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On Thursday, March 25, 2004, Julie Berg and her 80 year old mother Ellen filed a Petition and Affidavit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, seeking an Order compelling a coroner's inquest in the case of Jeff Berg, who died after being assaulted by a Vancouver police officer in October of 2000. The Berg family have named the Attorney General, the Solicitor General and the Chief Coroner as Respondents and also seek disclosure of all investigative files related to the case.
The Vancouver Police Department conducted a homicide investigation and an internal investigation, even though one of their own officers had inflicted the fatal blows, and no charges were laid. Inexplicably, no inquest has been set, though one is mandatory whenever a person dies while in police detention or custody.
See a copy of the Petition filed in Action No. L040778:
Warm, dry and sober: Solicitor General Rich Coleman and Vancouver Police Union President Tom Stamatakis enjoy a recent function with the Lieutenant Governor
On Wednesday, March 18, 2004, The Province newspaper reported that British Columbia Solicitor General Rich Coleman had refused a formal request from the province's Police Complaint Commissioner to hold a public inquiry into the death of Frank Joseph Paul.
Mr. Paul, an intoxicated 47 year old Mi'kmaq, died on December 6, 1998 after a Vancouver police officer and a provincial corrections officer dragged his rain-soaked and motionless body out of the Vancouver Jail and dumped him in a nearby alley. Since it was December, he froze to death.
The Police Complaint Commissioner, Dirk Ryneveld, Q.C., supported his request with volumes of new records and his plea was endorsed by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, editorials in the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Courier and scores of community groups and associations. All this apparently fell on deaf ears. Mr. Coleman, a former police officer himself, was unmoved.
At a public rally outside the Vancouver Police headquarters on March 19, 2004, Chief Stewart Phillip deplored Coleman's decision as 'racist'.
After reflection, I have to agree. What other reason could there possibly be for this outrageous decision? After all, in Mr. Coleman's world, wasn't Frank Paul just another drunken Indian? If Mr. Paul had been a white businessman from Shaughnessy, there would have been a different approach. (Of course, if he had been a white businessman, he probably wouldn't hve been subjected to such abuse in the first place).
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After over five years and three months, the Vancouver Police Department says that the conduct of its "crowd control unit" in a 1998 incident has been vindicated by a six thousand page, $800,000 report. The report itself has not been released yet.
In the incident, captured on videotape, about fifty police officers in riot gear emerged from the Hyatt Hotel and began clubbing people who had congregated outside to demonstrate against a visit by then Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Several demonstrators were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.
The report comes after a year-long internal investigation by the VPD, a public hearing launched by the Police Complaint Commission and aborted after several years of litigation launched by the police lawyers and a four year civil suit filed against the City. While it is never easy to estimate the costs of these undertakings, my estimate of the cost to British Columbia's and Vancouver's taxpayers follows:
Year-long VPD investigation: $300,000
Public hearing and related litigation: $1,500,000
Four year civil action: $500,000
Year-long external investigation: $800,000
Studies have shown that most people who complain about alleged police misconduct just want an acknowledgment of responsibility and an apology for injuries, especially where those injuries are not disabling. This case was probably no different. As a result of the City's stubborness, taxpayers may have shelled out at least $3.1 million for an incident that lasted about 45 seconds.
Spalding Gray's body was found in the East River March 8th, two months after he disappeared from his Manhattan apartment. The brilliant actor and performance artist had been increasingly troubled in recent years, after being badly injured in a car accident in Ireland. His work and spirit will survive.
