March 11, 2008 update: Coroner Liana Wright has dismissed Cst. Todd Sweet’s application for a ban on publication of the proceedings at Noel Tait’s application for the production of records of Sweet’s history of complaints and anger management treatment. She reserved judgment on the latter application.

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March 5, 2008 update: Lawyers for Todd Sweet and the City of New Westminster will be seeking a publication ban on all proceedings at Noel Tait’s application for further document disclosure, according to documents served on us today.

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March 3, 2008 update: The coroner’s inquest has been adjourned to Monday, March 10, 2008 when lawyers will make submissions on the family’s application for fuller disclosure. The family is seeking more documents in addition to those recently disclosed by the coroner, including records of Todd Sweet’s prior violent altercations, his anger management counselling records and the New Westminster Police Service’s policies on employing violent offenders.

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Kyle Tait (1989-2005)

After a two and a half year wait, Kyle Tait’s family will finally have an opportunity to seek answers to their questions when the coroner’s inquest into his death begins Monday in Burnaby. Sixteen year old Kyle was fatally shot by New Westminster police constable Todd Sweet on August 23, 2005 following a short police pursuit. Kyle was one of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, riding as passengers in a stolen SUV driven by Ian Campbell, 18, when Cst. Sweet fired three bullets into the vehicle. Campbell was struck in the hand and Kyle died at the scene. Fortunately, the bullets missed the two 14 year old girls and the 15 year old boy riding in the back seat.

On June 19, 2005, some two months before Kyle’s fatal shooting, Cst. Sweet had assaulted a car theft suspect in a “cowardly act suggesting perhaps an act of unlawful street justice”, according to Judge Weitzel’s reasons on sentencing. The judge noted that neither Sweet nor the other officers on the scene initially reported the assault and ordered Sweet to receive anger management counselling as part of his sentence for the criminal conviction of assault causing bodily harm.

Three months before that, in March, 2005, Sweet reportedly assaulted a 70 year old widow, who later sued for damages.

When asked why Cst. Sweet was still on active duty following the June, 2005 incident, New Westminster Chief Constable Lorne Zapotichny reportedly told The Vancouver Sun that he “did not have anough evidence to support the complaint [of excessive force]”. Kyle Tait’s family plans to pursue this issue, among others, at the inquest.

Read Judge Weitzel’s Reasons for Sentence in R. v. Sweet here: upload

Read The Vancouver Sun, February 7, 2007 article here: upload

Chief Constable Lorne Zapotichny

Constable Todd Sweet

The coroner’s inquest is now scheduled to commence Monday, March 10, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. at Coroner’s Court, Metrotower II, Burnaby, BC.

Note: In British Columbia, legal aid is not available to the family of the deceased. If they wish to be represented by counsel, they must pay a lawyer or find one who will work for free. Typically, all of the other participants are paid by public funds. This case is no different. Almost everyone who enters the room at the coroner’s inquest into Kyle Tait will be receiving taxpayer dollars to attend. That includes, the coroner, the coroner’s lawyer, the sheriff, the coroner’s staff, the lawyer for the City of New Westminster, the lawyer for Todd Sweet and the police officers who are required to attend as witnesses.

Any suggestion that the coroner’s counsel can represent the interests of the deceased is, in these police-involved cases at least, open to serious question*.

The requirement that the family of the deceased must use their own money to pay for legal representation is, in my opinion, an unfair extra burden on them since they have usually suffered enough by the time an inquest is finally convened. The law needs to be reformed so that the deceased’s next of kin are on an equal footing with the public institutions who are usually involved in these cases.

*The BC Coroners Service: Independent from the police?

The BC Coroners Service is headed up by Chief Coroner Terry Smith (ex-RCMP, 35 years, retired with RCMP pension) and Deputy Chief Coroner Norm Leibel (ex-RCMP, 25 years, retired with RCMP pension), who report to Solicitor General John Les, responsible for policing in BC.

Kyle Tait’s death was investigated by members of the NWPS and RCMP. According to Judge Weitzel’s reasons on sentencing Todd Sweet for his June 2005 crime, “a number of senior police officers from New Westminster, the RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department have written letters of support on behalf of Sweet…”

Documents generated in respect of Crown Counsel’s decision not to charge anyone implicated in the death of Frank Paul are privileged and not subject to disclosure to the Frank Paul Inquiry, argued lawyers representing the Criminal Justice Branch of the Ministry of Attorney General. This follows an earlier application for an order that the Crown enjoys an immunity that shields it from producing witnesses to the Commission of Inquiry.

Commission William Davies Q.C. has reserved judgment on both applications.

The quality of justice a Vancouver homicide victim’s family receives apparently depends on who caused the death, according to testimony today at the Frank Paul Inquiry.

Retired VPD detective Doug Staunton said the investigation of a death in police custody is handled differently than a typical homicide case involving civilians. When Vancouver police investigators are investigating a death occurring at the hands of their colleagues, they prepare a “neutral” report for Crown Counsel, rather than a recommendation for charges.

Mr. Staunton also confirmed that investigators departed from usual investigative practice when Frank Paul’s body was discovered, by allowing Cst. Instant, the main officer involved, to attend the death scene, by failing to separate and interview police witnesses and by failing to prepare accurate scene diagrams. He also confirmed that Leonard Doust, QC was called early Sunday morning, December 6, 1998 to provide legal assistance to Cst. Instant, though Instant was not considered a suspect. After meeting with Mr. Doust over two days, Cst. Instant delivered a written statement and was never questioned on why he left Frank Paul in the isolated alley that December night.

Mr. Staunton confirmed that in all of the 11 in-custody death investigations he handled in his career as a VPD homicide investigator, as well as in several dozen other similar cases involving the VPD, charges were not laid after his section’s “neutral” reports were submitted to the Crown.

There hasn’t been this much cause for optimism about the direction of politics in America since, oh, April 3, 1968.

Police should not be investigating cases of police-involved deaths, according to former coroner Jeanine Robinson, former Chief Coroner Larry Campbell and current Chief Coroner Terry Smith. They were testifying at the Frank Paul Inquiry when they confirmed that the public is not being well-served by the present system.

Evidence supporting the proposition was then offered in the person of Insp. Robert Rothwell of the VPD, who found “no credible evidence” that Frank Paul’s family was misled about the circumstances of his death. The Inquiry heard that the VPD did not notify the next of kin until January 11, 1999, more than a month after Frank Paul succumbed to hypothermia on December 6, 1998. He had been dumped there, soaking wet and incapacitated, by a Vancouver police wagon driver a few hours before. The family reportedly was told he had been a victim of a hit and run accident.