http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...hson-1.4005029
Police watchdog ASIRT accuses Calgary force of protecting its own with 'unprincipled' practices
Interesting to see the police watchdog put CPS on blast for many major concerns. Of course we only see this because the media did a bunch of FOIP requests.
Interesting to note ASIRT being concerned about:
CPS disclosing evidence gathered against the subject officer to his or her lawyer while the investigation is still underway and before the Crown has decided whether to recommend charges.
I actually had this exact issue come up during a 3 year long complaint i had filed with the professional standards branch. Our resident cop downplayed the fact all of my interviews, recordings and evidence were provided to the police officers i made a complaint against even though my complaint was still being investigated.
The article states CPS was providing this data to officers well before they had provided their own statements. From the article:
"I am unaware of any other type of investigation where the fruits of the investigation are shared with the subject of that investigation before it has even concluded," wrote Hughson.
"Furthermore, I cannot imagine a more unprincipled practice that has the obvious potential outcome of tainting any statement the subject officer could provide and leaving it fraught with the possibility of tailoring to be consistent with the evidence of other witnesses."
But CPS admits this is common practice.
In my case I had my investigator completely avoid speaking to my witness, asked another to lie for him and told this witness he would make me go away once she provided him what he wanted. They also provided everything to the lawyers very early into the investigation(of which phil blasted me for it being normal). It took me multiple appeals and requests for information to see all the non sense that was happening. But the officers get everything and everything before their statements are even taken...
Good to see the watchdog is aware and trying to change the issues. We may actually get real impartial investigations done that aren't spent protecting their own.