Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

The public's trust

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/25/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

A Toronto police officer has been charged with second-degree murder after a man was shot in the back during an investigation. Murder charges against police are extremely rare, and no officer has ever been convicted of such an offence committed in the course of his or her duties.

The charge was laid not by fellow police officers, but by Ontario's special investigations unit. It's an independent organization staffed entirely by civilians. Although some of the investigators are former police officers, most are drawn from various branches of government, including workplace health and safety, national security and intelligence, immigration, corrections and the legal profession.

The SIU has learned that it doesn't need serving police officers to find the smoking gun or the suspect, because the case is not about who fired the shot; it's about context and circumstance. It's not a whodunit, but a whatwasit -- justifiable homicide, accident, negligence or murder.

The SIU was created to bolster confidence that investigations into police-involved homicides and serious assaults were being handled with integrity and professionalism. It was a measure to help retain trust in the police themselves, because when that's lost, policing becomes much more difficult.

Unfortunately, Manitoba decided not to follow Ontario's example. Instead, the investigations unit that is being established here will be composed mainly of seconded or former police officers, although the legislation will allow the hiring of civilians with investigative experience. There will also be civilian oversight, but it's a weak facsimile of a truly independent agency.

The risk in the Manitoba model, of course, is that it may not restore the public's trust, particularly in the case of aboriginals, who are deeply suspicious of the justice system.

A truly civilian agency is not an attack on the police, but rather an effort to strengthen their credibility with the public, which has increasingly challenged the ability of police to investigate themselves. The province will eventually discover that it has merely created a parallel police bureaucracy without addressing the very questions that led to its creation.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 25, 2012 A16

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