A report by former appellate justice Joe Wood, Q.C. is to be released to the public today, according to media accounts.

This writer hopes that the report will finally recommend that civilian investigators, not police, be given the responsibility to investigate cases of serious injury or death involving police officers. That is the model in Ontario, Quebec and Great Britain, for example.

Once the report is released, we will post further commentary here.

This site has had some pretty bleak postings lately, so on a cheerier note, the former Smiths frontman is appearing all weekend in Pasadena, but it’s SRO…

The Attorney General of British Columbia, ably represented by three lawyers at my successful six day civil trial, has filed a Notice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal seeking to have the $5,000 damages award against it set aside. The appeal will be heard in another six months or so and, when all the bills are in, will probably cost BC taxpayers at least another $20,000.

I had repeatedly asked for an apology for my arrest, strip search, jailing and seizure of my car, and would have gladly accepted one just after the incident or even just before the trial, four years later. However, the City of Vancouver and the Attorney General of BC have spent years defending this case vigorously, at what must be horrendous public expense.

Sigh. Sometimes, you just have to wonder….

Click here for a link to a copy of the appeal documents.

Click here for a link to the BC Supreme Court trial decision.

Click here for a link to one of the interlocutory (pretrial) decisions.

After participating as counsel in five coroner’s inquests lately, here are some of my opinions on the process:

1. It takes far too long. It now takes years before a coroner’s inquest is held into a death. When Larry Campbell was Chief Coroner, it took an average of about seven months to hold an inquest.

2. In police-involved deaths, the coroner’s office defers to the police and lacks independence.

3. The family has no access to legal aid for legal representation. Typically, all the other participants and their counsel receive public funding from the taxpayer for their lawyers.

4. The family of the deceased is not entitled to make any submissions to the jury or suggest any recommendations to it.

5. The family cannot view documents unless it signs a promise not to disclose their contents. This despite the fact an inquest is supposed to be a public hearing designed to assure the community that the circumstances of a death are not overlooked, concealed or ignored.

6. The manner of selecting the five person jury is a mystery.

7. The jury’s recommendations are not binding. The provincial government has ignored jury recommendations made in 2004 that the police not be allowed to investigate themselves in police-involved homicides and that the family be given public legal aid funding, among others.

In conclusion, the process is most unsatisfactory from the family’s point of view. If reforms are not made, I doubt the utility of any family participating in any future coroner’s inquests in the province.

The coroner’s inquest into the death of Kevin St. Arnaud, 29, ended late yesterday in Vanderhoof with the jury classifying the death as a homicide. They heard evidence that RCMP constable Ryan Sheremetta, then 22, shot him three times in the chest from a distance of some 5.5 metres in the early morning hours of December 19, 2004. Kevin was intoxicated, unarmed, had his hands up and was holding only a white plastic bag and two plastic pill bottles just before he was killed.

Cst. Sheremetta testified he feared for his life and fired all three bullets from flat on his back as Kevin approached him in a menacing manner, shouting, “you’re gonna have to shoot me motherfucker”. However, his colleague Cst. Colleen Erickson, a twenty four year veteran of the RCMP, saw the shooting from nearby and testified that Sheremetta was standing “in a combat stance” when he fired the shots and that she did not hear the alleged threat. A civilian eyewitness reported that Sheremetta was standing just before the shots rang out, and that Kevin had his hands up in surrender.

The forensic evidence of three experts revealed that both men were standing, that Kevin was stationary just before he collapsed, and that the three fatal bullets entered his body in a downward trajectory of 30 to 40 degrees. The primary investigator, RCMP Staff Sgt. Glenn Krebs, conceded that he concluded in April of 2005 that there were “inaccuracies” in Sheremetta’s account , but his superior, RCMP Staff Sgt. Flath nonetheless subsequently advised Crown Counsel that there was “insufficient evidence” to support criminal charges.

The family was not allowed to make any submissions to the five members of the jury, whose identities remain unknown. Kevin’s mother, Delores Young, had wanted to suggest three recommendations to the jury: that the police not be allowed to investigate themselves in serious cases, that coroner’s inquests be conducted in a more timely manner and that the deceased’s family receive legal aid to enable them to have legal representation at such inquests.

The BC Solicitor General is responsible for coroners and police. In BC, unlike Ontario, Quebec and the UK, police investigate fatal incidents involving their own members. Their investigative report is eventually given to the coroner, who releases copies to the family only if they agree to preserve confidentiality over the file. Under the present Chief Coroner, it often takes several years to hold an inquest, which is a public hearing designed to assure the community that the circumstances of the death have not been overlooked, concealed or ignored. An inquest is mandatory whenever someone dies in police custody, but it may not find fault. Although lawyers and other representatives of the coroners office and the police appear at an inquest at public expense, there is no provision for public funding to assist the family of the deceased.

Cst. Sheremetta reportedly remains on active duty with the RCMP in Kamloops, as does Cst. Paul Koester, who fatally shot Ian Bush in Houston, BC in October of 2005. Kevin St. Arnaud leaves three young children, his parents, two younger brothers and a sister.

THE FIVE BIG “INACCURACIES”

Crown Counsel based its decision not to charge Sheremetta on his statement to investigators, despite the investigators’ conclusion that there were major “inaccuracies” in it. Here they are:

Sheremetta testified under oath that he fired from his flat on his back after falling, that he feared for his life because Kevin advanced on him with his right hand in his pocket and that in his RCMP career to that point (23 months in Vanderhoof) he had taken concealed handguns away from suspects “many times”.

According to the testimony of two eyewitnesses, one being a 24 year veteran of the force, and according to extensive forensic analysis of the scene, Sheremetta did not fall or fire from his back. According to the RCMP eyewitness, Kevin’s hands were both visible and not in his pockets at the tme of the shooting. Although the RCMP checked its records, it was unable to produce evidence that Sheremetta had ever relieved anyone of a concealed handgun before the incident.

THE RCMP INVESTIGATIVE TEAM

The homicide investigation was handled by RCMP members from Vanderhoof, Prince George and the Lower Mainland. Here is the list of participants:

Cst. Huisman, Cst. Muraca, Cst. Foy, Cst. Brown, Cst. Davidson, Cst. Davies, Cst. Michaud, Cst. Sullivan, Cst. Logan, Cst. Hudyma, Cst. Erickson, Cst. Caira, Cpl. MacLellan, Cpl. Beach, Cpl. Paul, Cpl. Gillis, Sgt. Krebs, Sgt. Doll, Sgt. Ward, Sgt. Gallant, Sgt. Gauthier, Sgt. Chanin, Staff Sgt. Kowalewich, Staff Sgt. Flath, Insp. Van de Walle, Insp. Hopkins, Insp. DeGrand, Supt. Killaly, Supt. Clark and civilian RCMP members Hall and Daborn.

By the way, none of these investigators contacted the occupants of the residence facing the shooting scene, about 100 metres away, to ask them what they saw or heard.