As the families of Ryan Snopek, Ian Bush, Kyle Tait, Kevin St. Arnaud, Gerald Chenery and Robert Bagnell, all of whom died at hands of BC police officers since 2004, continue their long, arduous and painful wait for some form of justice, it may be timely to reproduce our commentary first published in December of 2005. (Robert Bagnell died in June of 2004, yet there still has been no date scheduled yet for the mandatory coroner’s inquest into his death.)

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When the perpetrator of a homicide is found at the scene and immediately identified, how long should it take the authorities to conclude their investigation and make a decision on whether to lay charges, thereby perhaps letting a court determine guilt or innocence?

What is a reasonable period of time for the victim’s family to wait? A day? A few days? A couple of weeks? Maybe a month?

Apparently a lot longer if the assailant is wearing a police uniform.

Consider these recent examples:

On October 22, 2000, Jeff Berg, unarmed, sober, no material criminal record, is confronted by an armed police officer in a Vancouver alley. According to two civilian eyewitnesses, the officer knocks Berg to the ground and kicks him repeatedly as he is lying motionless on the pavement. Berg loses consciousness and dies as a result of a blow to the neck. The autopsy report indicates he was struck or kicked at least ten times in the head. The police officer was completely unscathed. On December 9, 2002, Crown Counsel advises the family that no charges will be laid. More than two years for Crown to make a decision…

On June 23, 2004, five police officers respond to a call for medical assistance. Two of them shock Robert Bagnell, unarmed, with 50,000 volts from their Tasers as he lies on the floor of his Vancouver rooming house washroom. His heart stops and he dies. On December 1, 2005, Crown Counsel advises the family that no charges will be laid. A year and a half to make a decision…

On December 19, 2004, an RCMP officer confronts burglary suspect Kevin St. Arnaud, unarmed, in an open field in Vanderhoof. From a reported distance of five metres, the officer fires three bullets into St. Arnaud’s chest, killing him instantly. An eyewitness reports that St. Arnaud raised both hands before the first shot was fired. On February 21, 2006 Crown Counsel advises the family that the officer will not be charged. Fourteen months to make a decision…

If the shoe were on the other foot, how long would it take? In the latter case, if St. Arnaud had shot a police officer, he would have been charged in a matter of hours. If the incident had involved two civilians, a decision on charges would have been made in a few days, at the most.

It is apparently exceedingly difficult for British Columbia law enforcement authorities to investigate police-involved fatalities and make a prompt decision on whether to lay charges. I have some suggestions to make it easier,quicker and most importantly, fairer for all concerned.

First, police should not investigate police in these circumstances. Like Ontario and other jurisdictions, we should have an independent body with the authority to fully investigate fatalities. Second, the charge approval decision should always be made by a special prosecutor, a lawyer independent of Crown Counsel, to avoid any perception that Crown Counsel, who routinely work with police in all other prosecutions, display any favouritism. Finally, the Coroners Service must reform its approach to these cases. All fatalities occurring in police custody require coroner’s inquests to be held, as they should. The inquests, fact-finding in nature, must be held quickly, and the evidence disclosed forwarded to the special prosecutor to assist in the charge approval decision process.

The public and the victims’ families deserve a better system than the one we’ve got.

Since September 28, 1999, at least 168 North Americans have died after being shot by police or law enforcement Tasers. Sixty-nine people died in 2005, including five Canadians:

(Six more have died so far in 2006 after being Tasered, all in the U.S.)

1. Jan. 2: Gregory Saulsbury, 30, Pacifica, California

2. Jan. 5: Dennis Hyde, 30, Akron, Ohio

3. Jan. 8: Carl Trotter, 33, Pensacola, Florida

4. Jan. 28: Unknown man, Chickasha, Oklahoma

5. Jan. 31: Jeffrey Turner, 41, Lucas County, Ohio

6. Feb. 10: Ronald Alan Hasse, 54, Chicago, Illinois

7. Feb. 12: Robert Camba, 45, San Diego, California

8. Feb. 18: Joel Dawn Casey, 52, Houston, Texas

9. Feb. 20: Robert Heston, 40, Salinas, California

10. March 3: Shirley Andrews, 38, Cincinnati, Ohio

11. March 6: Willie Towns, 30, Derland, Florida

12. Mar. 12: Milton Woolwolk, 39, Lake City, Florida

13. Mar. 17: Mark Young, 25, Indianapolis, Indiana

14. April 3: James Wathan, Jr., 32, Delhi, California

15. April 3: Eric Hammock, 43, Fort Worth, Texas

16. April 8: Ricky Barber, 46, Carter County, Oklahoma

17. April 22: John Cox, 39, Bellport, New York

18. May 3: Keith Graf, 24, Phoenix, Arizona

19. May 5: Kevin Geldart, 34, Moncton, New Brunswick

20. May 6: Stanley Wilson, 44, Miami, Florida

21. May 6: Lawrence Berry, 33, Jefferson Parish, La.

22. May 13: Vernon Young, 31, Union Township, Ohio

23. May 17: Lieroy Pierson, 55, Rancho Cucamonga, Cal.

24. May 20: Randy Martinez, 40, Albequerque, New Mexico

25. May 23: Lee Marvin Kimmel, 38, Reading, Pennsylvania

26. May 23: Richard Alverado, 38, Tustin, California

27. May 28: Richard T. Holcomb, 18, Akron, Ohio

28. May 28: Nazario J. Solorio, 38, Escondido, California

29. June 4: Unidentified male, 33, Sacramento, California

30. June 7: Russell Walker, 47, Las Vegas, Nevada

31. June 11: Horace Owens, 48, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

32. June 13: Michael Anthony Edwards, 32, Palatka, Florida

33. June 13: Shawn Pirozzi, 30, Canton, Ohio

34. June 14: Robert Earl Williams, 62, Waco, Texas

35. June 24: Carolyn Daniels, 25, Fort Worth, Texas

36. June 29: Unidentified male, Miami, Florida

37. June 30: Gurmeet Sandhu, 41, Surrey, B.C.

38. July 1: James Foldi, 39, Beamsville, Ont.

39. July 7; Rocky Brison, 41, Birmingham, Alabama

40. July 12: Kevin Omas, 17, Euless, Texas

41. July 15: Otis G. Thrasher, 42, Butte, Montana

42. July 15: Ernesto Valdez, Phoenix. Arizona

43. July 15: Paul Sheldon Saulnier, 42, Digby, Nova Scotia

44. July 16: Carlos Casillas Fernandez, 31, Santa Rosa, CA

45. July 17: Michael Critchfield, 40, West Palm Beach,FL

46. July 23: Maury Cunningham, 29, Lancaster, S.C.

47. July 27: Terrence L. Thomas, 35, Rockville Centre, NY

48. August 1: Brian Patrick O’Neal, San Jose, California

49. August 3: Eric Mahoney, 33, Fremont, California

50. August 4: Dwayne Zachary, 44, Sacramento, California

51. August 5: Olsen Ogoddide, 38, Glendale, Arizona

52. August 26: Shawn Norman, 40, Laurelville, Ohio

53. August 27: Brian Lichtenstein, 31, Stuart, Florida

54. Sept. 18: David Anthony Cross, 44, Santa Cruz,CA

55. Sept. 22: Timothy Michael Torres, 24, Sacramento,CA

56. Sept. 24: Patrick Aaron Lee, 21, Nashville, Tenn.

57. Sept. 26: Michael Clark, 33, Austin, Texas

58. October 13: Steven Cunningham, 45, Fort Myers, Fla.

59. October 20: Jos Perez, 33, San Leandro, Cal.

60. Nov. 1: Miguel Serrano, 35, New Britain, Conn.

61. Nov. 13: Josh Brown, 23, Lafayette, La.

62. Nov. 17: Jose Angel Rios, 38, San Jose, Cal.

63. Nov. 20: Hansel Cunningham, 30, Des Plaines, Ill.

64. Nov. 26: Tracy Rene Shippy, 35, Fort Meyers, Fla.

65. Nov. 30: Kevin Dewayne Wright, 39,Kelso,Wash.

66. Dec. 1: Jeffrey Earnhardt, 47, Orlando, Florida

67. Dec. 7: Michael Tolosko, 31, Sonoma, California

68. Dec. 17: Howard Starr, 32, Florence, S.C.

69. Dec. 24: Alesandro Fiacco, Edmonton, Alberta

This list has been compiled from media reports, including statistics and reports generated by The Arizona Republic newspaper. For further information, please see www.azcentral.com/specials/taser

(Note: In a news release dated December 20, 2004, the RCMP stated that they would “ensure that a fully open, public and transparent investigation is conducted” into the homicide of Kevin St. Arnaud. Since the RCMP seems to have forgotten the commitment it made over a year ago, we consider it important to post the following.)

According to a letter we’ve just received from Geoffrey Gaul, Director, Legal Services, “the Criminal Justice Branch of the Ministry of Attorney General has decided against laying any charges against Cst. Ryan Sheremetta, the officer involved in the December 2004 shooting death of Kevin St. Arnaud.” According to Mr. Gaul, “we are convinced that the Crown could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Cst. Sheremetta is guilty of any offence in relation to the events of 19 December, 2004.”

On December 19, 2004, Cst. Sheremetta of the Vanderhoof RCMP was pursuing Mr. St. Arnaud on foot across a soccer field because Mr. St. Arnaud was suspected to have recently committed a break and enter in a local shopping mall. According to Mr. Gaul’s letter, Mr. St. Arnaud “came to a stop and put his arms in the air” when “Cst. Sheremetta was approximately fifteen to twenty feet from Mr. St. Arnaud.” When Mr. St. Arnaud “advanced” toward the officer, Cst. Sheremetta fired three bullets into Mr. St. Arnaud, killing him. According to Mr. Gaul’s letter, “no weapons were found on Mr. St. Arnaud.” There is no suggestion in the letter that Mr. St. Arnaud had anything in his possession that could be mistaken for a weapon: no TV remote, no portable CD player…just some plastic pill containers. The letter does not explain how pill containers can cause an officer to fear for his life.

A few things should be apparent to even the most casual observer. First, if the shooter in this case had not been wearing a police uniform, he would have been charged immediately with murder or manslaughter. It would not have taken Crown Counsel fourteen months to reach a decision on whether or not to lay charges. Second, if his shooter’s explanation was that he fired on an unarmed man in an open field in self-defence, the Crown would have required him to try to establish that to the satisfaction of a judge (or judge and jury) in a court of law.

However, in this case the assailant was wearing an RCMP uniform, which changes everything. In accordance with standard practice in this province (unlike say, Ontario, where the police are not allowed to investigate themselves) Cst. Sheremetta’s RCMP colleagues investigated the homicide and delivered their final investigative report to the offices of Crown Counsel, the same prosecutors the RCMP work with on a daily basis on their criminal cases. To make matters even more unjust for Mr. St. Arnaud’s loved ones, although a coroner’s inquest is mandatory whenever someone dies at the hands of police, the Chief Coroner (former RCMP Chief Superintendent Terry Smith) has an unwritten, informal policy that no inquest can be held and no documents can be disclosed to the victim’s family until all criminal investigations have been completed. The family has still received no documents, not even the autopsy report.

These arrangements between the RCMP, the Crown and the Chief Coroner ensure that any police officer in the Province of British Columbia who kills a citizen will be shielded from prosecution by the criminal justice system and also ensure that the victim’s family members and loved ones will be kept completely in the dark for months, perhaps years, while layers of whitewash are applied by the authorities.

This state of affairs is anachronistic, unjust, cruel and utterly disgraceful and will ultimately bring the administration of justice in BC into disrepute. It is high time that there be a completely independent investigative process to handle serious police incidents like the shooting death of Kevin St. Arnaud. As a wiser person than me once said, “justice must not only be done, it must manifestly be seen to be done.”

The following is a summary of Mr. Ward’s remarks to a public meeting of the Board of Directors of Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc. (“CLCO”) on February 15, 2006:

Mr. Ward introduced himself and stated that he was appearing, not as legal counsel for the DoRavRight Coalition, but as a taxpayer and private individual. He noted that a few weeks previously, CLCO had asserted that it was a “model for best practices in governance” and took issue with that characterization. Mr. Ward said he had grave and fundamental concerns about CLCO’s governance due to its misrepresentations, secrecy and missed targets.

Mr. Ward asserted that CLCO (RAVCO) had made two major misrepresentations to the public; it had publicly stated in February 2005 that the project cost would be $1.72 B in actual dollars and then revealed a few months later that the cost would be $1.9 B (in $2003) and it had represented that much of the Cambie Street segment of the line would be constructed with an underground bored tunnel only to later disclose that it would be built using cut and cover cast in place construction.

Mr. Ward suggested that, given the amount of public funds involved in the project, everything should be open and transparent. He complained that the Concession Agreement, monthly CEO reports since March 2005 and the certificates of independent engineering firm RW Beck had not been disclosed to the public. He asked whether the Board would make these documents available.

Finally, Mr. Ward noted that the Final Project Report was to have been released to the public by December 31, 2005 and that it still had not been disclosed. He queried whether the public could trust CLCO to deliver the Canada Line on schedule and on budget when it seemed to be unable to deliver a document on time.

Chair Larry Bell and CEO Jane Bird assured Mr. Ward that both the Final Project Report amd the Concession Agreement would be released soon.

(As of February 22, 2006, these documents have still not been disclosed)

When law, politics or life gets you down, heed the words of advice a wise man once told me; pour a glass of red wine and put Lucinda Williams on the stereo.

As a matter of fact, that’s good advice for Valentine’s Day too.