RCMP investigator recently revealed four officers involved in arrest that ended in man’s death say they followed a directive from the union to not take notes about the incident
A group of Vancouver police officers responded to a call about a distressed man on the city’s south side, then followed him into a hidden yard to make an arrest. Minutes later, he was dead, with a broken nose, eye socket, rib and voice box, as well as brain bleeding and a ruptured testicle.
Provincial Crown prosecutors had already declined a recommendation from the B.C. Independent Investigations Office – which investigates deaths or serious injuries at the hands of police – to lay criminal charges against the officers who responded that day. The Crown had announced that it was hamstrung by the “incomplete” and “inconsistent” accounts police had given investigators probing Mr. Gray’s death.
Another officer told Sgt. Nash the union had directed him to wait seven months to file his account of the failed arrest, as well as a special use-of-force report. He said his normal practice was to write these up and file them as soon as possible. A recent Globe and Mail investigation found that provincial watchdogs established to investigate when officers are involved in deaths or serious injuries are frequently stymied when police refuse to co-operate. In B.C., just 4 of 198 officers under investigation fully co-operated with the IIO in the past five years, the poorest record of participation in Canada.
Sgt. Nash noted that the first constable to respond that August day was on leave for six weeks afterward. She finished a digital statement on the incident two days after speaking to her union representative in December, 2015. She didn’t upload it to the provincial police recordkeeping and intelligence database, known as PRIME, until January, 2016. Her required use-of-force report wasn’t uploaded until February, 2016.
One of the four officers who said they had been instructed by the union not to make any notes about the incident told Sgt. Nash he believed this directive came from Tom Stamatakis, who was the union’s president at the time.
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