Naming of police chief delayed after allegations surface against chosen candidate

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This article was published 17/12/2024 (288 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The naming of Winnipeg’s new police chief appears to have been delayed to conduct a further review of the candidate chosen by the Winnipeg Police Board.

Sources tell the Free Press the formal announcement is on hold because of questions that have arisen surrounding Gene Bowers, who is the deputy chief of the Winnipeg Police Service.

In the leadup to the unveiling of Bowers as the successor to Danny Smyth, who retired earlier this year, a number of allegations surrounding the veteran officer were emailed to the members of the police board, a source said.

Coun. Markus Chambers, chair of the police board, would not comment on the work that has been done to date to find the next chief, or whether the final decision has been put on hold.

“The board has no official comment except to say we are doing our due diligence and will take the time necessary to ensure that we are making the correct decision when the next chief of police is announced,” Chambers said.

Mayor Scott Gillingham refused to be drawn in on the intrigue surrounding Bowers.

“I sit on the police board,’’ Gillingham said Tuesday. “We are, as a police board, in a process as a recruitment committee to hire the new chief. The process is playing out, it needs to play out. And when the time comes to make an announcement, the announcement will be made but we have to complete the process.”

Earlier this month, Chambers said the police board had made its recommendation for the next chief and hinted that an announcement would be coming soon.

The recommended candidate would still need to be approved by city council.

“I can appreciate that people are wanting news and wanting information,’’ Gillingham said. “The police board is absolutely committed to a thorough process. We’re in the midst of that process. At the end of the process, whenever that is, there will be an announcement and the announcement will only come when we’ve completed our process.”

On Dec. 6, the Free Press reported Chambers as saying if the process isn’t completed by council’s Dec. 12 meeting, the last one of the year, he would ask for a special meeting to be held prior to the Christmas break.

“We definitely want to have somebody in place with an announcement before the end of the year,” he said on Dec. 6.

While Bowers hasn’t had much of a public profile as deputy chief, he was front and centre at a Nov. 7 news conference in which the police service announced three of its officers had been slapped with criminal offences following an internal investigation into breach of trust allegations.

Bowers joined the service in 1989 and has worked in several sectors, including specialized investigations, where he implemented the counter-exploitation unit, the WPS says in an online biography.

He is one of the founding members of the provincial human trafficking team committee and was assigned to the joint missing and murdered Indigenous women’s task force from 2010 to 2013. He is credited with modernizing technology in the record and reports management division and setting up online and virtual reporting.

Bowers has a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of Manitoba.

– with files from Joyanne Pursaga

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca