The Police Playing at Politics

Posted on by Pete Cross

The academics who study the police, whether they be criminologists or sociologists, all seem to agree that there have been three different “eras” in the history of policing. The three are differentiated, primarily by the level of interaction between police and the government bodies which oversee them.

There was a period from 1840-1930, the time in which most police services as we know them today came into being. This is referred to as the “political era”. A period of close ties between the police and the politicians, a period of time which because of this closeness, this lack of power separation, was rife with corruption. The second era has been called the “professionalism/reform” era, when the police preached about and brought policies in designed to end political cronyism. Whether they managed to achieve this goal is disputable.

In a study of the Los Angelas Police Department done by Gerry Woods, he points to the fact that few gains were achieved from the movement away from the political machine run police departments during the transition and into the “professional and independent era”. This was due he argues that what in effect happened was that the power of the police shifted from being controlled by the politicians to the police becoming political themselves. This transformation was aided and pushed by the formation of unions, police beginning to voice their support for political candidates, and the various issue led lobbying efforts of the police during this time period.

The third era, the one in which we find ourselves now, is the “community policing” era. The theme to this phase was of course that the police became one with the community, the people who live in that community, and therefore were to reflect the concerns and needs of that community. At least in theory.

Throughout all of these time periods though, the police have always stated the goal was police autonomy, the need for a separation from the politicians. The police were not to be restrained by government nor be given direction. The arguments for this goal were three fold, and fairly obvious– that political involvement of the police was in and of itself unnecessary, that political involvement by the police endangered police legitimacy, and finally, that political participation by the police was in fact dangerous to democracy.

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel echoed these beliefs in his “rules of policing”, and these rules formed the bedrock of many policing agencies set up in North America over the past century. Rule #2 of his rule book was that the police had to “secure and maintain public respect”. Rule #5 stated that the police needed to “demonstrate absolute impartial service to the law” and not by “pandering to public opinion”. Rule #7 and likely the most consistently quoted was that the “police are the public and the public are the police”.

In Canada and for the most part, throughout the rest of the world, there has been this police dictate, especially when front facing the general public, to extoll and “protect the rhetoric of independence”. This has been done despite the indisputable logistical fact that the police are by necessity almost always in structure, and in practise, acting as part of the executive arm of government.

R. Reiner in writing on “The Politics of the Police” says that “all relationships which have a power dimension are political”. Margaret Beare agrees in a paper titled “The History and the Future of Politics of Policing” and states that there is in fact the undeniable truth that there is always a “normalized state of control by government officials”. She goes on to say and point out though that the trouble begins or “the difficulty arises when the police are complicit”.

In other words when the police begin to play or aid in the political process, problems undoubtedly arise. Reiner says likewise, but that it is for most part hidden from easy observation, and that “the political direction to police operational decisions may only be seen when something goes wrong”.

The point of this is that in the last number of months, things have indeed gone wrong, and our police and political leaders are now being fully exposed. The effect is that it is now serving to discredit and embarrass the day to day officers. Likewise, the credibility of the police has been grievously wounded and the road to restoring that credibility is going to be a long one.

The two most obvious examples of political and police collusion are obviously the events of Portapique Nova Scotia and the imposition of the Emergencies Act by the Federal Liberals. Both events have inadvertently turned a spotlight on this political and police incestuous relationship.

In Portapique, Lucki was conspiring with Blair and his cronies to use the largest mass killing in Canada to political advantage. They wanted to turn the suspects use of certain types of weapons into an advertisement in support for an upcoming gun ban legislation. Blair and Trudeau wanted to extoll their images of champions of safety and security, heroically saving us from any future mass killings. The backroom political control over the Commissioner of the RCMP to do their bidding has now been exposed. Her plaintive cries of frustration in not being able to deliver for the Prime Minister and Blair can only be called embarrassing. An embarrassment but also a warning for those who strive for neutrality and objectivity in the enforcement of the law.

This exposed subservience by the Commissioner was followed by the circumstances now being examined by the current commission into the imposition of the Emergencies Act. Academically it has been pointed out that when the government feels threatened, legitimately or not, policing becomes solely political. Crimes that fall into the realm of national security are to a great extent almost always left up to the police and the politicians to define, and it is done in an arena of secrecy. In the Commission hearings, that veil has now been pulled back, exposing the use of the Emergencies Act as a political tool, that was used against Canadians who did not fit the Liberal demographic. How is it possible to not question the motives of Lucki in defending the imposition of the Act?

The former Ottawa City Police Chief, Chief Slolty could sling the terminology of the liberal left, but he was quite inept at playing the game, unable to appease the head of the Ottawa Police Service Police Board. It seems apparent that once one has become ensconced in the political machinery, the one and only goal, and one not learned by the Chief, seems to be the need to appease. This current blend of high level police executives, across the board, have been fully complicit in the political game. They are in their positions because of a willingness to reflect the political will and support the policies that emanate from it, no matter how counter-intuitive to policing needs. The long held policing principles of autonomy is far from their collective minds.

On a more local level a more recent example of a political police executive not “reading the room” is Chief Adam Palmer of the Vancouver Police Department. In December 2019, two officers, Canon Wong and Mitchell Tong attended to a call to a bank where the bank was calling to say that they believed there were two individuals there, using fraudulent indigenous status cards to obtain funds. The officers, walked the pair, Maxwell Johnson and his 13 year old grand-daughter outside of the bank, on to the sidewalk, handcuffed them, and then began to ask them questions. It turned out that the status cards were valid, and the pair were released. There was of course a complaint about these now deemed racist officers for handcuffing them and the embarrassment that it caused. Now, I would be the first to say that this seems like a bit like officer safety run amok when it comes to the handcuffing. However, it was not an offence or a breach of regulations, but merely some bad judgement in reading the scene. And the Police Act review came to the same conclusion and recommended that the officers simply apologize, which they did to the family personally and even writing a letter of apology.

However, along came the political police masters, eager to appease the social media and indigenous outcry, and the BC Human Rights Commission. Clearly, they opined, evidence of “systemic racism”. So a “settlement” with the family was reached. This civilian Police Board settlement included; “confidential damages” to the Johnson family, $100,000 to the Heiltsuk’s First Nation restorative justice department which will go to programming for at-risk girls; and an agreement that the Board will create a “position for anti-indigenous racism office or officer”. They also agreed to have these particular officers attend an “apology ceremony” in Bella Bella, where the officers would apologize in a public ceremony in front of the Band members. The officers were un-involved nor did they agree to this Board settlement clause.

Faye Whitman of the Police Board was all in and so was Chief Palmer, who has previously voiced the opinion and thus committed to the fact that there was “systemic discrimination and racism within law enforcement”. So Whitman and the Chief attended to remote Bella Bella, in fact they came bearing “gifts” — “feast bowls” for the leaders of the Band. The officers themselves refused to go for “personal reasons” but it was more likely that they did not want to go this version of a “show-trial”.

Global News had already been alerted, no doubt by the Indigenous, and were in full attendance waiting for the officers to humbly appear, as the anticipated appearance was for them looking to be a hard to resist television moment. When the officers did not show, the media was upset, and it seems obvious that they and the Indigenous then staged a dramatic return of the “gifts” to Chief Palmer– as he sheepishly sat in the audience. He was then chased out of the auditorium to get his response.

In the end, Chief Palmer and the Police Board did irreparable harm to their reputation among the ranks of the police. The settlement reached by the Board for this “infraction” by the two officers was over the top, and now the leader of the Board and the Police chief were caught in the camera lights playing to those same politics. It could not have been more obvious. The officers did the right thing by not attending. The Band and Mr. Johnson say they still need “closure” and want the officers to come sometime in the future. It could not get more ridiculous.

Chief Palmer will likely be rewarded by his political uppers for his “progressive” stance, but in terms of the persons he is under oath to lead, he has severely wounded his credibility and will be a long time in recovering. He played politics and it came with a cost.

So where does this leave us? Is there a pendulum effect in play here? Are we ever going to reach some middle ground where the police busy themselves with the job of enforcing the laws of this country, in a neutral and unbiased way, or are the police executives going to continue to play in the woke sandbox? It is clear that they are not very good at it, they keep getting dirt in their eyes.

As I get ready to post this blog, the latest revelations from the Commission is that the Convoy protestors had various police individuals inside the OPP, the Ottawa Police service, and even CSIS “leaking” them information. If true, the police were also now playing politics on a ground level which should be seen as being equally dangerous to the credibility of the police in the eyes of the public. One can only hope that somewhere, sometime, someone comes to their senses.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Commons by Beauty False – Some Rights Reserved

Lying…

Posted on by Pete Cross

In light of various recent events, it seems that the vagaries of lying in this 21st century seem worthy of a little exploration.

Often one thinks of lying as being a black and white issue. However, lying as everyone and everybody who has practised the art can tell you, it is inevitably shaded and nuanced. Even whether one finds un-truths offensive seems to be tempered by who is doing the lying; or what they are lying about.

We, at times, seem to be more accepting of certain types of lies. Institutional or professional lying seems too often to go unchallenged, acceptance of it becoming more the norm.

Personal lies seem less acceptable, although even the distinction between the two can get murky. Are we more content with institutional lying? We often shrug our shoulders succumbing to it being the way it is, something for which we have no power over. Whereas the more personal lie has a greater chance of offending.

At the bottom of the lying scale, (if we admit to there being a scale) are what our mothers and fathers used to call the “white” lies. A dictionary would call white lying often “trivial” or “mundane”. When one says that dinner was “lovely, when it in fact was un-edible, this is acceptable. This lie was designed to spare a persons feelings, it’s even what a decent person would do under these circumstances.

Hope Hicks, the former advisor to President Trump on media matters, admitted she told “white lies” during her course of duties. Well, of course that is not true, that was a bit of a lie. A lie about a lie if you will.

What Ms. Hicks was doing was actually in the next upper layer of lying– the lies that are being practised and utilized by our very governments.

Donald Trump lies on a daily basis, over and over again, seemingly with little negative repercussions–well at least for fifty percent of the American public. On the other hand, Richard Nixon was impeached for the single lie of denying recording conversations in the White House and using the FBI to go against his political enemies. Bill Clinton found out that lying about sex on public television, along with getting wife Hillary to swear to the lie, was less acceptable and he too was forced down that same impeachment road.

It will be interesting this week to see if the Judicial Committee in the U.S. feels that Mr. Trump leveraging of government resources for a political purpose and lying about it becomes an “impeachable offence”. Or have the times changed and are the offences of yesteryear not the same as those of today.

Our own Minister of Justice at the time, Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke about “her truth” when talking about her problems with Trudeau and his underlings. One could only translate this to mean that “my truth” may be different than “her truth”. If one believes that there is a single unassailable truth, then this kind of phrasing is difficult to even grasp and at the very least, it muddy’s the waters both in its intent and message. The specific terminology used forces the listener or reader to be attentive to the semantics.

Governmental lies from the police, whether it be the RCMP, or the Vancouver City Police or any other police department, is a little more difficult to discern. Much harder for the general public to know they are being lied to, or at the very least being misled, as the actual facts are often hidden behind the “Confidential” or “Secret” labelled files.

The “spinners” and the “strategic” media sections of the RCMP and other police departments are mandated to be the practitioners of the art of the semantic dodge. Almost inevitably, it is done from a defensive posture, designed and structured to avoid criticism, or quell further scrutiny. It quite often works. Although their repeated and practised lines often become worthless over time, made useless with their constant repetition.

How many times have you heard after the latest killing or shooting in a residential neighbourhood that the public “has no need to fear”. This was a “targeted” offence (by the way –aren’t all offences targeted?) In truth, you actually should be concerned about a shooting in your neighbourhood. There are many cases of mistaken identity shootings and there are plenty of gangland drive-by shootings which spray the neighbourhood. Gangsters indiscriminately shooting in their twisted fist fashion and doing their best Scarface imitations are in fact a real danger to the neighbourhood.

The police if pressed would justify these kinds of pronouncements as being designed to ease the neighbourhood anxiety; to make you feel that you are safe. So they would argue if honest that they are doing it for your own good.

We have been told many times over that marihuana is a benign enterprise, not one of the drugs which promote or lead to violence. Or that the legalization of marihuana will eliminate organized crime. Now that the government is in the marihuana business this lie has become the government seemingly acceptable truth. In reality hundreds have been killed over the years in the marihuana industry and even government is now admitting that they may never eliminate the criminal element.

When the police say that it is “still an active investigation”, chances are they are lying to you. It may not have a C.H. (Concluded Here) notation on the file, but in all probability, nobody is actively working on those files. They tell that to victims families on a regular basis and they get away with it– as only they know level of investigation on those protected files.

Where the institutional lying can become serious is when it turns personal for the police officers involved. It could even lead to criminal charges. Usually that happens when the accusation(s) creep into the courtrooms or some other public body of inquiry where truths surface that otherwise would have remained hidden from view.

Criminal defence counsel is always accusing the police of lying: “I put it to you officer…”. But let’s forget about that nonsensical game playing practised by those that defend the indefensible.

Instead, what we are talking about is lying when the singular motive seems or is designed to cover up; to promote or defend one’s integrity.

Lying as a police officer used to be fatal to a career. Different levels of accountability now seem to be at play, sometimes directly tied to how far one goes up the managerial ladder.

The accusation of “you’re lying” is big ugly phrase that reverberates off of those courtroom walls. So the most vulnerable to the accusation are logically, those that spend a great deal of their time in those courtrooms. Once again, the uniform officers, or the officer actively involved in criminal investigations are the most likely targets; accepted as fair game for lawyers, judges, and the media.

In the RCMP as in other police agencies, if you get past the rank of Corporal, you are much less likely to end up in that maelstrom known as the Canadian justice system, and therefore less susceptible to any threats to your credibility.

If you get to the lofty heights of Executive officers (Inspector and above in the RCMP) you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than appearing in a Provincial criminal court.

There are some current police officers, or former officers who may feel that this blogger is overstating the cases of officers lying, but consider the following:

In a Toronto Star article in 2012 titled: “Police who Lie: How Officers thwart justice with False Testimony” authors David Bruser and Jesse McLean reported on over 100 cases across Canada where perjury had surfaced as an allegation in a courtroom.

The authors of this study, found that the usual reason given for raising possible falsehoods was to change what may happen if the truth were discovered. They also discovered that the greater the stakes, the greater the chance of someone perjuring themselves. These conclusions seem obvious.

What prompted this somewhat meandering blog about lying was a recent case in Lloydminster, Alberta which is an RCMP detachment of about 34 uniform officers.

This case started with a female civilian officer of the local Detachment, who was in a managerial position, having an affair (which she initially denied) with the local RCMP dog handler. At one point there was an ugly confrontation between the dog handler’s wife and the mistress at the house of the dog handler. (You know already that this story is not destined to end well.)

The head of the Detachment at the time was Inspector Suki Manj. Manj was married to Corporal Tammy Hollingsworth, who was also working at the Lloyminster detachment. (This too is not a good thing in a relatively small detachment where conflict of interest implications are bound to surface)

Both Hollingsworth and Manj apparently were good “friends” of the now aggrieved dog handlers wife. Both also considered themselves friends with the female civilian manager.

Inspector Manj questioned the civilian member, who quickly turned on Manj and accused him of “ruining her reputation” by “asking questions”. She complained to Manj’s bosses, who promptly told Manj “to back off”, that if they were having an affair it was none of his business. Manj clearly felt that it was his business, felt that the affair was “inappropriate” and “unbecoming” and therefore justified his questioning of the involved female.

Manj was charged for the misconduct, a total of 16 allegations were brought against him for the period of 2014 to 2016. These 16 were eventually dropped to four. One of the allegations being that Manj “didn’t provide a complete and accurate account of what happened”.

His spouse Corporal Tammy Hollingsworth was also charged with multiple offenses which seemed to amount to her getting a little too involved in the matter, trying to find out details, and that she failed to be diligent in protecting her “friend” from domestic assault.

The civilian female went off on stress leave. She also participated in the sexual harassment suit that was playing out in Ottawa. When she was initially questioned by Manj she denied having an affair; something which in the end she admitted to.

Both Manj and Hollingsworth were suspended “with pay”in 2017 and eventually both were transferred back to British Columbia.

Hollingsworth ended up being cleared by in a hearing held by Kevin L. Harrison in September 2018.

Inspector Manj went before a five day tribunal in Richmond, British Columbia which was presided over by Gerry Annetts (also a former police officer). Testifying at this tribunal for upper management were Manj’s former bosses Chief Supt. Shahin Mehdizadeh and Chief Supt. Wendell Reimer.

Annetts went on to call the evidence of Mehdizadeh and Reimer as “unreliable”. In other words, he did not believe either one of them.

He then went further in talking about another RCMP witness; Staff Sgt. Sarah Nelson. He described her evidence as, “some of the most biased, leading, unreliable statements I have ever seen”. He didn’t believe her either.

Needless to say, all charges were dropped against Manj.

Cpl Hollingsworth has now launched a civil suit alleging “malicious prosecution” and has stated that she suffered “emotional and psychological harm” by her bosses. It is unsure as to whether Inspector Manj will follow suit.

The RCMP have wisely decided that now would not be the time to comment further.

Let’s summarize. An affair, led to a lie about that affair, which led to two separate public hearings, where a S/Sgt, a Superintendent and a Chief Superintendent all were accused of being “unreliable” (the nicer spin on lying).

Two officers who were both also in a bit of a conflict of interest position, have been sitting at home since 2017 gathering pay cheques, and one of those officers is now launching a civil suit for further compensation for the harm that has been caused.

The person who started all this and originally lied about the affair is also sitting at home on a managerial salary, also on stress leave.

It would probably be fair to say that the taxpayers of Lloydminster probably deserved better.

A note of caution. Maybe these officers don’t deserve these comments by the acting arbitrators, but that would in turn mean that Cpl Hollingsworth and Inspector Manj could have been lying.

It looked like all problems were about to be solved concerning this nasty lying problem when this blogger discovered that the RCMP in Ottawa have a Truth Verification Section.

Only the Federal government could come up with this title, but when we explored further, it was realized that this is for most part only the polygraph section that they are referring to– so as it turns out, even the title of this section seems to be stretching our credibility a bit.

Where does this leave us all during this time of lies, counter-lies, sanctioned lies, and our parents white lies? It is hard to be sure.

George Orwell warned us when he said, “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.

We may be in need of a revolution.

Photo courtesy of Ninian Reid via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved