ONTARIO POLICE FORCES ARE OUT OF CONTROL

Do not misunderstand me. I am not referring to the fine men and women in uniform whose attitude day in and day out is to serve and protect. I am referring to the administration and control of Ontario police forces by their Chiefs and senior administration officers. They have totally lost control when criminal actions by bad apples within their services are treated differently than criminal actions by members of the public.

Lawyer Julian Falconer, representing the teen victim and his family, stated "This represented in my opinion, a deliberate and intentional effort on the part of police authorities to conceal a crime by one of their own.". It appears that the black teen was walking with two friends in their own neighbourhood last December when confronted by an off-duty police officer and his brother. The teen was attacked and allegedly beaten with a metal pipe. His injuries are severe including loss of an eye and multiple broken bones.

The Special Investigations Unit wasn't notified which is supposed to be mandatory when there are serious injuries and or allegations of sexual assault by a police officer. Durham Police investigated and didn't even interview witnesses to the assault.

Now our very own Waterloo Regional Police are involved as they have been asked to investigate the assault on the black teenager.

A coalition of community and advocacy groups has stated that "The end result is a lack of confidence in the very public institutions that were created to keep us safe.'. Ontario's Attorney General stated that change is necessary to improve public trust in law enforcement. A thorough house cleaning is long overdue at the top if they are unwilling to rid their forces of occasional bad apples. It is beyond hypocritical if well liked and or connected officers keep their jobs after committing criminal offences while other less popular officers are drummed out of police forces using internal Police Act charges. This kind of internal discrimination and favouritism harms both the police force and the public and can no longer be tolerated.

The article describing this situation was in the Waterloo Region Record last Thursday titled "Agency asked to probe two police forces after officer charged in teen's beating".