Breaking down the blue wall of police silence
Policing can be dangerous. Five officers have been killed in the line of duty in the past six months alone. But serving as an officer also carries an awesome responsibility: the power to legally detain citizens, to assault and even to kill. With that power comes solemn obligations, such as fully co-operating in investigations, particularly those involving a death.
Canadians have a Charter right to not incriminate themselves. But an officer in uniform, with a gun and the right to use deadly force, is not the same as an ordinary Canadian. There is no simple legal path to oblige police officers to co-operate with criminal investigations. But reforms are clearly overdue.from cases of deaths at the hands of police. Ontario’s civilian-led Special Investigations Unit was the first in 1990. The B.C. IIO was created in 2012.
highlights a troubling trend at the heart of Mr. Gray’s case – the absence of co-operation of officers. The Globe reviewed more than 2,500 oversight cases in five provinces in recent years to understand the role of “subject officers.” In the early days of Ontario’s SIU, co-operation was standard. It’s now the opposite. In B.C., The Globe found that less than 1 per cent of police fully co-operated in cases that involved death. Almost 80 per cent refused to co-operate at all.
This lack of police co-operation in cases involving deaths comes as there’s been a surge of incidents. According to
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