Minister of Justice Shirley Bond has responded to the disclosure of a video depicting Paul Boyd’s last moments by referring the matter to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team for further review.  Boyd, 39, a mentally disturbed local animator, was shot in the head by VPD Cst. Lee Chipperfield while crawling, mortally wounded and unarmed, across Granville Street nearly five years ago.  Local journalist Ian Mulgrew has penned an opinion piece in today’s Vancouver Sun questioning, in Mr. Mulgrew’s inimitable style, whether the use of lethal force was reasonable.

The answer to that question appears obvious.  We have a different question, though.  Why not hand the case to Richard Rosenthal, the chief civilian director of BC’s new Independent Investigations Office, whose appointment was announced with much fanfare last December?  What better test for the new investigator, who has been on the public payroll for almost six months, than this highly charged and controversial case?  For those of us watching how the long-overdue civilian investigative office is going to perform, this case would have afforded a golden opportunity to test Mr. Rosanthal’s mettle.