, blaming internal “miscommunication” for its previous silence.

“This is a great news story,” said Insp. Mike Callaghan. “I’m actually very happy, as the chief is, that we’re embracing this type of technology to make the roads safer.”

He said a previous statement from another officer that the service hoped to purchase one of the $25,000 units was premature. “We definitely have not made any decisions about the system.”

ALPR technology has been around for years, such as stationary systems at toll booths and border crossings. Now mobile versions are becoming popular with police across North America, including in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and planned deployments by Sudbury and Cornwall police, among others.

The technology typically involves up to four all-weather, high-resolution infrared cameras mounted near each corner of the car’s roof.

Whenever another car passes the cruiser — in either direction, or parked — the cameras record the licence plate numbers, time and locations, plus a photograph of the vehicles. It can operate day or night and across three lanes of traffic.

The plate number is automatically cross-checked with various databases for matches or “hits” related to criminal warrants, stolen vehicles and outstanding driving infractions.

32

If a plate receives a “hit,” an alert sounds to notify the officer, who then manually re-enters the plate into the database from an in-car computer to confirm the violation.

Police say the system simply automates the existing manual method of checking licence plates on an in-car computer, reducing officers’ driving distractions and catching more criminals, stolen cars, drivers under suspension, uninsured as well as other outstanding Highway Traffic Act offences.

The concern, however, is that information about all the other law-abiding motorists — Ontario data show 98 per cent of scanned licences result in a “non- hit” — does not end up in a police database.

Working with Cavoukian’s office, the OPP’s ALPR technology has been engineered to delete “non-hits” within 20 minutes, and she is pushing for the department to cut that to 10 minutes.

“My goal is to have this done automatically; as soon as determination that’s it’s a non-hit, the next step, immediately, should be delete,” she said.

Callaghan said the Ottawa trial ran from Oct. 30 to Dec. 29 with one unmarked police car. The trial equipment deleted non-hits after 20 minutes, did not take a photograph of the car and did not record its location, he said.

Full test results won’t be disclosed until a cost-benefit analysis is completed in about a month.

“The overarching issue here is, is it going to be a situation whereby it makes roadways safer,” said Callaghan, adding the system tested was somewhat hampered by snow and rain.

Cavoukian’s office was not contacted about the trial because it was just that, he said, though he did speak to the office Tuesday afternoon.

“Obviously, the privacy issue is one that we would take into consideration moving forward to help us determine whether we want the system or not.”

Likewise, the police services board was not informed because the trial was a small exercise that had yet — if ever — to work its way up the operational ladder. Watchdog drops probe into alleged Toronto police beating after force refuses to hand over statement

National Post Natalie Alcoba | Jan 2, 2013 4:11 PM ET

33 Ontario’s police watchdog has closed an investigation into allegations that a man was beaten unconscious during an arrest by Toronto police and is blaming the force for refusing to hand over the complainant’s statement.

Calling the situation “almost comical,” Special Investigations Unit director Ian Scott issued a press release Wednesday accusing the Toronto Police Service of impeding his work and possibly violating its duty to co-operate in such probes. The stinging missive drew an immediate rebuke from the Toronto Police spokesman, who put out a competing statement under the heading “He is wrong.”

Mr. Scott, who has been openly critical of long-standing police practices as they relate to SIU scrutiny, says he “cannot conduct an adequate investigation” without the original complaint submitted by Tyrone Phillips, a 27-year-old man who was arrested by Toronto police officers outside a nightclub on July 28, 2012. Mr. Phillips filed a complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director on August 8, the press release states, after two trips to the hospital in which he was diagnosed with a concussion. He alleges that he was “beaten into unconsciousness” during the arrest. The OIPRD referred the matter to Toronto police, who referred it to the SIU.

This has led to the almost comical situation of the SIU as the designated lead investigative agency under the Police Services Act not having a copy of a material statement when the policing agency under investigation and the subject officer do have a copy But, Mr. Scott reports, both Toronto police and the OIPRD have declined to hand over the complaint — despite Mr. Phillips’ consent. Toronto police say it is a third-party record, while the OIPRD only shares files with the affected police force. Meantime, during an interview with the “subject officer” — the individual who, in the SIU director’s opinion, may have caused the injury under investigation — it became “obvious” that the officer had seen a copy of the statement in question.

“This has led to the almost comical situation of the SIU as the designated lead investigative agency under the Police Services Act not having a copy of a material statement when the policing agency under investigation and the subject officer do have a copy,” Mr. Scott wrote. “As a result of the TPS’s refusal to provide a copy of the complainant’s statement to the SIU, I am closing this investigation.”

The document in question belongs to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. We are not allowed to release a document which belongs to someone else without their express permission Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash responded with a press release of his own minutes after the SIU statement.

“The document in question belongs to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. We are not allowed to release a document which belongs to someone else without their express permission. If Mr. Scott wants that document, he must get it from the OIPRD,” wrote Mr. Pugash.

34 In an interview, he said he was surprised the director had “roped” the TPS into a matter that is really between the SIU and OIPRD, adding his tone was “quite harsh.”

Mr. Pugash said Toronto police had asked the OIPRD for permission to release the document, and it was denied. Rosemary Parker, a spokesperson with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director could not comment on that assertion, saying it only speaks in “generalities.”

Ms. Parker said “we don’t share information with the SIU because the Police Services Act requires us to maintain the secrecy and confidentiality of all information we maintain.”

But she said if a complainant wants to request his or her own complaint, the OIPRD will give it to them. The Saturday Interview: Bill Blair says he’ll quit as Toronto’s Police Chief ‘when I’m finished’ Natalie Alcoba | Dec 22, 2012 12:00 PM ET About halfway through his second term as police chief of the largest city in Canada, William Blair looks comfortable in the wing chair in his office.

It’s not the cool black leather perch that is parked behind his desk, but a burnt rose high back, angled before a coffee table on which the latest crime statistics sit.

“I’m still for public safety,” he quips, when asked if he wants to make a general comment about the year that was during a sit-down interview with the National Post this week. By the end of the conversation, the top cop will have revealed Toronto has about 25 gangs, put gun crime in context, and broken down his $928-million budget, while snapping back answers to, or dodging altogether, a rapid-fire succession of questions.

Do you like your job better under David Miller or Rob Ford? “I love being the police chief.”

Do you want to be mayor? “No. I can do more in the chair I sit in.”

When do you plan to retire? “When I’m finished.”

No stranger to a grilling after the storm that followed the controversial policing of the G20 Summit, Chief Blair has been front and centre again this year, calling out the “depraved indifference” of those who opened fire in two high-profile shootings, while trying to appease public anxiety over another looming gang war. He pledged safety with more “boots on the ground” over the summer and later touted the drop in crime in targeted neighbourhoods.

35 “It’s not a huge number of people, but there are young guys who just want to be the baddest guy, in the baddest neighbourhood, carrying the baddest gun belonging to the baddest gang. That’s their ambition, that’s what they want to do,” says Chief Blair, reflecting on the violence that plagues pockets of the city.

Homicides have crept up to 54 so far this year, the latest a victim of a stabbing in a downtown apartment building. The count of people injured by gunfire is also on the rise, in part because bullets sprayed at a block party on Scarborough’s Danzig Street felled 25 people, killing two.

It’s melees such as that and the double homicide in a busy Eaton Centre food court that tend to “skew” the public’s perception of safety, says the chief. Arrests have been made in both cases.

Toronto’s statistics, however, pale in comparison to the gun and gang battles that are raging south of the border. Chicago, a city of similar size, for example, is approaching 500 homicides this year, almost 20% more than the previous year. The Washington Post reported this week that in the school year that ended in June, 319 Chicago public school students were shot, 24 of them fatally. The Windy City has seen more than 2,300 shooting occurrences, compared to Toronto’s 210 this year.

“We don’t have the gun problems the Americans do. We don’t have this enormous handgun arsenal available here that is available on the other side of the border,” says Chief Blair.

Still, the organized crime element is not inconsequential in this metropolis of 2.6 million, where it’s “easier than it should be” to get a firearm on the street.

Chief Blair says Toronto is home to 25 or 26 “hard-core” gangs, that count on about 2,200 foot soldiers and associates. The number of potentially violent offenders is even smaller, at around 600 people.

“I wouldn’t say there is one all powerful worst gang of the bunch. Some of them have taken turns being the problem. Danzig had a lot of people talking about the Galloway Boys and the Malvern Crew,” though Chief Blair steers clear of adding to the profile of other gangsters.

“They’re seeking notoriety, I don’t want to give it to them. They don’t deserve it. They want this image, they cultivate this image, they engage in violence to gain this reputation and I think we make a mistake if we give it to them. They’re just criminals.”

Despite all this, shootings are down slightly in 2012, by 4.1% at last count. “On average the city of Toronto experiences five shootings a week. We’ve had three in the last 30 days,” says the chief, who credits, at least partly, strategies he brought in over the summer that put cops in places where violence was most likely to break out.

36 It’s not a huge number of people, but there are young guys who just want to be the baddest guy, in the baddest neighbourhood, carrying the baddest gun belonging to the baddest gang. That’s their ambition, that’s what they want to do “The focus has not been on how many can you arrest but how much violence can you reduce. I don’t ever attribute all the declines in crime to policing, there are a lot of other things that take place, but I think we’ve achieved some significant results.”

The number of guns seized has dropped nearly 40%, from 3,190 in the first 11 months of 2011 to 1,933 guns over the same period this year. Chief Blair says the decision to scrap the firearms registry is partly to blame.

And when there is “money to be made” on the black market — a gun that is bought on the street in the U.S. for $200 can fetch $1,500 in Toronto — you can bet the products follow. About 70% of the handguns seized by police every year come from the United States. Others originate with legal owners in Canada who wipe off the serial numbers and sell them illegally, says Chief Blair.

He has faced a decidedly different battle this year in the boardroom, where the civilian body that oversees the Toronto Police Service enforced a flat-lined budget under pressure from city hall. It followed a protracted tug of war, in which the chief refused to recommend a budget he insisted could affect his ability to provide “adequate and effective” policing, while politicians sought to rein in ballooning costs.

“There is nothing that says every damn thing has to be done by a uniform officer,” chairman Alok Mukherjee said last week.

A hiring freeze next year will leave the force 500 officers under its approved strength of 5,604 in 2014, which Chief Blair maintains will have an impact. The chief refutes accusations he has been fear mongering — “unless you’re afraid of arithmetic.”

And adds: “I don’t think there is anyone who has done more to reassure Toronto — even in the aftermath of very violent events — that we are in fact a safe city.”

New Appointment To Ottawa Police Services Board

OTTAWA - The Ottawa Police Services Board is pleased to welcome L.A. (Sandy) Smallwood to the Board following his appointment by City of Ottawa Council on December 19th. Mr. Smallwood is Council’s citizen representative on the Board, effective December 31, 2012 to November 30, 2014.

Mr. Smallwood is best known for his work in heritage preservation. He is the founder (1973) and President of Andrex Holdings Limited, a recognized leader in the redevelopment of landmark buildings. The recipient of six municipal heritage

37 restoration awards, Sandy also received the Ontario Heritage Foundation Award for Achievement in 1996, and the Heritage Canada Foundation Corporate Prize for ‘Exemplary Stewardship of Heritage Architecture’ in 2007. In 2012, he was presented The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award.

Sandy has been a member of the Board of Directors of The Ontario Heritage Trust since 2004, and is currently President of H.O.D.I (Historic Ottawa Developments Inc).

A lifelong Ottawa resident, Mr. Smallwood’s community involvement includes: former Councillor in Rockcliffe Park, former board member of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, former director Ottawa Arts Centre Foundation, former member of the Ottawa and Rockcliffe Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committees, and currently a member of the Rockcliffe Park Site Plan and Development Advisory Committee. He is also a lifetime patron of Dhadkan Heartbeat, an organization which provides funding to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.

Mr. Smallwood commented, “I am very pleased to be joining the Police Services Board and look forward to working with the other members of the Board, Chief Bordeleau, and his Executive team on the numerous challenges facing the police service and our community.”

“Mr. Smallwood’s extensive community involvement and professional accomplishments provide him with skills and knowledge that will be tremendous assets to the Police Services Board. We are very pleased to welcome him”, said Deputy Mayor and Board Chair Eli El-Chantiry.

Mr. Smallwood will be replacing citizen representative Henry Jensen, who has provided eight years of very dedicated and conscientious service to the Board, the City and the Police Service. Chair El-Chantiry expressed the opinion of the whole Board in extending thanks to Mr. Jensen, saying, “The Board is extremely grateful for the very significant contributions Henry has made during his time on the Board; he will be missed by his colleagues here in Ottawa as well as across the Province due to his tireless work as President of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards.”

Mr. Smallwood will be publicly sworn in as a member of the Board at its next meeting on Monday, January 28, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. in the Champlain Room, Ottawa City Hall.

The Ottawa Police Services Board is the civilian body responsible for governing the Ottawa Police Service. It is responsible for the provision of adequate and effective police services to the City of Ottawa’s residents.

Toronto police covered more than $4-million in officers’ legal costs in past four years SHANNON KARI

38 Special to The Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, Jan. 02 2013, 11:23 AM EST Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 02 2013, 12:27 PM EST

The Toronto Police Services Board has approved legal costs of more than $1- million annually for officers who faced court proceedings, although this year’s bill could rise by millions more as a result of two high-profile prosecutions.

The spike in costs could come as Chief Bill Blair deals with a budget freeze in 2013 that he has warned will result in fewer officers on the street.

Between Jan. 1, 2009, and June 30, 2012, the board approved fees totalling nearly $4.1-million for lawyers representing individual officers. The payments are part of the police budget: the board receives a report from Chief Blair and the city’s legal department on whether to pay any or all of a legal bill. If the board rejects a claim then it falls to the union to pay the bill.

The collective agreement provides for indemnification of “reasonable” legal costs if there is no conviction, or if the Chief determines that the legal proceeding related to the officer performing duties in good faith. Many of the claims submitted to police are relatively low in price, for legal work such as representing witness officers interviewed by the Special Investigations Unit. However, criminal trials can be much more expensive.

Although the board rejected a request for nearly $1.7-million submitted by the lawyers who represented Bill McCormack, brother of the president of the Toronto Police Association Mike McCormack, the association could contest the decision.

Corruption-related charges against Bill McCormack were stayed by an Ontario Superior Court judge in December 2009 for unreasonable delay, more than 67 months after he was charged. Justice Bonnie Croll blamed much of the delay on the conduct of Inspector Bryce Evans, a senior investigator with the Toronto police professional standards branch.

The police board denied the legal claim this fall and stated there was evidence that Bill McCormack “abused his powers” as an officer. The union is now considering whether to file a grievance of the decision (Mike McCormack is not involved in this case).

As well, the multimillion-dollar legal bill for five former Toronto police drug squad officers could also lead to another fee dispute. John Schertzer and four other officers were convicted in June of attempting to obstruct justice. Three of the officers were also convicted of perjury. But they were acquitted of several other charges.

John Rosen, who represented Mr. Schertzer at his trial (and whose firm acted for Bill McCormack), said at least some of the legal bills should be covered by the city. “There were 15 counts in the indictment. They were acquitted on the most serious ones. Some indemnification would absolutely be appropriate,” said Mr. Rosen.

39

The association is waiting for the officers to be sentenced next month, before deciding whether to pursue an indemnification claim, said Mike McCormack.

Among the legal fees approved this year was a bill of $280,000 for the successful defence in provincial court of a constable charged with assault bodily harm during the April 2008 arrest of a suspected drug dealer. “The fees were substantial due to the protracted period of time it took to conclude the matter,” the board stated.

Even if acquitted of criminal charges, officers accused of wrongdoing may be the focus of a coroner’s inquiry, a civil suit or a complaint to a civilian review agency. Lawyers who frequently act for police say a strong indemnification system is needed.

“You are facing a long long road of review,” said Toronto lawyer Joseph Markson. “Unpredictable indemnification undermines the support police officers rely upon to bravely serve the public.”

The ongoing costs to the police board and the Toronto Police Association of defending officers could soon lead to changes to the legal indemnification provisions in their collective bargaining agreement.

“What we are trying to work out is how the lawyers are compensated,” said Mike McCormack. “We want to do this in a cost effective and efficient way, given the current economic realities.” By the end of January, there may be a new draft agreement, he said.

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said he could not comment on any specific case. He stressed that “significant financial scrutiny” goes into any claim, before a recommendation is made to the board.

A spokeswoman for the board said it cannot comment on individual claims under the provisions of the Police Services Act.

Another major legal expense for the city was the independent civilian review commissioned after the G20 Summit in June 2010.

Surplus finds from the police and the board’s operating budgets were used to cover the final $1.3-million legal bill submitted this year by John Morden, former associate chief justice of Ontario. That total included approved rates of $470 per hour for Mr. Morden, which he later reduced to $300. The board also approved hourly rates of $275 for a lawyer with six years experience to assist Mr. Morden, $260 for a first-year lawyer, $230 for an articling student and $235 for a law clerk.

40 Judge slams police for inaction on aboriginal blockades 'No person in Canada stands above or outside of the law,' Ontario judge says The Canadian Press Posted: Jan 7, 2013 5:07 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 10:24 AM ET Read 113 comments113 An Ontario judge who has issued two injunctions to end blockades of critical rail arteries is slamming police for not ending the aboriginal protests, saying their inaction leads to "dangerous waters."

A small group of protesters blocked the railway Saturday afternoon near Kingston, Ont., affecting freight and passenger train service between Toronto and Montreal, and CN Rail went to court Saturday night for an injunction.

Ontario Superior Court Justice David Brown ordered them to leave by 12:01 a.m. ET Sunday and they left the site about then anyway, but as Brown noted in his reasons for the injunction, released Monday, it wasn't because police enforced the order.

"No person in Canada stands above or outside of the law," Brown said.

'Just as 15 persons from some other group would have no right to stand in the middle of the main line … neither do 15 persons from a First Nation.' —Ontario Superior Court Justice David Brown "Although that principle of the rule of law is simple, at the same time it is fragile. Without Canadians sharing a public expectation of obeying the law, the rule of law will shatter."

According to evidence before Brown from CN lawyers, the local sheriff got a copy of the injunction around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, within an hour of Brown making the order.

The sheriff contacted the Ontario Provincial Police officer on the scene of the blockade, who told her it was "too dangerous" to serve the injunction that night on the 15 protesters, but that the police would accompany the sheriff the next morning to do so, Brown said.

"I made a time-sensitive order because the evidence showed that significant irreparable harm resulted from each hour the blockade remained in place, yet the OPP would not assist the local sheriff to ensure the order was served by the time stipulated," Brown said.

"Such an approach by the OPP was most disappointing because it undercut the practical effect of the injunction order. That kind of passivity by the police leads me to doubt that a future exists in this province for the use of court injunctions in cases of public demonstrations."

41 About 1,000 passengers were affected and blockades can cause significant economic impacts as materials such as daily shipments of fuel for Air Canada and other airlines are transported through that artery, CN told the court.

Brown said he does not understand why the rail line had to be shut for several hours in Marysville, Ont., while CN rushed off to court and the police "simply stood by, inactive."

"We seem to be drifting into dangerous waters in the life of the public affairs of this province when courts cannot predict, with any practical degree of certainty, whether police agencies will assist in enforcing court injunctions," he said.

The fact that CN had to turn to the courts at all is puzzling, Brown said.

"In light of those powers of arrest enjoyed by police officers, why does the operator of a critical railway have to run off to court to secure an injunction when a small group of protesters park themselves on the rail line, bringing operations to a grinding halt?" he wrote.

Brown also noted he issued an injunction to end a First Nations blockade of a rail line in Sarnia, Ont., on Dec. 21 and it wasn't enforced until Jan. 2 "under pressure from another judge of this court."

The fact that the protesters were First Nations people has no bearing on this case, Brown said.

'Straight-forward political protest' A previous court decision about a land claim dispute in Caledonia, Ont., said that when injunction motions involve aboriginal people, treaty rights must be considered and negotiation, not litigation, is the way to go.

But this protest had nothing to do with the land-claim process, rather it was a "straight-forward political protest," Brown said.

"Just as 15 persons from some other group would have no right to stand in the middle of the main line tracks blocking rail traffic in order to espouse a political cause close to their hearts, neither do 15 persons from a First Nation," Brown said.

The blockades are part of the Idle No More movement, which began last month in protest of the federal government's omnibus Bill C-45.

First Nations groups claim the bill threatens their treaty rights set out in the Constitution. The protesters on the rail line in Marysville said they were showing support for First Nations chiefs in an upcoming meeting with the prime minister, Brown said.

A spokesman for the Ontario Provincial Police was not immediately available for comment.

42 Chris Lewis: What I learned about realistic policing Published on Saturday December 29, 2012 The Star

OPP Commisioner Chris Lewis Jim Rankin Staff Reporter The Star asked some prominent people what they learned in 2012.

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Chris Lewis, 55, has been the province’s top cop since August 2010. Aside from a quick joke about learning this past year that prorogue is not something one eats with sour cream, fried onions and bacon bits, the 34-year veteran officer chose to talk about two difficult problems: police budgets and handling post-traumatic stress disorder, the latter of which was the subject of a critical Ombudsman’s report. (Edited for length)

The rising cost of policing, in terms of salaries and technology, have made the policing model in Ontario virtually unsustainable. Police departments have to stop doing some things.

Traditionally, we will go to every single call. If someone calls, we’ll try and divert them through some alternative method like an officer taking the information over the phone. But if they say no, I want to see an officer, we’ll still drive a hundred kilometres down a gravel road in northern Ontario just to look at a guy’s pickup truck and say, “You’re right, your chainsaw is gone.” We just can’t do all that anymore.

So, we’re undergoing a metamorphosis. All police forces have to go through a metamorphosis, including the OPP, and I think some municipalities over time are either going to have to amalgamate their police departments with other municipal police departments, or become regions and regional departments, or join with the OPP. Because, let’s face it, policing is the most expensive business generally that any municipality is in.

We’ve gotten to the point now where almost every municipality is hurting for revenue and the province is in a significant deficit, so when you do the math, and I’m not good at it, with police salaries as high as they are – and police officers should be paid well for what they do – it doesn’t work out. The math just isn’t there.

In the United States, you’re seeing significant police departments cut in half and crime being rampant. We need to stay ahead of the curve and focus more on prevention and on things you really need a fully trained, armed police officer to do to get the best bang for our buck, in terms of efficiency.

I don’t see hiring private security to patrol communities or maybe stumbling across bank robberies, because they’re not going to be able to do anything.

43

There is a balance there, though, and we have to find it and be more open to different service delivery models. The police associations don’t like that concept, but the bottom line is we’re not going to get more money, we’re not going to be able to run out and hire hundreds more officers.

So, we’re going to have to do things differently. Like the day-to-day responding to false alarms, minor thefts, minor car collisions. And, like one friend of mine in a large municipal department said, we spend millions of dollars every year guarding fire hoses. I didn’t quite catch that initially. He said, “We send out cops to fires for no reason other than to make sure no one drives over the hoses.” That’s taxpayers’ money and police departments owe it to the taxpayers to work together efficiently.

Also this year, the whole PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) thing, I’ve learned a lot from that. I always knew it existed. I always knew that we had people that were hurting and suffering. I thought we were doing everything in our power for them and I truly believed we were.

I now know it wasn’t enough and there are more people hurting than I ever imagined.

I started an internal blog to discuss the issue, and asked what can we do better, and it is unbelievable how many people have opened up. It was a personal journey for me, too, to actually learn how many of our people are hurting, and not necessarily because they got shot or shot and killed somebody, but day-to-day going to one death scene after another.

Cumulatively that’s going to take its toll. Autopsies — I went to one for a 4-year- old kid on an Easter weekend. I went back to my hotel room and cried for an hour. Some people, it doesn’t affect. Some people it does. And it doesn’t mean anybody’s stronger or weaker. It’s just the reality of being human. Innisfil claims it's overpaying for policing By Miriam King, QMI Agency Thursday, December 27, 2012 11:02:25 EST AM

The Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury may have second thoughts about the process it has launched, by asking for a Police Costing.

Both Innisfil and Bradford West Gwillimbury are currently policed by the South Simcoe Police Service, an amalgamated service created in 1996-7 through a cost-sharing agreement. BWG Council passed a resolution in December of 2011, to pursue a costing from the Ontario Provincial Police for the delivery of police services.

Innisfil decided to delay proceeding with an OPP costing until after a Committee could review current levels of service - and in doing so, said Innisfil CAO John

44 Skorobohacz, "We have had an opportunity to step back and actually look at that agreement."

His conclusion: Innisfil is "probably overpaying by at least $1 million per year."

The original cost-sharing agreement considered only population, number of households, and current value assessment, or the tax base, in calculating the split.

It should have considered calls for service, based on the crime statistics, Skorobohacz said.

As part of the review of police service levels, Innisfil staff looked at the crime statistics, from 2009 on - and discovered that based on calls for service, the Town of BWG should have been paying a greater share of the costs.

In 1997, the first year of operation of the South Simcoe Police, Innisfil paid 58.82% of the cost of policing, Bradford West Gwillimbury paid 41.18%, based on the original formula. This year, the split was 56% Innisfil, 44% Bradford.

Based on calls for service, the split should have been closer to 48.62% Innisfil, 51.38% Bradford West Gwillimbury. "If you're consuming the service, you'd think you would pay," Skorobohacz said, noting that "rudimentary" analysis of calls for service indicates "we're almost $1 million over per year... based on some pure statistical assessment."

He admitted the statistics might not be accurate, since "different calls consume different levels of policing", but based on face value, the results are "somewhat alarming" for Innisfil. He recommended bringing in additional resources to carry out a "far better and more informed statistical evaluation of what those calls mean, in dollar cost."

Skorobohacz pointed out that the Auditor General, in reviewing the operations of the OPP, recommended a model that would tie police costs to the level of service provided, including number of calls. He also suggested that the implications of the Auditor General's report might cause the OPP to "step back" from providing costings to municipalities - causing further delays in responding to BWG's request.

In the interim, Skorobohacz said, "Certainly we should be approaching the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury with regards to the allocation of costs... We believe the Town of Innisfil has been overpaying for Policing services," since the agreement was put in place. "We need to serve notice that the current agreement does not work and there needs to be some reconciliation."

Innisfil Council voted unanimously to reopen the cost sharing agreement and take a new look at the division of costs - and invite BWG to enter into new talks.

Councillor Lynn Dollin pointed out another conclusion of the Auditor General: That municipalities could save between 35% and 65% by using the OPP instead

45 of a municipal police service. The costs of policing, she said, "is top of mind at AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) meetings." Matt Gurney on police oversight: No one can watch our watchers National Post

Matt Gurney | Jan 7, 2013 12:01 AM ET

A recent Ipsos Reid poll, commissioned by Postmedia and Global News, has found that Canadians are increasingly unimpressed by the RCMP. The conduct of individual officers continues to score well, but less than half of Canadians believe the force is capable of treating its own officers fairly and effectively tackling its own internal issues.

The number didn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been keeping tabs at the parade of internal scandals and public relations disasters that have beset the RCMP in recent years. From officers run amok to sexual harassment within the ranks, the force has seemed to attract bad news from every direction.

Most galling of all has been the total inability of the force to appropriately deal with the bad apples in its ranks. Even the commissioner of the RCMP has said that he needs more authority to punish negligent, corrupt or outright criminal officers under his command.

It might not make the RCMP brass feel any better, but when it comes to lousy responses to allegations of police misconduct, they're not alone. Last week, the Toronto Police Service provided proof of that.

The story out of Toronto is about as damning an indictment of the state of police oversight as one could ask for. It concerns Tyrone Phillips, 27, who claims that he was badly beaten by Toronto police officers last July while being arrested. Phillips filed a complaint with Ontario's Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD). The Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which looks into allegations of serious police misconduct against members of the public, also began an investigation.

And this is where things get bizarre.

Late last week, the SIU announced that it was abandoning its investigation into the matter, due to the refusal of the Toronto police to share critical information — namely, Phillips' original written complaint, which he submitted through an online form. Without the complaint, the SIU declared, it had nothing to go on. Toronto police quickly responded by claiming that since Phillips' complaint was forwarded to them by the OIPRD, they did not have the authority to release it to the SIU — they are not permitted to share documents obtained from a third party. The OIPRD jumped in at that point, claiming that it is not authorized to share

46 documents with the SIU and may only pass them onto the police force at the heart of the complaint.

In other words, all parties agree that Phillips did indeed go through proper channels to file a report alleging police brutality. But each one of them has their own unique explanation of why they are totally incapable of doing anything about it. Worst of all, each of them is probably right — it's not hard at all to believe that this situation is a result of overlapping bureaucracies rather than any ill will.

Late last week, the three parties came up with an ad hoc solution — if Phillips requests a copy of his original report from the OIPRD, he can then give that copy to the SIU, which has promised to reopen the investigation.

That's good, as far as it goes. Better that the matter be properly explored than not. But how can any citizen following along with this charade of accountability and efficiency not find their confidence in the police shaken? If this is the system that exists to watch the watchers, what chance does any wrongly assaulted citizen have for a fair investigation?

That Ontario's SIU is largely toothless in the face of police intransigence and reams of good old fashioned red tape isn't news. The SIU itself has repeatedly called for expanded investigative powers, including the ability to compel officers to testify against a fellow officer accused of misconduct. But even that is unlikely to be of much value. Investigations into the conduct of police officers during the G20 debacle in Toronto were stymied after police officers proved somehow unable to identify any other officer accused of brutality against protesters. Even if they'd been mere feet away from the alleged incident. And knew the officer in question personally. Nope, sorry. Didn't see who it was.

The overwhelming majority of Canadian police officers — RCMP, Toronto, and all the other forces — do fantastic work under challenging circumstances. They are our first line of defence against problems both mundane and unthinkable.

But they require effective oversight, as much to protect their own reputations as the public's safety. In this country, they don't have it. If you're wondering why the public's faith in law enforcement has been shaken, look no further than that.

QUEBEC Quebec judges accused of buying drugs from police informant put on review

Graeme Hamilton | Jan 8, 2013 11:33 PM ET National Post

47 MONTREAL — When Quebec provincial police unleashed Operation Crayfish in 2010, they boasted of the damaging blow dealt to organized crime in the province’s Abitibi region.

But as cases proceed through the courts after more than 80 arrests and the seizure of large quantities of drugs, $900,000 cash, weapons and a helicopter, it is the judicial system that is now coming under scrutiny.

The Canadian Judicial Council announced Tuesday it is reviewing the conduct of Justice Michel Girouard of the Quebec Superior Court for the alleged purchase of “an illicit substance from a police informant.”

Another judge, Marc Grimard of Quebec Court, is facing a similar allegation.

On Monday, Chief Justice Elizabeth Corte of the Quebec Court said the allegation against Judge Grimard is being taken “very seriously” and he is not being assigned new cases.

Both judges sit in Rouyn-Noranda, about 510 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

Le Devoir reported Dec. 29 an informant in the Crayfish investigation had recently identified the two judges as customers of an Abitibi cocaine dealer before they were appointed to the bench — Judge Grimard in 2004, Judge Girouard in 2010.

Associate Chief Justice Robert Pidgeon of Quebec Superior Court said the court became aware of the allegation against Judge Girouard when the provincial prosecution office shared a document at the end of November.

Since then, he has been assigned no new cases and is performing only administrative tasks, Judge Pidgeon said Tuesday.

He stressed Judge Girouard “firmly denies all the facts that the informant has said,” but declined comment on the specific allegations, as they are subject of a police investigation.

He acknowledged the allegations of drug purchases could fuel cynicism about the judiciary.

“Something can happen once in a while, but I think generally we have good judges, and we have a good justice system,” he said.

He added since his appointment by Rob Nicholson, the federal Justice Minister, Judge Girouard has been a good, hard-working judge.

Chief Justice François Rolland of Quebec Superior Court requested the review of Judge Girouard’s conduct by the Canadian Judicial Council. Possible actions range from a dismissal of the complaint as lacking merit to a public inquiry that can lead to the judge’s removal from the bench.

48 “Council will be focusing mainly on whether or not the judge has the confidence of the public to remain in office,” said Johanna Laporte, the council’s director of communications.

“We’re not going to be doing police investigative work. That’s for others to do.”

As a provincially appointed judge, Judge Grimard’s conduct could be reviewed by Quebec’s Conseil de la magistrature, but the organization does not disclose whether a complaint has been lodged until hearings are scheduled.

In her statement Monday, Chief Justice Corte said the court is following the situation closely and “will take appropriate measures” as required. She expressed her confidence in all judges of the Abitibi region, “who work daily to render the justice of a high quality to which those undergoing trial are entitled.”

Judge Grimard was a provincial prosecutor in Rouyn-Noranda before being named to the bench and was head of the regional bar association. Judge Girouard was in private practice before his appointment, specializing in business, banking and insurance law.

Montreal womens' groups decry handling of Pamela Jean case CBC News Posted: Jan 8, 2013 10:18 PM ET Some womens' groups in Montreal say the death of Pamela Jean last week raises troubling questions about why police didn't act more quickly to protect her, when there were signs she could have been in danger.

The body of the 27-year-old single mother was found in the apartment of her ex- boyfriend in Montreal North on Jan. 4, several days after she was last seen on a street in downtown Montreal, where she had gone shopping on Dec. 30.

Juan Fermin Palma, 32, was charged with second degree murder in her death when he appeared in a Montreal courtroom on Monday.

Court documents show Palma had faced charges in the past related to domestic violence, but they were later dropped because Jean didn't want to testify.

Manon Monastesse of the Quebec Federation of Women's Shelters said that should have raised a red flag for the police officers who were investigating Jean's disappearance.

"The policeman who took the report should have...said, 'Well, there was a history of domestic violence, so it's a highly lethal situation. We have to search for her right away,'" Monastesse said.

Just last month, the provincial government launched an action plan to prevent conjugal violence, and Montreal police say they do have protocols to follow for the 15,000s call they receive annually which involve domestic abuse.

49

"Police officers have to evaluate which cases present a higher risk than other cases, and that's the same for missing persons calls," said police spokesman Vincent Richer. "We have to evaluate the risk."

"I was devastated," said Diane Sasson, who runs the Montreal shelter Auberge Shalom. "It is very discouraging and horrifying to think that today, with all of the protocols in place to try to ensure women's safety — all the shelters and the programs — that this can still happen."

Montreal police say they are reviewing Pamela Jean's case to see if those protocols were followed and what more could have been done, if anything.

Shining a light on justice at the Police Ethics Committee

By Michelle Lalonde, The Gazette December 23, 2012 MONTREAL — It has been more than two years since Quebec’s Public Safety minister announced he would ask the province’s Police Ethics Commissioner to shine a light on why Maria Altagracia Dorval’s conjugal violence complaint was not investigated in the days before she was killed.

That light was finally switched on last month when hearings into breach of ethics citations of five Montreal police officers who handled Dorval’s case finally got underway.

But the light of public scrutiny has been repeatedly shuttered or dimmed by the numerous publication bans, in-camera sessions and sealing of documents requested by lawyers and granted, at least temporarily, by the committee chair in these proceedings. These moves have prevented reporters from publishing and sometimes from even hearing the testimony and evidence filed at what is, at least in principle, supposed to be a public hearing.

The reasons given for banning publication of the proceedings have varied. Sometimes it was to keep police methods and procedures from being revealed and then exploited by criminals. Sometimes it was to avoid corrupting a jury, by publishing facts prejudicial to the accused before the trial. In the case of a social worker who testified on Dec. 7, a publication ban was granted to respect Quebec’s law requiring certain professionals not to disclose their clients’ secrets.

Lawyer Mark Bantey, who has represented The Gazette in numerous cases to fight publication bans, said the Police Ethics Committee’s moves to ban publication of proceedings are only the latest troubling example of a widespread practice in Quebec courts.

50 “Too often these administrative tribunals, and sometimes even the regular courts, will impose a publication ban if all the parties (prosecutors and defence lawyers) agree. But that is not what the law says,” he said.

“The court has to apply what is known as the Dagenais-Mentuck test, to evaluate whether or not granting a publication ban would pose a serious risk to the proper administration of justice.”

Josée Demers, court clerk for the Police Ethics Committee, confirmed that the committee often grants publication bans, and that challenges to these bans are rare. In fact, a lawyer for the Police Ethics Commissioner, Christiane Mathieu, told The Gazette she has never seen a publication ban challenged in the 18 years she has been working with the committee.

This may be partly because many of the ethics hearings are of little interest to the media, or the larger public, so reporters do not attend. Many cases, for example, are about police officers being impolite or refusing to identify themselves properly during operations.

But Bantey said challenges by media to publication bans are becoming more common, and the justice system is responding in favour of more transparency. Just last month, France Charbonneau issued a judgment on a challenge by several media outlets (including The Gazette) on a publication ban on testimony by construction magnate Lino Zambito before the inquiry into corruption in the construction industry. Charbonneau lifted the ban on much of Zambito’s testimony.

***

When Constable Eric Sabourin, one of two officers who took Dorval’s complaint just six days before she was killed, finally took the stand at the Police Ethics Committee hearing on Dec. 5, a publication ban on his testimony was requested by lawyers and granted, at least temporarily, by the committee chairperson.

Lawyers for the commissioner and for the cited officers argued a publication ban was necessary because this officer had testified at the preliminary inquiry for the accused in the case, Edens Kenol, Dorval’s estranged husband. (His trial on a first-degree murder charge is scheduled to begin on April 2.)

Allowing Sabourin’s testimony before the committee to be published, they argued, would be breaking the statutory publication ban ordered at the preliminary inquiry, because his testimony before the committee would probably deal with some of the same material.

Lawyer Alexandre Sami objected to that ban on behalf of The Gazette, arguing that two Supreme Court rulings (Dagenais v. CBC in 1994, and R. v. Mentuck in 2001) have established that publication bans should only be granted as a last resort to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice.

51 A publication ban is only justified, those judgments established, if the advantages outweigh the negative effects on the rights and interests of the parties and the public, including the right to free expression, the right of the accused to a fair and public trial, and the efficacy of the administration of justice.

In his arguments, Sami stressed that even granting temporary publication bans should not be done lightly. “News is news precisely because of its immediacy,” he told the committee, quoting author David Lepofsky’s 1985 book Open Justice: The Constitutional Right to Attend and Speak about Criminal Proceedings. “It is for the public and journalists, not legislators, prosecutors and judges, to decide when information (especially truthful information regarding public events, involving judicial institutions of government) is of sufficient newsworthiness to warrant immediate publication.”

“Police or prosecutorial impropriety … might be revealed to the public for the first time by immediate news reports,” Lepofsky writes. “The public, whose disapproval of such practices could only be triggered by unfettered reporting, might pressure government officials to quickly investigate and reform unacceptable practices, before further injustice can be … perpetrated.”

Last Wednesday, two weeks after Sabourin’s testimony, Police Ethics Committee Chairperson Michèle Cohen issued a written decision in which she agreed to lift the ban on most of the constable’s testimony.

In her decision, Cohen noted the many interests and rights at play, including the right to free expression and a free press, the right of the public to be informed, the right of the accused to a fair trial, the public’s interest that the committee respect the principle of the public nature of the hearings it holds, especially considering the role it plays in protecting the public, and the importance of promoting public discussion on the manner in which police officers deal with conjugal violence.

She noted that no evidence had been presented by the commission lawyer or by the lawyers for the cited police officers that publishing Sabourin’s testimony would compromise a fair trial for Kenol.

She lifted the publication ban on all but a tiny portion of Sabourin’s testimony where he explicitly refers to testimony he gave in the preliminary inquiry.

Bantey welcomed the ruling.

“This is an excellent, well-researched decision. Obviously, the chair did her homework. It is well reasoned and it sets a good precedent for the open court principle.”

While much of what Sabourin testified had already been revealed by earlier witnesses, he did paint a clearer picture of how he saw Dorval that night. He described her as calm, not panicked or afraid; a woman who clearly thought she was getting her problem solved by calling police.

52 Sabourin and his partner, Danny Chicoine, testified that they responded to a 911 call by Dorval on the evening of Oct. 11, 2010. She told them she was being harassed by her husband, from whom she was separated.

“She said she was fed up with the situation, sick of getting calls and being bothered. She was in the process of getting a divorce and there was a conflict over who would have custody of the kids,” Sabourin said.

But Dorval told him about an incident two months earlier, on Aug. 16, 2010, when Kenol had come into her Montreal North apartment through a back door, taken a knife from the kitchen and threatened her with it, her three young children looking on. He told her that if she left him for good, he would kill her and the children and then commit suicide, she said, according to Sabourin.

Dorval told Sabourin, he testified, that she had been afraid for her life during that August incident with the knife, but was not afraid at the time she made the police report. He said she was calm and did not wish to go to a women’s shelter, despite the fact that Kenol had more recently been banging on her door, following her in his car, calling her incessantly, and had warned a male friend to stay away from her.

“She said she just wanted to stay at home with her kids … that she was satisfied that (we) would find him and arrest him.”

Sabourin said he told Dorval he would send her report immediately to an investigator who would call her. He did not say how long this would take, but he did give her his card and told her to call him if she had any further trouble with Kenol.

Sabourin did submit his report to the investigation centre without delay, but no detective called Dorval in the six days between her conversation with Sabourin and her death, and no arrest warrant was issued during that time.

***

Nathalie Villeneuve is president of the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale, an association of 47 women’s shelters across Quebec.

She says allowing the media and the public as much access as possible to legal proceedings, especially those dealing with conjugal violence cases, is crucial.

“We are not saying that the police are all crooked, and that is not what the reporters are there to write about, either. They are there to inform us, to help us understand what is working and what’s not working, and that’s why we need to move this discussion out of a little hearing room” and into a larger public forum, she said.

Villeneuve would like to see a broad public inquiry into the whole question of how Quebec’s justice system responds to women living in abusive relationships.

53

The fact that no representative from Dorval’s family has been present at the hearings into the police handling of her case speaks volumes about how the system is failing victims and their families, Villeneuve said.

Asked whether Dorval’s family was informed of the hearings, Josée Demers, the court clerk at the Police Ethics Committee, said it is not the responsibility of the tribunal to directly inform specific members of the public of the timing of a particular hearing. If you have the name and badge number of a police officer cited by the commissioner, you can go to the Police Ethics Committee website and check the hearings calendar to see when their hearing is scheduled, she said.

But the hearing of the police officers cited in Dorval’s case was not, as of Dec. 21, listed on that schedule.

The hearing resumes May 6, at 500 René Lévesque Blvd. W., 6th floor.

Saint-Bruno criticized for police presence at council meetings CBC News Posted: Jan 6, 2013 1:19 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 6, 2013 3:42 PM

A video posted online has many people criticizing the need for police presence at city council meetings in Saint-Bruno on Montreal's south shore.

The video created by 99% Media, an independent media organization, shows several instances in which police officers expel citizens from municipal council meetings after asking councillors tough questions.

Some residents said the police were installed at city hall in January 2012 to keep people quiet.

"Having a police presence at municipal council is absurd. You expect citizens to be able to ask questions to elected officials. It's ridiculous to use strength... if they don't want to answer questions," said Martin Guevremont, a resident of Saint- Bruno.

Municipal councillor Michèle Archambault said having police officers monitor the meetings creates mistrust among citizens.

"When we really want to hear people and we want an open debate, we don't need police presence. No one is dangerous in Saint-Bruno," she said.

Saint-Bruno Mayor Claude Benjamin defended the council's decision to have police at the meetings.

54 He said the video is not a fair representation of all council meetings. He said only three people were asked to leave during the last year.

Benjamin said people are only asked to leave if they are out of line.

"That's to say, when people yell, are boisterous or give the middle finger. Elected officials are not here to be insulted," he said.

In Montreal, security guards attend the meetings but the police force is not involved. In Laval, however, officers attend every meeting and kicked out three people in 2012.

NEW BRUNSWICK Woodstock police credit federal funds for lower crime Funds for Safer Communities and Neighbourhood Unit ends in March CBC News Posted: Jan 4, 2013 10:30 AM AT Last Updated: Jan 4, 2013 11:42 Woodstock Police are crediting a federally-funded program for shutting down at least one suspected drug dealer in the western New Brunswick town.

Woodstock is coping with a methamphetamine problem in the town. The highly addictive and potentially toxic chemical compound is a growing problem in rural areas all across the country.

Woodstock Police are pushing back against the drug dealers and recently carried out two drug raids in the town.

They are seeing some small successes, particularly with the help of the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Unit.

A unit operates under civil law and it allows citizens to issue letters that can then be followed by evictions and building seizures.

Woodstock Police Cpl. Carter Stone said the unit caused one suspected drug dealer soon moved out. It was help, Stone said, the town’s police force was glad to have.

Cpl. Carter Stone says the Woodstock police is being assisted by a federal program to help create safer communities. (Catherine Harrop/CBC) “Sometimes they can do things that we can't do, by law, so it's really another great tool that's available, not only for us, but for the public,” Stone said.

The Safer Communities and Neighbourhood Unit was a help in dealing with the suspected drug dealer. But Stone said the problem is the unit is federally funded and that cash runs out in March.

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According to the Department of Public Safety, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act gives citizens a civil process to shut down properties where people believe illegal activities are taking place

The government department says the illegal activities may include, drug dealing, prostitution, child sexual abuse or unlawful gaming.

The civil process is a help for a small town where police services are provided by only 14 full-time officers. Stone said the Woodstock force does not have a separate drug unit.

Stone said officers can end up dealing with everything from a barking dog to a homicide.

NOVA SCOTIA

Study urged of domestic violence among police Serious Incident Response Team gets 6 allegations of domestic assault CBC News Posted: Jan 8, 2013 8:43 AM AT Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 10:41 AM AT A consultant to police forces across Canada says he's surprised a Nova Scotia agency set up to respond to police interactions with the public has received so many complaints about police behaviour in private.

The Serious Incident Response Team was set up last April as an independent body to investigate serious accusations — such as death, serious injury and sexual assault — against police.

The team has since opened 22 investigations — six of them dealing with allegations of domestic assault against the partners of police officers.

The cases involve four RCMP officers in Bridgewater, Antigonish and Halifax and two Halifax Regional Police officers.

"The fact that we've got a fairly important cluster of events that relate to intimate partner violence involving police is a little bit alarming and concerning," said Paul McKenna, the president of Public Safety Innovation Inc. and a lecturer at Dalhousie University's School of Information Management.

"There's very little solid academic research on this topic."

Ron MacDonald, the director of SIRT, said the number of domestic violence complaints received by his team are comparable to numbers in the general population.

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"The thing is, you hear about these," he told CBC News.

"You hear about them when we begin our investigation, you hear about them when we lay a charge, you hear about them when they go to court."

'Significant public policy issue' McKenna said an American study published last year studied domestic violence within law enforcement families and found a link between stressed out police officers and psychological abuse toward their partners.

"If you set what is happening within the police culture itself against that background, it's really important for us to know what's happening between and amongst police officers. When the bedroom becomes the crime scene, that's a significant public policy issue," he said Monday.

"The events that the SIRT unit in Nova Scotia is looking at could probably be used as really worthwhile leverage for us to do this kind of study in Canada."

Staff Sgt. Mark Hartlen, the president of the Halifax Regional Police Association, said officers have access to an employee assistance program that also provides counselling and services to the entire family when things go wrong.

"Domestic violence is something that we take very seriously, obviously, within the organization and the union," he said.

"In these particular cases those members probably, in each instance, would be referred to the employee family assistance program to help them through the process and see if there is a source for what's going on within the family. It's a 24/7 service."

SIRT is responsible for investigating all serious incidents involving police in Nova Scotia, whether or not there is an allegation of wrongdoing.

The team is required to file a public report within three months of concluding its investigation.

Drug dealing taking on nastier edge January 5, 2013 - 4:16am BY MARY ELLEN MACINTYRE CAPE BRETON BUREAU SYDNEY — It’s not an illusion. Drug dealers everywhere are getting meaner and carrying powerful, often illegal, weapons, all in the hope of protecting what is theirs.

And what they consider theirs is an illegal drug business and lots of money.

57 “When I started as a police officer back 27 years ago, there was marijuana, hashish, maybe some LSD, but things have changed a lot,” Staff Sgt. Kevin Dowe, of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service, said Friday.

“Now it’s opiates, things like cocaine and highly addictive drugs, much harder drugs.”

With word that drug officers arrested two couples Thursday, one in a downtown hotel room and another in a Whitney Pier home, Dowe said police rely heavily on information from the public.

“We get the information, we set up the surveillance and we do the groundwork to get a search warrant from a judge but the information is key,” he said.

The simultaneous arrests resulted in a charge of possession of cocaine, another of possession for the purpose of trafficking in cocaine and breaches of conditions.

“There are more dealers out there because they look at it as easy money but there are consequences, like jail time, when you’re caught,” Dowe said.

As for weapons, officers are not surprised to find loaded weapons when they use a search warrant to enter a suspected drug dealer’s house.

“Firearms are not an unusual thing to find because these dealers are always afraid other dealers will try to rob them or rip them off, and they certainly don’t call police when they run into those kinds of problems.”

The recent arrest of a couple in South Side of Boularderie resulted in the seizure of a kilogram of hash, a kilogram of cocaine,

18 kilograms of marijuana,

20,000 tablets of ecstasy, steroids and $20,000 in cash, and an AK-47, a .22- calibre handgun, an M-16-style .22-calibre rifle, a bulletproof vest, a double- barrel shotgun and a bow and arrow.

“I have to say, that type of weaponry would be unusual to find but it shows what is out there,” said Dowe.

The veteran officer said drug cases are labour intensive but “worth their weight in gold.

“The information we get comes from people who care about their neighbourhood and their quality of life.

“They want to clean up their neighbourhood because drug abuse affects everyone, regardless of where they live or social standing.”

It’s a tired, old adage but Dowe said the only real way to fight drugs is through education.

58

“It is the most important part in relation to curbing the problem because we can arrest them and put them in jail for awhile, but if the kids are educated to what drugs are all about in the first place, you can do a lot to prevent drug use,” he said.

“It’s very sad for the families who have someone involved with drugs, very sad.”

Cape Breton Regional Police Report Released SIRT December 21, 2012 1:34 PM The province's independent Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) released its report into allegations of obstruction of justice by a member of the Cape Breton Regional Police today, Dec. 21.

The SIRT investigation was initiated because of comments made by a person interviewed by police in October. Comments suggested that an officer may have inappropriately given information to that person about a potential search warrant in August.

SIRT's investigation revealed that the officer, a supervisor with the force, did nothing wrong.

During an investigation in August conducted by the Cape Breton Regional Police, the officer had to decide between two possible investigative options. One was to give approval to those under his command to attempt to retrieve stolen property by obtaining a search warrant, and then possibly charge the person in possession. The second was to work with the person in possession of the goods to have the items returned directly to the police, without charges being laid.

"The officer made a discretionary call to proceed with the second option. That decision weighed numerous factors," said Ron MacDonald, SIRT's independent director. "In the end, the goods were given to the police for return to the owners. This was a valid exercise of police discretion by a superior officer."

The report is available at http://gov.ns.ca/just/sirt.asp.

SIRT is responsible for investigating all serious incidents involving police in Nova Scotia, whether or not there is an allegation of wrongdoing. Investigations are under the direction and control of the independent civilian director.

SIRT can independently launch an investigation or begin an investigation after a referral from a chief of police, the head of the RCMP in Nova Scotia or the Minister of Justice. It can also investigate after a public complaint.

59 The Police Act requires the director to file a public report summarizing the results of the investigation within three months after it is finished. A copy of the summary is also to be provided to the Minister of Justice and the police agency involved.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND High school students lobby for police officer CBC News Posted: Dec 27, 2012 12:11 PM AT Last Updated: Dec 27, 2012 2:12 Police leaving school as funding runs dry A group of students at a Charlottetown high school are lobbying to keep a uniformed police officer stationed in their school.

Cst. Tim Keizer set up an office in the school in September, but the pilot project is now over and there is no money to continue it. Keizer will return to general duties on the streets of Charlottetown in January.

Student Justin Keaton said Keizer was a real asset to the school, helping to deal with drug problems and bullying. He believes the pilot should be extended.

"Send him in for a full year and see how that goes," said Keaton.

"It doesn't hurt to have a police officer at a high school. Things are just getting worse. More prescription pills are coming into play."

The province said while it supports the program, it doesn't want to start funding police in schools. Crimes prevented with data analysis, say police New focus on drinking and driving CBC News Posted: Dec 28, 2012 7:56 AM AT Last Updated: Dec 28, 2012 9:43 Police forces on P.E.I. are using new tools and techniques to analyze crime data, and having success not only in catching criminals but preventing crime.

'We've been able to get repeat impaired drivers before the courts more often.' — RCMP Staff Sgt. Jamie George Glen McGrath, a former RCMP officer who is now a civilian working for the force as a crime analyst, said crunching numbers isn't as dull as it might sound.

"In the end when the arrest is made and the conviction is had, it is satisfying and exciting and interesting," said McGrath.

McGrath is one of three crime analysts working for police forces across P.E.I. He said where and when crimes are committed can provide clues.

60

"Try to draw conclusions as to who might be committing the crimes, and their locations. And there's a prediction aspect as well where you would attempt to predict when the next crime will occur and in what area," he said.

Crime analysis helped police identify suspects in a recent string of cottage break- ins, and it helped them catch the suspects in the act.

Recently analysts have started to expand their focus beyond property crimes to include drinking and driving.

"We've been able to get repeat impaired drivers before the courts more often," said RCMP Staff Sgt. Jamie George, the head of criminal intelligence on P.E.I.

Police said they hope to use data analysis as a tool to prevent even more crime in the future.

NEWFOUNDLAND

NATIONAL Privacy watchdog seeking compromise for Tories’ Internet surveillance bill Jim Bronskill, Canadian Press | Jan 8, 2013 2:06 PM ET OTTAWA — The federal privacy watchdog is trying to help the Conservative government find a compromise in its contentious bid to bolster Internet surveillance powers.

A blueprint solicited by the privacy commissioner’s office proposes new procedures to give police and spies key information about Internet users while retaining the principle of judicial oversight, a memo obtained under the Access to Information Act shows.

The internal memo reveals assistant privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier asked University of Montreal law professor Karim Benyekhlef to come up with the proposal — “to help find a middle ground between security and privacy” — following intense public outcry about the government’s planned approach in Bill C-30.

The federal legislation would allow police, intelligence and Competition Bureau officers access to Internet subscriber information — including name, address, telephone number, email address and Internet protocol address — without a warrant. An IP address is the numeric label assigned to a computer on the Internet.

61

Currently, release of such data, held by Internet service providers, is voluntary.

Opponents of the bill say allowing authorities access to Internet subscriber information without a court-approved warrant would be a dangerous infringement of privacy because even that limited data can be revealing.

The bill would also require telecommunication service providers to have the technical capability to enable police and spies to intercept messages and conversations.

The government indicated the bill would go directly to a House of Commons committee, skipping the usual second reading, to allow for amendments. But it has not yet resurfaced.

The internal memo — prepared last July for Bernier, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, and the office’s senior lawyer — brands Benyekhlef’s plan a “warrant light” approach to judicial authorization.

Benyekhlef, a former federal prosecutor who is now director of the university’s Centre de Recherche en Droit Public, concludes that the federal bill is inconsistent with the Charter of Rights because it allows warrantless access to subscriber information.

“There is tradition in Canadian law that the state must have a warrant before exercising its search or seizure powers,” Benyekhlef said in an interview.

He proposes a five-step process in which the authorities would first apply to a court for an order seeking subscriber data. This could be done in person, by paper or on the phone.

A judge or justice of the peace would review the application to ensure it sets out “reasonable suspicion” that the Criminal Code or other federal law has been breached and that the information sought relates to the alleged offence.

There is tradition in Canadian law that the state must have a warrant before exercising its search or seizure powers

If the application conditions are met, a signed order would be provided to the investigator, who could then present it to the legal division of an Internet provider. The provider would then be required to hand the investigator the data and maintain a record of the transaction.

The privacy commissioner’s analysis of the proposal points out its similarity to the production order powers currently available to authorities seeking financial and commercial information, in place since 2004.

The memo notes this power allows police, after receiving court approval, to present a financial institution or other commercial firm with an individual’s name.

62 The firm must then produce account numbers, date of birth and current and previous addresses.

The privacy commissioner’s office understands the challenges faced by law enforcement in fighting online crime “at a time of rapidly changing communications technologies and the need to modernize their tactics and tools accordingly,” said Scott Hutchinson, a spokesman for the commissioner.

The office wanted to see whether there was a tool that would help authorities get judicial approval to obtain the information they want within desired time limits, he said in a written response to questions.

“Our office has thus far consulted with the Canadian Chiefs of Police on this document and we continue our analysis of this issue,” Hutchinson said.

The privacy commissioner “continues to try and stay on top of developments” relating to the online surveillance bill and has kept the lines of communications open with the departments involved, he added.

“We await to see what the government’s intentions will be for this bill, and will be ready to share our observations and expertise to help ensure that the privacy rights of Canadians are protected.” Mountie suing RCMP over probe into top- secret Ottawa operation

BY GARY DIMMOCK, OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 3, 2013

OTTAWA — The Mountie who was in charge of the force's surveillance and covert-tech unit is suing the RCMP, and its top officers, for allegedly destroying his career and reputation by wrongly targeting him in a politically charged investigation over his role in a real estate deal to secure a front for a top-secret operation in Ottawa's east end.

In the $1.2-million statement of claim, Supt. Mike Gaudreau says RCMP Deputy Commissioner Doug Lang and other top officers, including ex-commissioner William Elliott, deliberately abused their office and authority by investigating false claims that he concealed his relationship with the real estate agent who collected a commission on the $3-million RCMP lease deal.

But according to Gaudreau’s statement of claim, filed in Ontario Superior Court on Dec. 20, the senior Mountie not only disclosed his personal relationship with the real estate agent — then his girlfriend — but made it clear he would not be

63 playing “any direct role in the selection of the covert facility, remaining at arm’s length.”

The Ottawa RCMP superintendent is still facing internal charges of disgraceful conduct because of the allegation, and will be fighting to clear his name at his disciplinary hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

Gaudreau’s 30 years in the Mounties fits the force’s recruiting slogan “A Career Nowhere Near Ordinary,” with him becoming the force’s expert on covert operations after years in drug and organized-crime units, including three years spent undercover full-time, and living at a covert house in Montreal that also served as the undercover unit’s office. He went on to be the officer in charge of the RCMP’s Ottawa drug section, then assistant crime-ops officer in charge of the national organized crime and border security unit.

Gaudreau’s last post before being removed from office was director of the Technical Investigation Services Branch, a plain name for the force’s covert operations unit which includes the special entry section and the surveillance and covert technology section. These are the secretive RCMP units that don’t normally make the press even though the national police force’s research and development considers it a top priority for funding.

It was one of the force’s top-secret projects that landed Gaudreau in trouble even though he says in court filings that he did everything by the book. It all started in 2009 when someone in his special entry section proposed an undercover operation called Project RAVE. The covert operation, approved by headquarters in March 2009, included plans to secure a commercial property to be used as a business front for the top-secret operation in Ottawa’s east end. The operational plan, which was a priority for funding, also included fake bank accounts.

But months after the plan was approved, the Mounties were still having trouble finding a suitable commercial property with a residential real estate agent. That’s when, according to Gaudreau’s statement of claim, he mentioned that he knew a commercial real estate agent. He says that he disclosed she was his girlfriend at the time, and stayed at arm’s length from the deal, and more, says in court documents that the RCMP did a background check on her.

Gaudreau also says in court filings that the RCMP pursued an investigation against him even though they learned from the outset that he did not conceal his relationship with the agent.

Since the allegation surfaced, Gaudreau says his world has collapsed around him. His physical health deteriorated to the point that he was forced on medical leave and has sought counselling for his emotional stress that made him the object of contempt and ridicule, according to court filings.

“His children have been embarrassed and humiliated and his relationships with family members, friends and colleagues have suffered greatly,” the statement of claim says.

64 The lawsuit also alleges that top Mounties, including the ex-commissioner, failed to safeguard his reputation and failed to apprise him about any information about his disciplinary case that was “leaked” to the Citizen in 2011. Gaudreau also says senior officers “furnished” statements to the Citizen with “reckless disregard for the truth,” according to his statement of claim.

The statement of claim also says that his Notice of Disciplinary Hearing, dated Jan. 11, 2011, had a security classification of “Secret,” but still ended up on the front page of the Citizen. In turn, Gaudreau, according to his court filing, requested an investigation into the Citizen leak. “These statements could only have been leaked to the (Citizen), by an internal (RCMP) source, and with the intention of discrediting and injuring the plaintiff,” says the statement of claim, filed by his lawyer Louise Morel.

Two days after a Feb. 5, 2011, Citizen story about Gaudreau, Lang, the RCMP deputy commissioner, oversaw a Question Period note for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews about the “leak,” according to court filings. In his statement of claim, Gaudreau says the briefing addressed the internal discipline process but failed to address “the serious issue of secret RCMP information being leaked to the media and what, if any, steps the RCMP was taking to investigate this breach of security.”

The statement of claim by the RCMP’s covert-ops expert then cites another Citizen story saying “another front page article revealing secret and sensitive information on the matter.”

Gaudreau says he is now “tainted” and considered “untrustworthy” because of the allegation and says the Mounties have compromised his future employment opportunities. The superintendent is still on the force and will be defending his unblemished career at the upcoming disciplinary hearing.

None of these claims have been proven in court, and the RCMP has not yet filed a statement of defence.

Dec. 20, 2012, 1:58 p.m. EST The Minister of Public Safety Announces Changes to Criminal Code List of Terrorist Entities

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, Dec 20, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- The Honourable Vic Toews, Canada's Minister of Public Safety, today announced that the Government of Canada has made changes to the Criminal Code list of terrorist entities.

"The list of terrorist entities sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate terrorist activities, including terrorist financing, or those who support such

65 activities," said Minister Toews. "That is why Canada has made the principled decision to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force to the list."

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force is the clandestine branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for extraterritorial operations, and for exporting the Iranian Revolution through activities such as facilitating terrorist operations. The Qods Force provides arms, funding and paramilitary training to extremist groups, including the Taliban, Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Earlier this year, under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, the Government of Canada listed Iran as a state that supports terrorism.

"The listing of terrorist entities facilitates the prosecution of perpetrators and supporters of terrorism and plays a key role in countering terrorist financing," added Minister Toews. "The Government of Canada remains vigilant against the threat of terrorism and is committed to ensuring that the list of terrorist entities remains current."

The Government of Canada has also completed its two year review of the Criminal Code list of terrorist entities. This review found that 43 entities currently listed should remain on the list, and that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) should be removed. The United States of America and the European Union have also recently removed the MEK from their terrorist entities list.

While it is not a crime to be a member of a listed entity, under the Criminal Code, any person or group listed may have their assets seized and forfeited. There may be severe penalties for persons and organizations that deal in the property or finances of a listed entity. In addition, it is a crime to knowingly participate in, or contribute to, any activity of a listed entity for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the entity to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity. This offence and other related offences are set out, in full, in the Criminal Code.

The names of listed entities under the Criminal Code can be found on the Public Safety Canada Web site at www.publicsafety.gc.ca under National Security, Listed Entities.

Long-gun firearms sales 'open to abuse,' says Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer

By TIM NAUMETZ | Published: Thursday, 12/20/2012 4:53 pm EST PARLIAMENT HILL—Seven million rifles and shotguns in Canada have “dropped off the radar” following destruction of all the registry data and elimination of mandatory sales records for gun dealers and stores, says a chief firearms officer

66 who lost a battle over rifle and shotgun sales with Public Safety Minister Vic Toews last June.

In the wake of a gunman’s massacre of 20 school children and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Friday, Dec. 14, Ontario Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt told The Hill Times elimination of the long gun registry, along with regulations later passed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his Cabinet, will make it virtually impossible to trace long guns, including powerful semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, once they leave store shelves and gun dealer shops.

“Seven million firearms, nationally, have just dropped off the radar, seven million long guns,” Mr. Wyatt, a superintendent with the Ontario Provincial Police, said in an interview. Mr. Wyatt said, among other developments, that Canadian Tire, which he lauded as a “model business” when it comes to controlling rifle and shotgun sales even without pressure from government agencies, has already begun expanding the number of its stores that stock and display firearms, after the iconic chain reduced or eliminated gun displays in many of its stores after the federal registry began to be phased in nearly two decades ago.

The Firearms Act required confirmation of possession and acquisition licences before any store or person could transfer or sell anyone a rifle or shotgun, known as non-restricted firearms. Under the law, gun sellers also had to report their sales to the RCMP-administered Canadian Firearms Centre.

Those requirements no longer exist, following the day Bill C-19 took effect last April 5 and Cabinet’s June passage of regulations forbidding provincial firearms officers from requiring gun stores or other businesses that sell firearms to maintain a ledger of all sales.

“I think it’s open to abuse. We had a really good system beforehand, a means of checking that unlicensed persons or criminals weren’t legally acquiring firearms. Now we have something close to what they have in the States,” said Mr. Wyatt.

The Firearms Act amendments and regulatory retreat have come back to haunt the Conservative government following the Sandy Hook killings, with a spate of news stories this past week pointing out Canada’s decision to ease off control over rifles and shotguns, while maintaining tight restrictions over restricted handguns and restricted, but still legal, versions of rapid-fire semi-automatic rifles.

The variant of a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle version used by Newtown gunman Adam Lanza, 20, whose mother owned the rifle and had it registered in the state, according to reports, is prohibited in Canada under the act because of its military style and appearance. But another 14 variants of the same Bushmaster semi- automatic rifles are legal and continue to be registered as restricted long guns in Canada, used mostly by gun-club members and target enthusiasts. The .223 calibre bore of the rifle, barely wider than a .22 calibre rifle, makes it too small for large-game hunting.

67 Stores or gun dealers that sell riles such as the Bushmaster AR-15 must still report the transactions, and names of the buyers, to the Canadian Firearms Centre, where they will be entered in a registry that continues for handguns and specialized rifles used or maintained by clubs or target-range shooters.

Mr. Wyatt predicted that with the shifting landscape of control over rifle and shotgun sales and ownership in Canada since last March, when the Conservative majority pushed Bill C-19 to end the registry and destroy its records through the House of Commons and the Senate, will send gun control in Canada closer to the free-for-all attitude espoused and fiercely advocated by radical firearm owners in the United States, who base their position on American revolution-era U.S. Constitutional guarantees of freedom to bear arms and maintain citizen militias.

Mr. Wyatt explained that when he and Mr. Toews locked horns last June over his insistence that dealers and stores continue to keep ledgers of sales, even though the registry had been eliminated, he and other provincial chief firearms officers across the country imposed the measure under a section of the Firearms Act that authorizes them to institute safety and storage rules on licence holders, including gun shops.

Mr. Toews (Provencher, Man.) and the federal Cabinet passed a regulation circumventing that provision, apparently a loophole the government overlooked when it passed Bill C-19. Mr. Toews argued store ledgers were an attempt to maintain a “back door” registry that conflicted with the intent of the law ending the federal system.

Mr. Wyatt said most if not all gun dealers and stores maintained the ledger system of recording gun sales, first established in 1973, throughout the period when all long-gun sales were reported to the Canadian Firearms Centre.

“It was nothing new, I didn’t change anything, [there had been] just the repeal of the long gun registry, we had had that (ledger system) before. That’s what I tried to say, ‘This is nothing new.’ I’m not trying to have some sort of backdoor registry, which they were accusing me of,” Mr. Wyatt said.

Without the registry, and under the amended Firearms Act, which does not require gun shops or stores to confirm a rifle or shotgun buyer has a licence, Mr. Wyatt said he believes public risk of violence will increase in Canada.

He said he believes the risks will also increase for institutions such as schools and colleges, sites where disturbed individuals have wreaked havoc in the U.S. incidents like the Newtown massacre and earlier shootings, though the Sandy Hook attack was the first resulting in the mass deaths of such young children.

The 1989 shooting death of 14 women engineering students at Montreal’s L’École Polytechnique was a leading driver behind Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government’s decision to bring in legislation to establish the rifle and shotgun registry in 1995. Then justice minister Allan Rock, now president of the University

68 of Ottawa, was given charge of the project and came under ferocious attack, including personal threats, from gun owners.

Mr. Wyatt mentioned one of his gun-culture foes, Tony Bernardo, head of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, is one of 12 firearms enthusiasts and registry opponents who make up Mr. Toews’ Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee. Mr. Bernardo was one of the most active gun lobbyists behind the Conservative decision to get rid of the long-gun registry, and his group later called on rifle and shotgun owners to simply trade firearms among themselves to thwart any remnant of registration control.

The advisory group last March urged Mr. Toews to end the classification of prohibited long guns in Canada and include those kinds of weapons, including fully automatic rifles, in effect machine guns, and ‘Saturday night special’ handguns in the restricted category, legal but registered.

Facing pressure in the House of Commons over that recommendation, Mr. Harper responded that the idea was not government policy. The government, however, acceded to an advisory committee recommendation to finally scrap regulations for tougher firearms office control over gun shows, which had been first passed in 1998 and never put into force through a series of Liberal and Conservative governments.

The Hill Times asked Mr. Wyatt whether the risks to public safety, and to institutions such as schools, as in the Newtown tragedy, will increase under the new gun-control regime in Canada.

“Tony Bernardo would tell you no, but I wouldn’t agree with that,” Mr. Wyatt said. “It’s really close to impossible to trace long guns once they have left the business,” he said.

Gazette:Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations Registration

SOR/2012-251 November 30, 2012

FIREARMS ACT

P.C. 2012-1585 November 29, 2012

Whereas the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is of the opinion that the change made to the Firearms Marking Regulations (see footnote a) by the annexed Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations is so immaterial and insubstantial that section 118 of the Firearms Act (see footnote b) should not be applicable in the circumstances;

69 And whereas the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness will, in accordance with subsection 119(4) of that Act, have a statement of the reasons why he formed that opinion laid before each House of Parliament;

Therefore, His Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, pursuant to section 117 (see footnote c) of the Firearms Act (see footnote d), makes the annexed Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations.

REGULATIONS AMENDING THE FIREARMS MARKING REGULATIONS

AMENDMENT

1. Section 6 of the Firearms Marking Regulations (see footnote 1) is replaced by the following:

6. These Regulations come into force on December 1, 2013.

COMING INTO FORCE

2. These Regulations come into force on the day on which they are registered.

REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS STATEMENT

(This statement is not part of the Regulations.)

Executive summary

Issues: Deferral of the existing Firearms Marking Regulations (Regulations) so that they do not come into force on December 1, 2012.

Description: The existing Firearms Marking Regulations, which are being deferred, were drafted to respond to the international treaties of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The marking of firearms is one of several requirements of these international treaties to facilitate police crime gun investigations. The existing Regulations were approved by the Governor in Council in 2004 but not implemented. They stipulate the markings that need to be permanently stamped or engraved on the frame or receiver of all firearms imported into, or manufactured in, Canada.

Cost-benefit statement: There are no costs with this deferral. The benefit will be to allow sufficient time for fulsome consultations regarding amendments to the Firearms Marking Regulations.

“One-for-One” Rule and small business lens: This rule does not apply, since with the deferral, the existing Regulations will not come into force. Consequently, the deferral will not result in any change in administrative costs to firearms businesses.

70

Domestic and international coordination and cooperation: Canada has signed, but not ratified, the United Nations Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition (UN Firearms Protocol) [2002] and the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter- American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) [1997]. The existing Regulations, which were drafted to reflect the requirements of the treaties, are being deferred from coming into force. With the deferral of the existing Regulations, and as a result of the elimination of record-keeping requirements for non-restricted firearms, Canada would not be in a position to ratify these treaties.

Background

Firearms Marking Regulations (existing Regulations)

Canada has signed, but not ratified, the United Nations Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition (see footnote 2) (UN Firearms Protocol) [2002] and the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (see footnote 3) (CIFTA) [1997]. The marking of firearms is one of several requirements of these international treaties. In order to comply with these agreements, Canada requires regulations for the marking of firearms. In addition to being treaty imperatives, firearms markings have value for domestic and international law enforcement as, when coupled with records, they can be used to trace crime guns.

The existing Regulations, drafted to respond to the international treaties, were approved by the Governor in Council in 2004 but not implemented. They stipulate the markings that need to be permanently stamped or engraved on the frame or receiver of all firearms imported into, or manufactured in, Canada. Domestically manufactured firearms must bear the name of the manufacturer, serial number and “Canada” or “CA”; imported firearms must be marked with “Canada” or “CA” and the last two digits of the year of import (e.g. “12” for 2012). These existing Regulations will be deferred so that they do not come into force.

In response to requests by firearms businesses for additional preparatory time, the coming into force of the existing Regulations was amended to April 1, 2006, deferred to December 1, 2007, and deferred again to December 1, 2009. During the 2007–2009 deferral period, an independent study was undertaken by Government Consulting Services Canada to look at the utility of markings from a law enforcement perspective, the various marking technologies available, and the implications for the Canadian firearms industry and users. The study found that markings help to expedite law enforcement tracing efforts by focusing investigations to the last legal owner of the firearm or the most recent country of import, rather than to the manufacturer. The study further determined that the cost to stamp or engrave markings would be low for Canadian manufacturers and large importers (i.e. ranging from zero to $25 per firearm depending on when

71 markings are applied), although it was not possible to determine the financial impact on individuals and small importers.

The existing Regulations were deferred again until December 1, 2010, to consider a proposal from the firearms industry to place the information required by international treaties on adhesive metallic strips. The existing Regulations were subsequently deferred to December 1, 2012, to permit examination of program design and implementation issues associated with the current (e.g. permanent stamping or engraving) and alternative (e.g. adhesive metallic strip) marking options in order to determine a marking scheme that would contribute to public safety, meet international obligations, minimize costs to the Canadian firearms industry and firearms owners, and facilitate law enforcement tracing efforts.

Consequently, in 2011, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) conducted tests examining the industry proposal to mark firearms with adhesive metallic strips. Working with industry, adhesive technologies known to be among the strongest binding agents available were identified for testing. The RCMP subjected these adhesives to conditions (e.g. extreme temperature variations) and elements (e.g. cleaning solvents) to which firearms are commonly exposed. It was concluded that the marking of firearms with adhesive metallic strips is not practically viable given the challenges in ensuring adequate adhesion under a range of conditions.

Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations

The Government-proposed amendments to the existing Regulations were published in the Canada Gazette on October 13, 2012. (see footnote 4)

The existing Regulations would be changed such that firearms manufactured in, or imported to, Canada would be permanently stamped or engraved, on the frame or receiver with a serial number, name of manufacturer and any other markings as required to distinguish them from other firearms. There would be no requirement to mark “Canada” (or “CA”) and, in the case of imported firearms, the year of import. Exempted from the proposed marking requirements would be rare firearms or firearms that are of a value that is unusually high for that type of firearm. With certain exceptions for imported firearms, such as firearms imported for use in a video production, markings would be visible without disassembly using tools or implements.

Issue

To avoid the coming into force on December 1, 2012, of the existing Regulations in order to provide sufficient time for fulsome consultations regarding amendments to the Firearms Marking Regulations.

Objectives

The deferral will provide for fulsome consultations regarding amendments to the Firearms Marking Regulations. Such a deferral will also help to prevent confusion

72 that could arise should the existing Regulations be allowed to come into force, only to be amended shortly thereafter.

Description

The deferral will amend the coming into force date of the existing Firearms Marking Regulations, from December 1, 2012, to December 1, 2013.

Regulatory and non-regulatory options considered

The proposed Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations would require that firearms are permanently stamped or engraved with a serial number, name of manufacturer and any other markings required to distinguish them from other firearms, independent of any other conditions, without imposing an unnecessary burden on law abiding firearms businesses and owners. Since the intention of the Government is to amend the existing Regulations, the move to defer them, in advance of their coming into force, would avoid any possible confusion.

Benefits and costs

There are no costs associated with this deferral. The benefit of the deferral of the existing Regulations will be to allow sufficient time for fulsome consultations regarding amendments to the Firearms Marking Regulations. To bring the existing Regulations into force, followed soon after with amendments, would be confusing and could result in those businesses that are not yet applying import marks potentially incurring a cost.

“One-for-One” Rule

This rule does not apply, since the deferral of the existing Regulations such that they will not come into force will not result in any change in administrative costs to firearms businesses.

Small business lens

The small business lens does not apply to this proposal, as there are no costs to small business.

Consultation

With respect to the proposed Regulations Amending the Firearms Marking Regulations, several meetings were held with the Minister of Public Safety Canada’s Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee (CFAC) to consider various issues, including the need for essential identifying information to describe firearms, which would not be costly to businesses or gun purchasers. CFAC is supportive of the deferral to allow for consultation.

Law enforcement representatives, such as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Association of Police Boards and the Canadian Police

73 Association, were not consulted on the deferral of the existing Regulations. Previously, they expressed support for the existing Regulations, from the perspective of public safety and national security. They are of the view that the markings, in conjunction with the availability of records identifying the last legal transaction relating to the firearm, could expedite investigations by utilizing firearms tracing to assist in solving a specific gun crime or to detect firearms trafficking, smuggling and stockpiling.

Regulatory cooperation

The multilateral agreements to which Canada is a signatory, namely the United Nations Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition (UN Firearms Protocol) and the Organization of American States Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) require, among other things, member states to adopt specific firearms markings, record retention and sharing systems to facilitate police crime gun investigations.

The existing Regulations were drafted to respond to the marking requirements of the UN Firearms Protocol and CIFTA. Canada has not ratified these treaties. From Canada’s perspective, all the requirements of these international agreements have to be implemented in our country first, after which consideration of ratification could follow. However, with the deferral of the existing Regulations and as a result of the elimination of record-keeping requirements for non-restricted firearms, Canada would not be in a position to meet the international requirements and to thereby consider ratifying these treaties.

Rationale

The deferral of the existing Regulations to December 1, 2013, will allow for fulsome consultations with respect to possible amendments to the Firearms Marking Regulations.

Implementation, enforcement and service standards

These existing Regulations are currently set to come into force on December 1, 2012. Communication efforts will focus on informing firearms businesses and law enforcement stakeholders of the deferral of the existing Regulations, with a news release and information provided by the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program. Other media relations will be handled on a responsive basis.

This present amendment defers the coming into force date of a measure that has not yet been implemented. As a result, no other implementation, enforcement or service standard issues have been identified.

Contact

Lyndon Murdock

74 Director 269 Laurier Avenue W Law Enforcement and Policing Branch Public Safety Canada Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0P8 General inquiries: 613-944-4875 Fax: 613-954-4808 Email: firearms/[email protected]

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Gaps in F.B.I. Data Undercut Background Checks for Guns

The New York Times By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and CHARLIE SAVAGE Published: December 20, 2012

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Nearly two decades after lawmakers began requiring background checks for gun buyers, significant gaps in the F.B.I.’s database of criminal and mental health records allow thousands of people to buy firearms every year who should be barred from doing so.

The database is incomplete because many states have not provided federal authorities with comprehensive records of people involuntarily committed or otherwise ruled mentally ill. Records are also spotty for several other categories of prohibited buyers, including those who have tested positive for illegal drugs or have a history of domestic violence.

While some states, including New York, have submitted more than 100,000 names of mentally ill people to the F.B.I. database, 19 — including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland and Maine — have submitted fewer than 100 records and Rhode Island has submitted none, according to federal data compiled by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That suggests that millions of names are missing from the federal database, gun control advocates and law enforcement officials say.

“Until it has all the records of people out there in the country who have been deemed too dangerous to own a firearm, the background check system still looks like Swiss cheese,” said Mark Glaze, director of the group. The gaps exist because the system is voluntary; the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the federal government cannot force state officials to participate in the federal background check system. As a result, when a gun dealer asks the F.B.I. to check a buyer’s history, the bureau sometimes allows the sale to proceed, even

75 though the purchaser should have been prohibited from acquiring a weapon, because its database is missing the relevant records.

While the database flaws do not appear to have been a factor in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, they have been linked to other attacks, including the Virginia Tech mass murder in 2007. In that case, a Virginia state judge had declared the gunman mentally ill, but the record of that proceeding was not submitted to the F.B.I. He was able to pass a background check and buy the weapons he used to kill 32 people and wound 17 others.

Since then, Virginia has increased its submissions to the F.B.I. But other states have not taken similar steps because of lack of political will, technical obstacles and state privacy laws, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which conducted a survey of states last year about their compliance. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York is a co-chairman of the group.

A July report by the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan Congressional watchdog, found that the total number of mental health records submitted by states to the background check system increased to 1.2 million from about 126,000 between 2004 and 2011, but that the increase largely reflected the efforts of just 12 states. And, it found, 30 states were not making noncriminal records — like positive drug test results for people on probation — available to the system.

Charles H. Ramsey, the police commissioner in Philadelphia, said the system needed to be strengthened immediately. “There is a lot of data sitting in different places, and we need to be able to access it in a timely fashion,” he said. “It ought to be a top priority now.”

The gaps in the database have exacerbated the effect of a loophole that results in violent felons, fugitives and the mentally ill being able to buy firearms when the F.B.I. cannot determine the person’s history during a three-day waiting period.

Roughly 97 percent of the time, specialists said, the F.B.I. can provide an instant answer, but sometimes an ambiguity — an arrest record that does not say whether someone was convicted, or a common name — requires calling local courthouses to track down the information.

That can cause delays as local officials search through records, some of which are not yet digitized, law enforcement officials said. If the F.B.I. investigation is not completed within the waiting period, would-be gun buyers are permitted to go ahead.

Since 2005, 22,162 firearms — including nearly 3,000 this year — have been bought after the waiting period by people later determined to have been disqualified because of their criminal and mental histories, according to an examination of F.B.I. data.

76 Some of the weapons were used in violent crimes, including a fatal drive-by shooting, but it is not clear how many were linked to criminal acts, because authorities are barred by Congress from tracking such information.

Many of the guns were not swiftly confiscated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as federal law requires, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials and government documents. It could take weeks or months to collect them, if ever, the officials said, because the agency is too thinly stretched to make retrieval a high priority.

The bureau and several of its agents said in interviews that they focused on trying to recover firearms from felons who had recently committed a violent crime or were under a restraining order. But Scot Thomasson, a former chief of the A.T.F.’s firearms operations division who retired this year, said that Congress, facing pressure from gun lobbyists, had made it hard for the agency to do its job by restricting its funding, forcing tough decisions.

“If you are an agent and are hot on the trail of a guy who killed a lot of people,” he said, “you are not going to turn around and work on one of these cases.”

Some gun shops say they sell to buyers who have not been cleared in the three- day window, including Bass Pro Shops, which has 58 stores in the United States. “We follow the law,” said Larry L. Whiteley, a spokesman. But if a buyer is “jittery or acting funny,” he said, “we won’t sell them the firearm.”

Other businesses — including the country’s largest gun dealer, Walmart — say they do not sell firearms to buyers if the F.B.I. has not responded in the three-day window. Dennis Pratte, owner of the NOVA weapons store in Falls Church, Va., said, “We are just as concerned about firearms getting into the wrong hands as the state police or the F.B.I.”

After the school shooting in Newtown, in which 20 first graders and six adults were killed, pressure has mounted on President Obama and lawmakers to strengthen federal gun laws. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would lead a task force to propose ways to limit sales of assault weapons and close loopholes.

That probably will focus attention on the F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system, which was required by the 1993 Brady background- check law.

At an office building in Clarksburg, W.Va., servers and backup drives hum in a huge basement. Upstairs, workers with headsets sit in cubicles, taking calls from gun dealers across the country. In 2012, about 17 million background checks have been done through the F.B.I.’s system.

The background check requirements apply only to licensed dealers, not the private sellers who account for an estimated 40 percent of sales. Restrictions imposed by Congress on government tracking of firearms make it hard to know exactly how many weapons are sold each year, but according to the A.T.F., more

77 than five million firearms are manufactured each year for sale in the United States, and about three million more such weapons are imported. Those numbers do not account for the sale of used guns.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, Congress enacted a law designed to improve the background check system, including directing federal agencies to share relevant data with the F.B.I. and setting up a special grant program to encourage states to share more information with the federal government. But only states that also set up a system for people to petition to get their gun purchasing rights restored were eligible under the law — a key concession to the National Rifle Association — which proved to be an extra hurdle many states have not yet overcome.

While the law also allowed the Justice Department to withhold some general law enforcement grant money from states that did not submit their records to the system, the department has not imposed any such penalties, the G.A.O. found. After the January 2011 mass shooting in Tucson that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords seriously wounded, the Justice Department developed a blueprint to close the holes in the background check system, including steps that could be taken by executive order and not require Congressional action. But the recommendations were largely shelved at the time because the political atmosphere was deeply hostile to new gun control steps.

Lawmakers and groups for gun control have pushed a bill called the Fix Gun Checks Act, co-sponsored by Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Charles E. Schumer, both New York Democrats, to resolve many of the problems. Their proposals, however, have faced stiff opposition from gun rights advocates. This week, Ms. McCarthy, whose husband died in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road 19 years ago, called for her legislation to move, saying the Newtown schoolchildren massacre had changed the political environment.

“There’s always sadness after a mass shooting — there’s public mourning,” she said. “But this time I’m also seeing a lot of anger. Anger from people fed up with gun violence in America. Anger from people fed up with the gun lobby’s tactics in Washington. And anger from people fed up with the lack of courage.

Cuomo to Press for Wider Curbs on Gun Access By THOMAS KAPLAN Published: January 8, 2013 406 Comments The New York Times ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, pushing New York to become the first state to enact major new gun laws in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., plans on Wednesday to propose one of the country’s most restrictive bans on assault weapons.

New York is one of seven states that already ban at least some assault weapons. But Mr. Cuomo has described the existing law as having “more holes than Swiss

78 cheese,” and he wants to broaden the number of guns and magazines covered by the law while also making it harder for gun makers to tweak their products to get around the ban.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, will outline his proposal in his State of the State address, but even before he speaks, he has incited anxiety among gun owners by acknowledging in a radio interview that “confiscation could be an option” for assault weapons owned by New Yorkers. Since that interview, Mr. Cuomo has not mentioned the idea, and his aides have acknowledged that it would be impractical.

But gun rights groups have seized on the comment, even promoting a petition on the Web site of the White House that declares, “We do not live in Nazi Germany,” and asks the Obama administration to block any effort at confiscation by Mr. Cuomo.

Since the shootings in Newtown, Mr. Cuomo has been trying to negotiate an agreement on gun laws with legislative leaders in Albany — he even contemplated calling them back into special session last month — and the talks continued into Tuesday, as the governor sought an agreement before his speech.

According to people briefed on the talks, the governor is considering not only rewriting the state’s assault weapons ban, but also proposing more expansive use of mental health records in background checks of gun buyers, lower limits on the capacity of magazines sold legally in New York and a new requirement that gun permits be subject to periodic recertification.

New York already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and the debate over new restrictions here reflects a significant change in the national conversation over guns, as states and the federal government grapple with whether and how to limit the possession of weapons that have been used in multiple mass killings in recent years.

Mr. Cuomo, a shotgun owner, has long spoken in favor of tougher gun control but has not used his considerable political muscle to make the issue a priority over his two years as governor. Now, citing the recent killings, he is seeking to strike a deal that could be used as a model in other statehouses.

“I think what the nation is saying now after Connecticut, what people in New York are saying is ‘Do something, please,’ ” Mr. Cuomo told reporters recently.

New York’s existing assault weapons ban was approved in the aftermath of another mass shooting, at Columbine High School in 1999. The next year, Gov. George E. Pataki surprised his fellow Republicans by pushing through the Legislature a package of tough new gun laws, including the measure to outlaw assault weapons. But many high-powered rifles now in production are exempt from the ban because, advocacy groups say, manufacturers have altered their products to circumvent the law.

79 “This is a singular moment in the history of the gun control movement,” said Richard M. Aborn, the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City. “The governor has the opportunity to set the high-water mark and continue New York’s leadership position in having the most effective gun control laws in the country.”

The state’s District Attorneys Association sent a letter to the governor and legislative leaders on Tuesday calling for, among other things, the elimination of a grandfather clause that allows some high-capacity magazines. And nearly 100 lawmakers have endorsed a set of proposals that includes limiting handgun purchases to one per month, requiring a new form of ballistics identification and putting in place universal background checks.

But Mr. Cuomo faces a complicated political landscape in Albany. The Assembly is controlled by Democrats who are eager for more gun restrictions, while the Senate this year is to be controlled by an unusual coalition of Republicans, who have largely resisted new gun laws, and dissident Democrats, who support more gun control. Mr. Cuomo, during his first half of his term, assiduously courted Senate Republicans, even persuading them to allow the vote that legalized same-sex marriage, but he has indicated that he is now willing to challenge the Republicans over the gun issue.

On Saturday, after the Senate Republicans called for stiffening penalties for violations of existing gun laws, but not tightening the assault weapons ban, Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman said the Republican proposal “insults the common sense of New Yorkers.”

Gun rights advocates argue that Mr. Cuomo is wrong to focus his attention on assault weapons; of 769 homicides in New York State in 2011, only five were committed with rifles of any kind, according to the State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

“This issue is not about guns, and the reason they are pushing the gun issue is because it’s much easier for them to say, ‘Look what we did; we’re going to make people safer in New York. We passed more gun laws,’ ” said Thomas H. King, the president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. Mr. King, echoing the recommendation of the National Rifle Association, said that instead of banning certain guns, New York should require armed security at all schools.

Senator Catharine Young, Republican of Olean, in western New York, said she had been receiving calls from constituents who were worried about what action the Legislature might take.

“The vast majority of people who own firearms in my district are law-abiding and extremely responsible,” Ms. Young said. “They aren’t the problem; it’s illegal guns and untreated mental illness that are the problems.”

Cracking down on high-powered weapons has long been a priority for many urban Democrats in the Legislature; to draw attention to the issue, one senator

80 even went to a gun shop near Albany to buy ammunition for an AK-47 while the transaction was recorded with a hidden camera.

“A lot of people look at this as a battle between people who want to take away all the guns and people who want to have no restrictions on guns; but most members of the public and most members of the Legislature understand that reasonable restrictions on guns make sense,” said Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat. Last weekend, he said, brought another reminder of the urgency at hand: a 16-year-old from Mr. Kavanagh’s district was shot dead on Friday.

Citizen Review Board: After years of irrelevancy, new police watchdog is off to a solid start Published: Sunday, December 23, 2012, 3:00 AM Updated: Sunday, December 23, 2012, 3:01 AM The Post-Standard Editorial Board

A year ago, the Syracuse Common Council unanimously voted to revive and revamp the cityâ•˙s Citizen Review Board. The panel, empowered to investigate complaints about police misconduct, had been moribund for years.

Last week, the new CRB issued its first quarterly report. It shows that significant progress has been made ╉ and significant improvement is still needed.

First, the good news.

â•¢ The CRB has been active.

Admittedly, it had a pretty low bar to clear. The old CRB processed 13 complaints in 2010, six of them left over from 2009. It hadnâ•˙t held a fact-finding hearing in at least six years.

In just 10 months of operation, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 of this year, the new CRB processed twice that number ╉ 26 complaints. Nineteen were closed after they were found unworthy of review by a hearing panel of three board members. Seven went to fact-finding hearings. In four of those cases, the CRB recommended discipline for the police officers involved. More on that later.

â•¢ The CRB has made significant efforts to reach out to the community.

The old CRB was nearly invisible. It didnâ•˙t have a website or issue regular reports. Its board rarely met, and board seats were chronically vacant.

The new CRB has a home page on the cityâ•˙s website, www.syracuse.ny.us/CRB.aspx, populated with information about what the board

81 does, when it meets, who board members are and how citizens can file a complaint. It has a presence in the jail. In August, it held a barbecue at Westmoreland Park to meet the public. CRB Administrator Joseph Lipari, hired in May, regularly meets with Syracuse ministers. He is cultivating relationships with Police Chief Frank Fowler and other stakeholders. Fowlerâ•˙s department, for its part, has cooperated by sharing records and conducting training for CRB board members.

â•¢ With stronger subpoena powers and the backing of city lawyers, the CRBâ•˙s capacity to investigate complaints is much improved over its predecessor. It reports it already has used subpoenas to obtain evidence and compel testimony.

â•¢ CRB statistics show, in broad strokes, where there is friction between police and the citizenry. The No. 1 complaint in 2012 has been use of excessive force, followed by complaints about an officerâ•˙s demeanor and then by an officerâ•˙s failure to act. We hope the city and police administration take note of areas needing improvement.

Also, itâ•˙s encouraging that complaints are so few. The CRB expects to receive 70 complaints this year, while the number of police calls will top 167,000.

So, thereâ•˙s bad news? Unfortunately, yes.

â•¢ The CRB is still hamstrung by the lack of cooperation from rank-and-file police officers. The Syracuse Police Benevolent Association discourages its members from cooperating with the CRB. In fact, not one officer accused in a citizen complaint chose to participate in CRB proceedings. That only reinforces distrust between the public and police.

â•¢ Chief Fowler did not even mildly discipline any of the eight officers whose conduct was deemed worthy of it by the Citizen Review Board. ╲I have the final say,╡ Fowler told staff writer Tim Knauss. And so he does. But he must be careful not to undermine his own credibility by brushing off legitimate complaints that make it through the CRBâ•˙s judicious process.

Even if the chief doesnâ•˙t act, even if police officers donâ•˙t cooperate, the simple fact that the Citizen Review Board is watching is a good thing for Syracuse and its citizens. The new CRB is off to a promising start.

New York Is Moving Quickly to Enact Tough Curbs on Guns By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and THOMAS KAPLAN Published: January 9, 2013 The New York Times

New York State is nearing agreement on a proposal to put what would be some of the nation’s strictest gun-control laws into effect, including what Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo vowed on Wednesday would be an ironclad ban on assault weapons

82 and large-capacity magazines, and new measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill people.

Lawmakers in Albany, seeking to send a message to the nation that the recent mass shootings demand swift action, say they hope to vote on the package of legislation as soon as next week.

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Cuomo and legislative leaders were “95 percent” of the way toward an agreement. Senate Republicans, considered the only possible obstacle to the governor’s proposal, indicated they did not intend to block a deal.

“When you hear about these issues all across the nation, whether it’s in the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., or Columbine, something needs to happen — something transformative,” said Senator Timothy M. Kennedy, a Democrat from Buffalo.

The dash to enact new gun controls made New York the first flash point in the battles over firearm restrictions that are expected to consume several state capitals this year.

But the debate also raged elsewhere on Wednesday, from Denver, where supporters of gun rights rallied to oppose weapon restrictions in the new legislative session, to Connecticut, whose governor, Dannel P. Malloy, in an emotional speech to lawmakers — he lost his composure talking about the mass killings at a Newtown elementary school last month — said, “More guns are not the answer.”

At the White House, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with gun-control advocates and said the Obama administration planned both to pass legislation and to use executive orders to try to reduce gun violence. “The president and I are determined to take action,” Mr. Biden said. “This is not an exercise in photo opportunities.”

Mr. Cuomo’s aides said the proposed legislation in New York would expand the definition of what is considered an assault weapon to match California’s law, currently the most restrictive in the nation. But the overall package would go further, they said, by limiting detachable ammunition magazines to 7 rounds from the current 10, and requiring background checks for purchases of ammunition, not just weapons.

Limiting magazines to seven rounds would give New York the toughest restrictions in the nation. Only around half a dozen states currently limit the size of magazines, and most of them allow magazines that contain up to 10 rounds, according to a survey by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates gun control. The New York law would also close a loophole that has thwarted enforcement of limits on the size of magazines.

Even as Mr. Cuomo detailed his plans, gun-rights groups mobilized to oppose the new restrictions.

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“We fully expect that New York state’s gun owners will be completely engaged in this debate and N.R.A. will be there to lead them,” said Chris W. Cox, the chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, which has donated more money to state politicians in New York than anywhere else, much of it to Senate Republicans.

And immediately afterward, Budd Schroeder, the chairman of the Shooters Committee on Political Education, a New York gun-rights group, said he planned to meet with every state senator he knew to ask them to stand up to the governor.

“The legislators are going to be getting a lot of phone calls in their district offices,” Mr. Schroeder said. “How is taking away my rights to own any type of firearm I choose going to change the attitude of a criminal?”

Yet Mr. Schroeder’s group, on its Web site, acknowledged the challenging terrain. “We can say with certainty,” it warned, “that anything short of overwhelming our legislators with calls, e-mails and letters, we have virtually no chance.”

Mr. Cuomo’s initiative drew praise from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has made gun control his signature cause. “I was particularly struck by his passionate leadership on gun violence,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. “New York State has led the nation with strong, common-sense gun laws, and the governor’s new proposals will build on that tradition.”

Mr. Cuomo is a possible 2016 presidential contender who is seeking to elevate his stature among Democrats base nationally, after a much-praised victory on same-sex marriage in his first year in office. His push for enhanced gun control even drew praise from Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, in a letter that otherwise criticized Mr. Cuomo’s support for abortion rights.

Mr. Cuomo had already stirred up anxiety among gun rights groups by saying in a radio interview in December that “confiscation could be an option” for existing assault weapons.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo backed away from that statement. “This is not about taking away people’s guns,” he said in his State of the State address. “It is about ending the unnecessary risk of high-capacity assault rifles. That’s what this is about.”

The expectation from Senator Dean G. Skelos, the Republican leader, and his aides that the gun-control legislation would come to the Senate floor for a vote is significant; Senate Republicans have consistently rebuffed efforts by Democrats to pass more restrictive gun laws.

But Republicans now have partial control of the chamber because of a coalition they recently established to share power with a group of dissident Democrats who favor more gun control. And Democrats believe that Republican leaders would rather accept a deal than jeopardize their warm relationship with Mr. Cuomo or risk a public relations backlash.

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Many Senate Republicans sought re-election in part by touting their bond with the governor, who remains popular with Republican voters as well as with Democrats; Mr. Cuomo, recognizing the extent of his political power, has vowed to travel the state blaming Senate Republicans if they do not back his efforts for gun control.

The gun-control debate had already flared up in other ways in New York State since the shootings last month in Newtown and in Webster, N.Y., where two firefighters were killed. A newspaper’s publication of a map showing the names and addresses of gun owners in suburban Westchester and Rockland Counties set off a wave of threats against and harassment of the paper’s employees.

In his State of the State address Wednesday, the governor told lawmakers it was their duty to “stop the madness” of violence.

“Forget the extremists — it’s simple,” Mr. Cuomo said to a crescendo of applause. “No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer.”

Convicted New Orleans police see opportunity in officials' errors By Kathy Finn | Reuters December 24 2012

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors scored big victories over the past two years in a quest to pluck bad police officers from the streets of New Orleans. But legal issues and recent stumbles by the U.S. attorney raise questions about whether criminal convictions of officers will stick.

Convicted former police officer David Warren won a new trial last week in the fatal shooting of Henry Glover, whose body turned up in a burned-out car behind a river levee days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Warren, who fired the shot that killed Glover, should have been tried separately from others charged in the case. The court also granted another of the defendants a re-trial based on new evidence.

The rulings will likely prompt appeals in other cases, including the 2011 convictions of five police officers in connection with a post-Katrina shooting on the city's Danziger Bridge that killed two unarmed civilians and wounded four others.

"Defense lawyers can smell blood in the water," said law professor Dane Ciolino of Loyola University New Orleans. "I wouldn't be surprised to see the Danziger defendants make an argument of improper failure to sever (their cases from others) as their appeals move forward."

Along with such legal issues, the city of New Orleans faces the possibility that more than a dozen post-Katrina convictions won by federal prosecutors and a big

85 public corruption case still in the works may be endangered by revelations of possible misconduct in the U.S. attorney's office.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten resigned on December 6 in the throes of a scandal in which members of his inner circle admitted to posting online comments, under pseudonyms, on a public message board about cases the office was prosecuting. In addition to Letten, three members of his staff who were connected with the comments have left the office.

The Danziger Bridge defendants are already seeking new trials based on negative comments about police that they say prosecutors posted on the message boards.

In an unrelated case, a former high-ranking elected official from a suburban New Orleans jurisdiction who recently pleaded guilty to public corruption charges now is asking a federal judge to reconsider the plea in light of perceived prosecutorial misconduct.

'PUBLIC OFFICIAL A'

Among other cases that could be affected, federal prosecutors appear close to bringing charges against former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on suspicion he accepted bribes from business owners in exchange for funneling city contracts to the businesses.

Several Nagin associates have signed plea deals with the government and submitted affidavits detailing the arrangements they had with a high-ranking city official identified in filings as "Public Official A."

While Nagin is not named in the documents, attorneys for at least two of the businessmen have made it clear that Public Official A is Nagin.

How serious the misconduct issue may become for the government is a question of evidence, said former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is scrutinizing the matter and an independent investigation ordered by a judge was under way.

"The results will tell defense counsel whether they have reasonable opportunities to pursue new trials or dismissals of indictments," Rosenberg said.

He pointed to the success in the case of the late U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, whose lawyers contested his 2008 conviction for failing to report gifts from a well- connected business executive by showing that the government failed to disclose evidence. Ultimately, the U.S. attorney general asked that the charges against Stevens be dropped.

Still, Rosenberg said proving that prosecutorial misconduct occurred in New Orleans was a long shot. Defense lawyers in some federal cases were "feeling energized," he said, but the Justice Department's convictions nearly always stick.

86 "I suspect that the number of motions granted based upon prosecutorial misconduct are a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent," he said.

Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche said it was important to local citizens that the police officer convictions won by federal prosecutors in recent years stick.

"For too long the public has lost faith in the criminal justice system, and they're starting to see that faith restored," he said.

Noting that the civil rights cases brought by the Justice Department generally are too complex and expensive to be handled by local authorities, he said action by federal prosecutors is crucial to building support for local law enforcement.

"People need to see that if you betray the public trust, there will be a consequence," he said.

EDITORIAL The Bid to Stop Gun Trafficking Published: January 7, 2013 The New York Times Instructed by President Obama to find ways to curb gun violence after the Connecticut school massacre, a working group led by Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. appears ready to recommend a package of proposals that go beyond reinstating the expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Mr. Obama has already expressed support for a bill being prepared by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that would provide a more effective ban on military-style assault weapons than the law that lapsed in 2004. The Biden task force, according to a report in The Washington Post, is considering a broader range of other measures backed by key law enforcement leaders and by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group started by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York.

These measures include making background checks universal for all gun buyers, creating a national database to track the movement and sale of firearms, expanding mental health checks, and increasing penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving guns to minors.

Even this sensible list could be enlarged and improved. Notably missing is a concerted crackdown on illegal gun trafficking. The task force’s final recommendations, which are due to be released by the end of the month, should include a measure to stem the illegal gun trade and make it easier for law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute gun traffickers and the straw buyers and rogue dealers who enable them.

A strong starting point is a measure first proposed four years ago by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, which she is about to reintroduce in the new Congress.

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The Gun Trafficking Prevention Act would create, for the first time, a separate criminal offense for gun trafficking. It would also toughen penalties at every point in the trafficking chain — from straw buyers who purchase a gun for someone else to evade required record-keeping and background checks, to corrupt gun dealers who supply illegal weapons to the kingpins running the trafficking rings. Study after study has shown that a tiny minority of bad gun dealers are responsible for selling a huge number of the guns traced to crimes.

The measure would give the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives new authority to impose civil penalties and special restrictions, like increased inspections and inventory checks, on “high-risk” gun dealers suspected of assisting traffickers. Finally, it would authorize the addition of hundreds of new agents and other personnel for the underfinanced bureau to allow for more frequent inspections of all gun stores.

Justice Department Enters into Agreement to Reform the Puerto Rico Police Department

The Justice Department (DOJ) today entered into a sweeping agreement with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Governor Luis Fortuño to resolve its civil investigation of the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD). The complaint and the agreement were filed today in the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico, along with a joint motion requesting a temporary stay of the proceedings until April 15, 2013 to provide the incoming administration of Governor-elect Alejandro García Padilla sufficient time to review the agreement.

The comprehensive agreement addresses wide-ranging and ongoing constitutional violations by PRPD that were documented in a lengthy DOJ report issued in September 2011. The department found reasonable cause to believe that PRPD engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, use of unreasonable force designed to suppress protected speech, and unconstitutional searches and seizures. The agreement also addresses allegations that PRPD fails to investigate sex crimes and domestic violence, and engages in discriminatory policing.

“We appreciate the hard work of Governor Fortuño, Superintendent Hector Pesquera, and their staff. Together, and with great input from the public, we have designed a comprehensive blueprint for reform that provides a solid foundation that will professionalize and support the hardworking men and women of PRPD as they protect the people of Puerto Rico,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “We have also met with Governor- elect Garcia-Padilla, who recognizes that constitutional policing and effective policing go hand in hand. We look forward to working with Governor-elect García Padilla and his incoming administration to finalize the agreement and begin the critical work of rebuilding PRPD. Ensuring effective, constitutional policing is not a partisan issue, and we appreciate the commitment of Governor Fortuño and Governor-elect García Padilla to the reforms embodied in the agreement. The

88 successful implementation of the reforms contained in this agreement will help to reduce crime, ensure respect for the Constitution and restore public confidence in PRPD.”

Today’s agreement was reached after extensive negotiations with commonwealth officials and their police consultants. The agreement provides a comprehensive blueprint for meaningful, sustainable reform and reflects the input of many community stakeholders from throughout the Commonwealth, including police affinity groups, members of the Puerto Rico business community, students, representatives of the Dominican community, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender communities.

Legal Curbs Said to Hamper A.T.F. in Gun Inquiries

By ERICA GOODE and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Published: December 25, 2012 The New York Times

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been without a permanent director for six years, as President Obama recently noted. But even if someone were to be confirmed for the job, the agency’s ability to thwart gun violence is hamstrung by legislative restrictions and by loopholes in federal gun laws, many law enforcement officials and advocates of tighter gun regulations say.

For example, under current laws the bureau is prohibited from creating a federal registry of gun transactions. So while detectives on television tap a serial number into a computer and instantly identify the buyer of a firearm, the reality could not be more different.

When law enforcement officers recover a gun and serial number, workers at the bureau’s National Tracing Center here — a windowless warehouse-style building on a narrow road outside town — begin making their way through a series of phone calls, asking first the manufacturer, then the wholesaler and finally the dealer to search their files to identify the buyer of the firearm.

About a third of the time, the process involves digging through records sent in by companies that have closed, in many cases searching by hand through cardboard boxes filled with computer printouts, hand-scrawled index cards or even water-stained sheets of paper.

In an age when data is often available with a few keystrokes, the A.T.F. is forced to follow this manual routine because the idea of establishing a central database of gun transactions has been rejected by lawmakers in Congress, who have sided with the National Rifle Association, which argues that such a database

89 poses a threat to the Second Amendment. In other countries, gun rights groups argue, governments have used gun registries to confiscate the firearms of law- abiding citizens.

Advocates for increased gun regulation, however, contend that in a country plagued by gun violence, a central registry could help keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and allow law enforcement officials to act more effectively to prevent gun crime.

As has been the case for decades, the A.T.F., the federal agency charged with enforcing gun laws and regulating the gun industry, is caught in the middle.

Law enforcement officials say that in theory, the A.T.F. could take a lead role in setting a national agenda for reducing gun crime, a goal that has gained renewed urgency with the school massacre in Newtown, Conn. But it is hampered, they say, by politically driven laws that make its job harder and by the ferocity of the debate over gun regulation.

“I think that they’ve really been muzzled over the last several years, at least, from doing their job effectively,” said Frederick H. Bealefeld III, a former police commissioner in Baltimore. “They’ve really kind of been the whipping agency, caught in the political turmoil of Washington on the gun issue.”

The bureau’s struggles are epitomized by its lack of a full-time director since Congress, prodded by the N.R.A., decided that the position should require Senate confirmation. That leadership vacuum, Mr. Bealefeld and others said, has inevitably depleted morale and kept the agency from developing a coherent agenda.

At a news conference last Wednesday, Mr. Obama called on the Senate to confirm a permanent director, saying lawmakers should “make this a priority early in the year.” But given the complicated politics, it may be difficult for the White House to get a director confirmed. Mr. Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, was unable to do so.

In 2010, Mr. Obama nominated Andrew Traver, who is now the head of the bureau’s Denver division, for the post. But Mr. Traver, whose candidacy is opposed by the N.R.A., has yet to have a hearing, and his nomination has languished in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The senior Republican on the panel, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, has raised questions about Mr. Traver’s nomination, and his prospects for confirmation looked so dim that the White House told Democrats on the committee to make nominations for other posts a higher priority, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

The persistent controversy over the A.T.F.’s role, historians say, also contributed to its neglect in the financing bonanza that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While other law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I. have benefited from greatly increased budgets and staffing, the A.T.F.’s budget has remained largely stagnant, increasing to about $1.1 billion in the 2012 fiscal year from just over $850 million a decade ago.

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The bureau’s tracing center performed 344,447 gun traces in the 2012 fiscal year, but its staffing is no higher than it was in 2004, according to its chief, Charles Houser. Still, he added, the center manages to complete urgent traces in about an hour, and routine traces are done within several days.

The distrust between the A.T.F. and gun rights groups is longstanding. The bitterness runs so deep that some critics of the agency are still angry about events from more than 40 years ago. Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, cited a 1971 case in which A.T.F. agents raided the apartment of Ken Ballew in Silver Spring, Md., in the belief that he was stockpiling unregistered grenades. Agents found a cache of weapons, according to a lawsuit filed in the case, and Mr. Ballew was shot in the head after pointing a revolver in the agents’ direction.

The 1992 siege of Ruby Ridge in Idaho and the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Tex., are also sore points, Mr. Gottlieb said.

“Waco is not something that made us feel warm and fuzzy about A.T.F.,” he said.

Mr. Gottlieb said the “low point” came with the bungled gun trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious, in which A.T.F. agents, in an effort to trace guns to a network based in Arizona, did not quickly intervene as the weapons were smuggled over the border to Mexico. Last Wednesday, in a development that may inflame the controversy further, Mr. Grassley sent letters to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General demanding an investigation and requesting more information about why a gun bought by an A.T.F. agent involved in Operation Fast and Furious was found at the scene of a homicide in Mexico.

Marc Willis, a spokesman for the A.T.F., said the bureau could not comment on continuing investigations.

The bureau’s acting director, B. Todd Jones, who was installed in the summer of 2011 to revamp the agency after the trafficking investigation, has said he has increased oversight and has carried out changes recommended by the inspector general in a report in September.

Yet law enforcement officials and criminal justice experts who would like the A.T.F. to have greater latitude in fighting crime say its effectiveness in reducing gun violence is still hampered by a thicket of laws that limit the information it can obtain and constrain its day-to-day functioning.

The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, for example, prohibits A.T.F. agents from making more than one unannounced inspection per year of licensed gun dealers. The law also reduced the falsification of records by dealers to a misdemeanor and put in place vague language defining what it meant to “engage in business” without a dealer’s license.

91 Both provisions, said William J. Vizzard, an emeritus professor of criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento, and a former A.T.F. special agent, made it more difficult for the bureau to go after gun sellers who broke the law.

The so-called Tiahrt amendments — named for Todd Tiahrt, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, and first attached as riders to appropriations bills in 2003 and 2004 — limited the A.T.F.’s ability to share tracing information on firearms linked to crimes with local and state law enforcement agencies and with the public. Those restrictions have been loosened in subsequent versions of the amendments. But under the most recent Tiahrt amendment, adopted in 2010, the A.T.F. still cannot release anything but aggregate data to the public. The amendment still prohibits the bureau from using tracing data in some legal proceedings to suspend or revoke a dealer’s license, and it requires that records of background checks of gun buyers be destroyed within 24 hours of approval. Advocates of tighter regulation say this makes it harder to identify dealers who falsify records or buyers who make “straw” purchases for others.

Mr. Gottlieb said the Tiahrt amendment protected data “from people who are anti- gun rights who want to manipulate things” to bolster support for gun regulation.

Congress has long resisted the idea of a central transaction database.

David Kopel, a lawyer and the Second Amendment project director at the Independence Institute, a research group concerned with individual choice, said Congress was aware that a registry could be misused. “We don’t have an automated database of everybody who’s had an abortion or of anyone who owns controversial books,” he said.

But Mr. Bealefeld, the former Baltimore commissioner, said the notion that a central database would create “some Orwellian Big Brother oversight that’s going to monitor target shooters and hunters and sneak into their houses in the dead of night to steal their rifles and their pistols” was “more fiction than reality.”

“I’ve hunted since I was 7 years old,” he said, “and I don’t live in fear that anyone’s going to come and take my hunting rifles.”

NYPD SUE! Surge in lawsuits vs. Police Department part of costly trend for the city

Claims against Finest soar 35% in a year to $185M while total city lawsuit payouts hit $550M, or about $70 per resident

BY TINA MOORE / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2012, 10:55 PM

THE NUMBER of lawsuits against the NYPD jumped by 10% in the 2011 fiscal year, with cases involving alleged misconduct leading the way, a new report revealed.

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There were 8,882 suits filed against the NYPD from July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011 the most against any city agency during that period, according to an analysis of claims against the city performed by city Controller John Liu's office.

Claims against the NYPD cost the city $185.6 million in fiscal 2011, an increase of 35% from the previous fiscal year, when the payout was $137.3 million, the report notes.

In all, the city paid out $550.4 million in personal injury and property damage settlements and judgments in fiscal 2011.

That figure, which breaks down to $70 per resident to cover the total cost, was 5% greater than the $522 million tally from the previous fiscal year. The mayor's office said statistics for claims from fiscal 2012 are not yet available. The suits ranged from medical malpractice claims, to slips or falls, to police actions and motor vehicle damage claims.

The five agencies with the highest claim costs in fiscal 2011 were the NYPD, the Health and Hospitals Corp., and the departments of transportation, education and sanitation, according to the report. Cases against the Sanitation Department were higher than usual in part because of motorists who claimed their cars were damaged by snowplows during major storms during that winter, including the blizzard shortly after Christmas 2010.

Cases against the NYPD stemmed from allegations of police misconduct, civil rights violations and personal injury or property damage resulting from motor vehicle accidents.

The most frequent type of personal-injury claims filed overall in fiscal 2011 were for police actions. The cases result from alleged improper police conduct, such as false arrest or imprisonment, the shooting of a suspect, excessive force or assault, or failure to provide protection, the report states.Claims from police action rose 14%, from 3,996 to 4,561, in the period covered by the report. The number has nearly doubled since 2007.

Bloomberg spokesman John McCarthy said the decision to settle a lawsuit was not an indication of wrongdoing by a police officer."Police officers make more than 23 million contacts with the public each year and cope with incredibly difficult situations on a daily basis," he said.

Criminal defense lawyer Joel Berger said that the spike in new lawsuits can be attributed to cases that arise from stop-and-frisks, marijuana busts and trespass arrests. "All of us who practice in this field are seeing a skyrocket in small cases," Berger said. "The victims are flocking to the courts in record numbers." Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said there were "too many variables to draw definite conclusions" from the report.

93 "But what's inescapable is a trend that reveals New Yorkers are unhappy enough with the way that they're being treated by police that they are going to court a lot more often," she said.

Civil rights suits against all city agencies were up 13%, from 2,680 in 2010 to 3,040 in 2011. Those types of lawsuits nearly doubled since 2007, when there were 1,569, the report showed.

Connecticut Police Departments Discourage Civilian Complaints

A report from the ACLU shows many departments in the state, including State Police Troop E which serves East Lyme and Troop F which serves Old Lyme and Lyme have barriers that make it difficult for civilians to file complaints against officers.

By Eileen McNamara December 6, 2012 The Lymes Patch

Police departments across Connecticut routinely make it difficult for civilians to file complaints against their officers in a number of ways, including failing to make complaint forms available, refusing to accept anonymous complaints, imposing time limits on receiving complaints and requiring sworn statements or threatening criminal prosecution or a civil lawsuit for false statements.

Those are the findings of a non-scientific survey conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and released Tuesday. The barriers to filing complaints that the ACLU cites in the study fly in the face of "best practices that are widely accepted by law enforcement experts," on the processes police departments should follow for accepting civilian complaints, the agency said.

The findings, the ACLU said in a press release, "reveal a need for statewide standards to ensure that civilians with complaints about police misconduct will not be turned away, intimidated or silenced." "We've been hearing from too many people who have had difficulty filing complaints with their local police departments," said David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, who supervised the study. "We rely on the police for our safety, and we're grateful for their service. But we also entrust police officers with extraordinary authority, including the power to use deadly force, and this must be balanced by accountability, with a clear and reliable method for civilians to register their concerns about police conduct."

The ACLU report was based on a telephone survey of 104 Connecticut police departments and agencies, including 92 municipal departments and the state's 12 police barracks. (You can view a PDF of the agency's findings above.) Researchers conducted the survey by calling and requesting information about how to file a complaint against an officer.

94 At State Police Troop E, which serves East Lyme, ACLU researchers were told that complaint forms were available only online, that a complaint could not be made anonymously, and that immigration would be called if the complainant was here illegally.

At State Police Troop F, which serves Old Lyme and Lyme, ACLU researchers were told that there were no complaint forms available, although a complaint could be made anonymously, and after that the officer responding refused to answer further questions.

This runs counter to how law enforcement experts say police departments should handle complaints against officers. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies is particularly clear that anonymous complaints must be accepted, requiring a written policy that "all complaints against the agency or its employees be investigated, to include anonymous complaints." Police departments are required to make complaint forms available and should ideally give people a variety of ways to file a complaint, including over the phone. Immigration status should also have no bearing on a person's right to bring a complaint. The survey found that:

Twenty-three percent of municipal police departments (excluding state police) reported having no complaint form for civilians to fill out. Sixty-one percent of the municipal police agencies in Connecticut told callers they don't accept anonymous complaints, although law-enforcement policy experts strongly agree that police should accept complaints made anonymously. Another 10 percent could not or would not answer the question about anonymous complaints.

Nearly two-thirds of the complaint forms posted online by municipal police departments in Connecticut contain warnings of criminal prosecution for those making false complaints, though such action is widely considered a deterrent to those with legitimate complaints. Nearly half the complaint forms posted online by municipal police departments in Connecticut mention a requirement for complainants to file a sworn statement, though law enforcement policy experts recommend strongly against demanding such statements. Employees at several departments without online forms also mentioned the requirement to ACLU callers.

Just a third of the departments in the survey clearly stated that immigration authorities would not be called against a civilian complainant. More than half did not answer or expressed some degree of uncertainty and 15 percent said they would definitely report a complainant to immigration authorities. Related Topics: ACLU, Complaints Against Police, Connecticut ACLU Study, How CT Police handle complaints, Lyme, Old Lyme, State Police Troop F, east lyme, and state police troop E

Do you think police need to make it easier for civilians to file complaints? Tell us in the comments.

95 Opinion: Milwaukee Police Commission should be reformed

By Milele A. Coggs Dec. 19, 2012

It should surprise no one that relations between the Milwaukee Police Department and members of the community continue to be strained as we approach the new year. Stories of officers on the wrong side of the law, violating civil rights and the public trust, have become frighteningly prevalent.

I realize these are the actions of the few and that the vast majority of our police officers are honest, hardworking people who strive to improve their community. But because of their power and profile, we must hold them to a higher standard. I am saddened to say that the body tasked with doing this, Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission, has proved to me that it is not up to that task.

Three times this year alone, the commission has voted to reinstate police officers that Chief Edward Flynn had selected for termination. In the high-profile excessive force case of officer Richard Schoen, that decision was reversed. But for two other officers, accused respectively of patronizing prostitutes and feeding a witness's drug habit, the commission's inexplicable decisions have been allowed to stand.

Out of the approximately 300 complaints filed with the commission, only one resulted in discipline. The dismal diversity numbers in both the police and fire departments are more distressing still.

At this juncture, I can see no reason why the commission should be allowed to exist in its current form, and I have made no secret of my desire to disband or restructure it. Unfortunately, that would necessitate a change in state law, which seems unlikely at this point.

But there are still other ways to transform the commission into a body that better reflects the community it serves.

State law grants the power of appointing commission members to the mayor. Up to nine community members may sit on the commission, though currently Milwaukee uses a seven-member model and currently has two vacant seats.

I believe Mayor Tom Barrett should use these vacancies to better represent the community on the commission. Keep in mind, the commission does more than discipline officers - it hires them as well and ultimately is the body to which the police chief must answer. Creating more diversity on the commission would ensure greater diversity on the police force.

96 If the public had more input into the appointment process, this misrepresentation could be remedied. I join other members of the Milwaukee Common Council in calling on the mayor to open up the process and allow some level of direct and hands-on community participation, vetting and oversight.

This would not be difficult to achieve. Allowing the public to submit potential nominees to the commission is as simple as creating a form on the Internet and the associated infrastructure to process those nominations. Agencies that are already partnered with the commission, such as UMOS, the NAACP and UrbanUnderground, could assist in that process, and offer nomination forms to community members as well. Technology could enable the public to submit questions that would be asked of commission nominees during the vetting process.

Finally, that vetting should take place in a public forum, where community members can learn about finalists for the office well before the mayor selects his appointees and recommends them to the Common Council for our approval. A similar public meeting was held during the selection process of our current police chief.

These simple changes could greatly increase the transparency of the commission appointment process, the adequate representation of the community, the quality of commission's decisions and, as a result, public trust in the body. There is no time to waste in achieving these objectives - and there is no excuse for ignoring them.

Milele A. Coggs is alderwoman for Milwaukee's 6th district.

Fullerton, Calif., Police May Get Oversight Panel December 27, 2012 reasons.com

Public input into the hiring and training of officers, the Police Department's policy and perhaps even into implementing discipline could soon be among the roles of an independent oversight committee. Such oversight was among dozens of recommendations by an outside investigator hired to probe the department after the 2011 death of mentally-ill transient Kelly Thomas at the hands of officers. The investigator delivered his final report to the City Council in May. Guidelines crafted by acting Chief Dan Hughes for a Chief's Advisory Board include gathering 12 to 20 volunteers representing a cross-section of the city.

Source: OC Register. (Read full article below)

Oversight panel for Fullerton police in works The acting chief has a plan, and so does an ex-City Council candidate.

97 FULLERTON Public input into the hiring and training of officers, the Police Department's policy and perhaps even into implementing discipline could soon be among the roles of an independent oversight committee.

Such oversight was among dozens of recommendations by an outside investigator hired to probe the department after the 2011 death of mentally-ill transient Kelly Thomas at the hands of officers. The investigator delivered his final report to the City Council in May.

Fullerton Capt. and acting Police Chief Dan Hughes hopes to establish a Chief's Advisory Board, which would provide input into department policies.

Guidelines crafted by acting Chief Dan Hughes for a Chief's Advisory Board include gathering 12 to 20 volunteers representing a cross-section of the city.

The framework for the advisory board will likely be presented to the City Council in March, said City Manager Joe Felz, who has overseen the process and collaborated with the city attorney. "What you want is for it to be meaningful and have substance," Felz said.

Panel members, initially chosen by the city manager and police chief, could come from the business and legal communities, school districts, mental-health and religious groups and the media, Hughes said. While the panel members would provide input, they would not have decision- making power, Hughes said: "I don't see them as having authority as much as I see them as having influence."

Felz also envisions audits of the Police Department from an outside agency on regular intervals or a case-by-case basis. At least one citizens group has also been demanding independent oversight of the police, but sees its panel having a bit more power than Hughes' advisory board.

A group led in part by former City Council candidate Jane Rands has called for a civilian police oversight commission with up to nine members and the ability to handle complaints, investigate in-custody deaths, subpoena witnesses and recommend discipline. Rands wasn't sure of the costs involved to maintain the committee, but said it could save money by staving off potential lawsuits against the department. The council could establish qualifications and then would be able to appoint members to the board, she said. "It needs to be a body that we can hold accountable," she said. "What we want are people on this board that community members can trust."

St. Louis' new police chief wants to study civilian review

Christine Byers

98 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 1, 2013 ST. LOUIS One of the items topping Sam Dotson's to-do list as the new chief of the city's Police Department is among the most controversial in law enforcement: allowing the public to have a say in the way police officers are disciplined.

The 18-year veteran of the department who officially becomes chief today said civilian review will become a reality in St. Louis under his watch as top cop.

"We need to protect the rights of our officers and give the community that added trust in the department that things won't be overlooked or swept under the rug," said Dotson, who is replacing Dan Isom as chief.

The issue was one of many Dotson addressed during a recent interview, from strategies for fighting crime to his history with one of the department's most controversial chiefs.

The interview was conducted in his former office at City Hall, where Dotson served for 18 months as operations director for Mayor Francis Slay while detached from the Police Department. Pictures, plaques and posters that once decorated the walls and shelves were piled on his desk, along with books about leadership and business management. The dry-erase board he used to fill with notes was blank.

And a police uniform replaced his suit and tie.

On Monday night, Dotson was in uniform when he attended a New Year's Eve vigil for victims of homicide.

When he officially assumes his new role as chief today, Dotson doesn't plan to waste much time. First, he wants to study how civilian review boards are organized around the country. The boards typically review Internal Affairs investigations and make suggestions on disciplining officers.

The idea has been debated, and opposed, in St. Louis for years. Among the critics is the union for rank-and-file officers.

Jeff Roorda, business manager for the St. Louis Police Officers' Association, said he wants to hear Dotson's plan but warned that the chief won't find a community where civilian review has worked well. Roorda said the boards are typically "lynch mobs" that publicly scorn officers for split-second decisions already reviewed by a host of officials.

"It undermines the disciplinary process that already exists," Roorda said.

But that process is about to change. The city will assume control of the department from the state July 1. That means the five-member Board of Police Commissioners that the governor appoints to run the department will dissolve. The Civil Service Commission, which handles personnel matters among city employees, will handle officers' discipline.

99

"The civil service process is much more employee-friendly than the Police Board," Dotson acknowledged.

That's one reason why groups such as the NAACP-St. Louis opposed the November ballot initiative to allow the city to assume control of the state-run Police Department, said Adolphus Pruitt, president of the city's NAACP chapter. The group supports civilian review.

"That's refreshing," Pruitt said of Dotson's view. "Until I see what it looks like and how it is going to operate, I will withhold some judgment. ... But if he is moving in that direction, that is something we're going to be very supportive of."

Dotson said he is aware of the union's concerns, and he understands them from his days as the department's representative in negotiating its first-ever collective bargaining agreement in 2010. Police sergeants also are about to enter into a collective bargaining process.

"I need them next to me," Dotson said of labor groups, "so they can't criticize me because we made the tough decisions together."

Since becoming chief, Dotson, 43, also has become a member in the Ethical Society of Police, a predominantly African-American police officers group.

"If I expect boundaries to be broken down in this department," he said, "it has to start with me."

WORKING WITH COUNTY

Dotson plans to break down boundaries when it comes to working with county police, possibly even merging some services.

St. Louis County Police Board members quizzed the county chief, Tim Fitch, about Dotson's reputation during their December meeting.

"I would expect the collaboration that began with Isom to continue," Fitch told them.

Dotson agreed, noting that expensive tactical operations units, as well as bombing and arson units, could be combined.

Still, he sees the need to invest in new equipment and firearms for his officers. And he wants to combine some police districts by studying staffing levels in each district against crime statistics, geography and population. The moves could save money and help better target crime.

"The goal is to show people we police the city the same, but there are going to be hot spots within the districts because I support the idea of putting officers where the problems are," he said.

100 Dotson credited Isom with initiating "hot-spot" policing. He also credited former Chiefs Ron Henderson and Joe Mokwa with teaching him important lessons.

"I learned from all of them what to do and what not to do as chief," Dotson said.

He didn't dodge questions about how he plans to convince the department of his integrity, given his history as aide to Mokwa, who resigned in 2008 after a scandal over the department's towing contract.

Dotson was never implicated in the scandal, and he notes that Mokwa was never criminally charged despite investigations by federal authorities. Key players in the towing scandal were prosecuted, however, and the company has been ordered to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city.

Dotson said he did not want to criticize Mokwa but said he learned from the experience.

"It's taught me that it's important to know everything that's going on in the department because I'm the one who has to uphold the integrity of the department," he said. "The lesson it taught me is I have to be better."

Isom also gave Dotson advice before he left for a teaching post at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

"He told me you have no way of comprehending how difficult this job is. To have 1,300 officers risk their lives for you every day and you can't go to bed at night without worrying ... ," Dotson said, pausing to wipe tears as he realized that he may someday speak at an officer's funeral.

"I've been responsible for planning funerals before, which always gave you a feeling of doing something when no one else knew what to do," he said. "These officers are putting their lives on the line, and knowing I'm responsible for it is a new feeling."

Met Reorganisation: Cuts In CID And Supervisors

The Met will bolster neighbourhood teams by 2015, taking officers out of CID and cutting sergeants, plan says.

Date - 9th January 2013 Courtesy of - Jack Sommers - Police Oracle 35 Comments The Metropolitan Police is looking to more than double the number of officers in its Safer Neighbourhoods Teams by cutting its borough-based CID squads and supervising ranks - and recruiting more constables.

101 The Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime (MOPAC) published its draft plan to reorganise the force and cope with the £500m savings it has to make from its £3.5bn annual budget by 2015, today (January 9).

In it, MOPAC outlines its proposals in more detail, which include a new local policing model that would bolster Safer Neighbourhoods Teams to 4,491 officers by 2015. In October, 2011, the Met had 1,849 officers in SNTs.

Some of the extra 2,600 officers will come from CID squads that will be disbanded.

Borough-based CID squads that focus on “narrow crime types” such as burglary squads, will be disbanded and roughly 800 detectives from these will transfer into uniformed operations within boroughs.

AC Simon Byrne (pictured), who leads on territorial policing, told reporters he wanted to streamline the current process in which neighbourhood teams carry out enforcement but longer term investigations are fed into the borough’s CID.

Each borough will retain its Community Safety Unit, which focuses on hate crime and domestic violence.

Each borough will also retain a borough commander, though the plan does not specify this officer's rank. Previously, it was mooted boroughs might share a chief superintendent as commander.

Boroughs will be divided into Local Police Areas, which will be led by inspectors. These areas will be divided into wards with a sergeant supervising officers in each. PCs and PCSOs not attached to these wards will work across the area “according to need”.

There will also be borough-based Targeted Patrol Teams, led by inspectors.

The document also states the ratio of sergeants to constables will be cut. The current ratio between constables and sergeant numbers in the Met is currently roughly 4.4 constables to each sergeant.

MOPAC said it wanted to change this to roughly six constables to each sergeant. The plan did not give a figure for how many sergeant posts would be lost to make this happen.

The force previously suggested cutting more than 1,000 sergeants, as well as 365 from the inspecting ranks and around 73 from the superintending ranks. It is understood the ACPO team will be cut by around a quarter.

A MOPAC spokeswoman said exact cuts to the supervising ranks was a matter for the force, rather than MOPAC to decide, though she conceded the loss of officers from ranks above constable was necessary to achieve the restructuring and extra constables MOPAC sought.

102 The proposal says the force will sell off New Scotland Yard, as it had previously announced it was considering, and other buildings in the force’s estate.

The publication of the plan will be followed by a public consultation that will last until March 6 and a final version, taking account of any changes, will be published in April - when it is to be implemented.

Chief: Re-organisation Has Delivered Efficiencies

Innovative structures means high public expectations in Hertfordshire Police continue to be met.

Date - 10th January 2013 Courtesy of - Jasmin McDermott - Police Oracle 1 Comment A combination of innovative management and team structures is continuing to ensure a force’s rate of solving crime and maintaining public confidence has been sustained in the wake of cuts, according to its chief constable.

In an interview with PoliceOracle.com, Hertfordshire Chief Constable Andy Bliss said that a new focus on collaborative working and delivering efficiencies had ensured that public confidence in the force had been maintained in a time of austerity.

The latest HMIC Report Card findings show Hertfordshire Constabulary had achieved some of the highest levels of confidence satisfaction in England and Wales, with the inspectorate providing an "excellent" grading for these categories.

CC Bliss highlighted that he had built on the legacy left by predecessor Frank Whiteley and had increasingly used partnership working as a means of improving efficiencies.

For example, he highlighted that the integrated offender management team was well established, with officers and Hertfordshire Probation staff now focused on targeting the top 200 prolific offenders in the county to drive down re-offending rates.

The development of TORCH (Tracking of Offenders to Reduce Crime in Hertfordshire) by the partnership allows officers to follow the exact movements of an offender day and night thanks to an electronic tag with a built in GPS tracker.

The technology, which has been in place for a year, not only accelerates crime investigations – it also acts as a deterrent. It has resulted in a 41 per cent drop in the re-offending rates of the most prolific criminals, the force claims.

CC Bliss said he was proud of how the force delivered its ethos of tackling crime and protecting the public.

103 He added: “It is a passion we have here – we have got a very strong crime fighting focus and detecting capability in terms of investigations and proactive operations.

“We have got very good building blocks. There is a structure that delivers day-to- day crime fighting and we are building up the integrated offender management team and using the GPS tracking system – a fantastic piece of technology which helps us to focus our resources and officers.”

The chief constable said his force was also one of the first in the country to deploy more officers to reports of crime instead of dealing with incidents over the phone.

When CC Bliss took the helm 18 months ago, the force’s attendance rate to crime was 50 per cent against a backdrop of strong reduction and detection rates on gun and knife crime as well as serious sexual offences.

The attendance rate has subsequently increased to almost 70 per cent.

The programme of collaboration with neighbouring force Bedfordshire, which started in 2009 has helped the force maintain its front line, operational element and has contributed towards the force’s ambition of delivering £20 million of savings a year by 2015.

There are plans for future collaboration with Bedfordshire as well as Cambridgeshire in the coming months to help deliver £40million of savings by 2016/17.

CC Bliss said: “My professional view was when crime was falling significantly and falling fast, then we need to boost the number of officers out in the community.

“It gives us more witnesses, it builds good relationships and it helps us to identify forensic opportunities to detect crime.

“Our officers really like this approach and it is all part of our ethos.”

104