JUST DOWN THE ROAD: MORE POLICE MISBEHAVIOUR

Literally day after day now we are hearing of police misconduct, whether alleged to date or proven. Yesterday was criminal charges laid against a Waterloo Region police officer. Today we are advised of a civil suit filed against the Guelph Police Service and several of it's members. The facts as stated in today's Waterloo Region Record are particularily egregious. Not only was their no bad behaviour on the part of the citizen/victim but in fact he has a genetic condition known as Trisomy 8 and he works part time at Torchlight and ARC Indiustries. Furthermore after allegedly assaulting the victim, police officers charged him with several criminal offences. These charges had such extreme merit that the police didn't even send them as required, along to the Crown Attorney. Unbelieveable! The victim was only advised two days prior to his September 9/16 court date that he did not need to attend. The title of the Record's article is "Guelph Police face $5M lawsuit over arrest".

The victim's lawyer has publicly stated that the initial charges against his client were "fabricated". As this is now a public matter why has the Crown's office in Guelph, much less the police themselves, not filed charges against the police officers involved? Charges could include assault as well as obstruction of justice in that it appears that they laid charges against the victim simply to intimidate him into silence.

A civil suit doesn't cut it. In fact it is precisely how police services avoid accountability and transparency. They will stall and delay, literally for years and then settle out of court with a confidentiality clause. Guess who will pay damages and costs? It sure as hell won't be a single police officer or administrator in charge of dealing with these matters. You guessed it, you and I Joe Taxpayer will pay the whole shot. What a crappy deterrent to future police misconduct when they literally can buy their way out of trouble using other people's money.

By the way the Record's on-line article this morning has been seriously shortened (censored?) in the hard copy version I picked up at my local retailer. The "censored" parts include identification of the police officers involved. Somebody maybe put a little pressure on the Waterloo Region Record folks?