The provincial government should amend the Police Act so that police-conduct investigations are less costly and time-consuming. The public hearing into the actions of two Victoria Police Department officers during a 2010 arrest was part of a process that stretched over more than three years and cost taxpayers nearly $500,000. While the incident clearly required investigation, ideally it should have been wrapped up within months, rather than years, of the complaint being received.
When a group of young men got into a brawl outside a downtown bar on March 21, 2010, police intervened and found, among other things, one man lying on the ground and another stomping on the prone man鈥檚 head. In arresting Tyler Archer, two constables 鈥� Chris Bowser and Brendan Robinson 鈥� kicked and punched the man, actions that were caught in a 57-second video. The video garnered wide attention on YouTube.
A criminal investigation was conducted for VicPD by the Vancouver police department. Based on that investigation, sa国际传媒鈥檚 criminal justice branch decided that the officers did not use excessive force and should not face criminal charges. That decision was announced in February 2011, nearly a year after the incident.
A Police Act disciplinary investigation conducted by New Westminster police Chief David Jones, the results of which were released in December 2011, found no wrongdoing on the part of the officers.
Stan Lowe, sa国际传媒鈥檚 police complaint commissioner, disagreed with Jones鈥檚 conclusion and in February 2012 ordered a public hearing. That hearing, adjudicated by retired provincial court judge Ben Casson, started in June 2012 and was intended to last six weeks, after which Casson would take another six weeks to study the evidence and reach his conclusion. The hearing stretched into autumn, and Casson delivered his conclusions in March of this year. He found that while Robinson made a series of errors, he did not abuse his authority. Bowser should have intervened when Robinson tackled Archer, said Casson, and abused his authority when he kneed and punched Archer.
In April, Casson imposed disciplinary measures 鈥� Bowser was suspended for two days without pay and ordered to take use-of-force retraining, a suitable but rather anticlimactic result from the longest police-complaint hearing in sa国际传媒鈥檚 history.
Why did it take so long and cost so much? The longer an issue such as this drags on, the more expenses add up, lives are disrupted and nerves are frazzled.
Part of the problem, says Rollie Woods, deputy police complaint commissioner, is that the Police Act prohibits the disciplinary authority 鈥� Jones, in this case 鈥� from calling witnesses. Only officers against whom complaints are filed are allowed to call witnesses, and Bowser and Robinson declined to do so.
Archer was invited to the hearing, but was not allowed to be accompanied by his lawyer, so he declined to participate or submit statements.
The public hearing before Casson heard from 20 witnesses. If Jones could have called these witnesses during the disciplinary hearing, perhaps the process would have been much shorter and the outcome different. A submitted statement is limited by words on paper 鈥� cross-examination could bring out more details and a wider perspective. Witnesses not directly involved could provide more neutral accounts.
Something is wrong with the system if it takes three years, an array of hearings and hundreds of thousands of dollars to decide an officer went a bit too far in the heat of the moment and so should be suspended for two days without pay.
The police-complaints process is necessary, but it badly needs to be streamlined. Neither the officers nor the complainants are well served by such a drawn-out process.
