Right from the beginning,
Richard Rosenthal tainted the IIO

B.C.’s new police watchdog hired OPCC cop retreads
from Stan T. Lowe’s crooked crew of ex-cops

November 17, 2012

 

I’m no longer updating this site regularly, so this post belatedly responds to news that came to light in September — that B.C.’s new Independent Investigations Office has hired people from the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, a.k.a. Stan T. Lowe and his crooked crew of ex-cops.

Has anyone at the OPCC kept his or her integrity intact while working for liars like Dirk Ryneveld, Bruce M. Brown, Stan T. Lowe or Rollie Woods?

Is there anyone at the OPCC who isn’t a liar, who doesn’t collude in police cover-ups and doesn’t go to extraordinary lengths to justify police wrongdoing?

The evidence suggests not. OPCC senior positions are filled by old-school ex-cops who’ve done thoroughly disreputable work on behalf of their cop buddies.

The OPCC did recruit some new, junior staff who aren’t ex-cops. But we know very little about them. Furthermore Stan Lowe has in the past lied when stating that his staff mostly come from civilian backgrounds.

Additionally, hiring OPCC staff goes against the spirit of the requirement that the IIO can’t hire investigators who’ve been B.C. police officers any time in the last five years. The cronyism between the OPCC and their cop buddies is that bad. So now we have the danger of cop cronyism with the IIO.

Some other recruiting sources are the B.C. Coroners Service, ICBC’s special investigations unit and the Canada Border Services Agency.

I find the coroners service recruits disturbing, because coroners’ inquests often steer juries away from the real issues. That’s been the case, for example, in the Jeff Hughes, Michael Vann Hubbard and Jeremy Phillips inquests.

I expressed cautious optimism when Richard Rosenthal was hired to lead the IIO. It’s very discouraging that he’s chosen to taint the new organization with staff of highly dubious integrity.

Additionally, let’s not forget a point that B.C.’s media doesn’t acknowledge and our “official” activists falsely deny. Police will continue to investigate police in almost all cases, including many involving serious injuries and all allegations of sexual assault. Their cop-on-cop investigations get no more than a review by the cop-friendly OPCC. And, although the OPCC does not investigate police, it holds the power to investigate the IIO. That makes the OPCC the most powerful of B.C.’s two police accountability agencies — powerful, that is, in its ability to thwart police accountability.

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