B.C.’s corrupt Office of the
Police Complaint Commissioner

Examining the OPCC as well as its supporters
in B.C.’s political and legal establishment,
poverty pimp industry and media

Four cover-ups by
B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner:
Vancouver police constable Taylor Robinson
New Westminster police officer Sukhwinder (Vinnie) Dosanjh
District of Saanich police officer Brent Wray
Victoria police chief Frank Elsner

The RCMP cover-up of allegations that
Prince George Mounties committed sex offences
against indigenous women and girls:
Info here and here

News and comment about police accountability in B.C.

News and comment sorted by topic:
B.C.’s corrupt Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC)
B.C.’s inadequate Independent Investigations Office (IIO)
Establishment lapdogs: The Pivot Legal Society and B.C. Civil Liberties Association
B.C.’s courtier media coverage on police accountability
B.C.’s sham legislative inquiries into policing

Contact

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The OPCC’s lack of transparency and
accountability allows police cover-ups

British Columbia’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner enjoys a peculiar status that engenders corruption. B.C.’s Police Act exempts the agency from transparency and accountability, allowing OPCC staff to work in near-secrecy and in practice answer to no one. As a result, they get away with covering up police misconduct. Despite a supposedly comprehensive overhaul of B.C.’s Police Act now underway, there’s absolutely no impetus to reform this institution. OPCC cover-ups benefit from B.C.’s morass of ethically corrupt political parties and legal establishment, collaborationist activists and courtier media.

 

Despite the secrecy, these four
OPCC cover-ups have become known

The cover-ups involve Vancouver police officer Taylor Robinson, District of Saanich officer Brent Wray, former Victoria police chief Frank Elsner and New Westminster officer Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Dosanjh.

 

The OPCC cover-up of Vancouver police officer
Taylor Robinson and VPD Professional Standards cops

B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner colluded with
Vancouver police to cover up VPD constable Taylor Robinson’s
assault on a disabled native woman.

The gratuitous assault by Vancouver police officer Taylor Robinson stands out for implied contempt towards women, the poor, natives and the disabled by both the VPD and OPCC. Only after media found out did police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe order a Police Act investigation into Robinson’s actions. The cop was very belatedly penalized but the VPD Professional Standards officers who helped cover up his actions never faced repercussions. Of course any scrutiny into those cops would also require scrutiny into the OPCC.

By helping VPD cover up the Robinson assault, Lowe and his deputy Rollie Woods, a former head of VPD Professional Standards, sent police a clear message: The OPCC condones and whenever possible will cover up gratuitous violence against selected targets including women, the poor, natives and the disabled. The agency holds that power due to its secrecy and unaccountability granted by B.C.’s Police Act.

The Pivot Legal Society collaborated in the VPD/OPCC cover-up, tainting Pivot careerists like human rights commissioner Kasari Govender and premier David Eby.

 

The OPCC cover-up of New Westminster
police officer Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Dosanjh

Police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe
helped New Westminster police cover up for
constable Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Singh Dosanjh.

Lowe spurned his Police Act responsibility to call a Public Hearing despite numerous highly disturbing charges, including assault and firearms offences, and despite the extraordinary leniency granted to New Westminster police officer Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Singh Dosanjh. At the same time, deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods praised New West cops for their supposed transparency, discipline and accountability.

In August 2017, well after Lowe’s cover-up, media reported that Dosanjh had been suspended again due to another charge of sexual assault. Nothing more has been disclosed.

 

The OPCC cover-up of District of Saanich
officer Brent Wray and other Saanich cops

Police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe covered up
a vicious assault by Saanich cop Brent Wray, as well as
his fellow officers’ Police Act transgressions.

Lowe and his crew learned about Saanich officer Brent Wray’s assault on Don Lapshinoff roughly two years after Saanich police covered up the incident. That pre-dated B.C.’s creation of the Independent Investigations Office; at the time serious injuries inflicted by cops were investigated by other cops, with “oversight” from the OPCC. On learning of the assault, Lowe was obligated to order two Police Act investigations: one into Wray’s actions and another into the Saanich cops who tried to hide the incident.

Lowe refused to do either. Instead he conducted another double cover-up.

 

The OPCC cover-up of Victoria police chief Frank Elsner

Victoria police chief Frank Elsner’s on-the-job sexual
misconduct also benefited from an OPCC cover-up.

Yet another Stan Lowe cover-up hid Victoria police chief Frank Elsner’s sexual impropriety from public knowledge and scrutiny for four months. The police complaint commissioner refused to carry out his Police Act responsibilities until after media reported Elsner’s behaviour. Much later, Lowe released a self-serving spin-and-smear “report” to divert attention from his cover-up.

Those are just the four cover-ups that accidentally came to light despite the OPCC’s secrecy. We don’t know how many more have taken place or are currently underway.

 

What kind of characters run the OPCC?

Demonstrating B.C.’s tolerance for corruption, the OPCC has been headed by establishment lawyers and ex-cops who’ve made big money covering up for cops.

Don Morrison, B.C.’s first police complaint commissioner,
left the OPCC under a cloud but with a nearly $100,000 payout.

The only time this agency faced scrutiny was back in 2002. A specially appointed legislative committee, the only means of OPCC transparency allowed under B.C.’s Police Act, heard whistleblowers state that police complaint commissioner Don Morrison wouldn’t act on cop misconduct unless pressured by media. Foremost among Morrison’s cover-ups was the case of VPD sergeant and later PrimeCorp general manager Russell Sanderson. The cop ordered an unconscious native named Frank Paul to be dragged out of a police cell and dumped in an alley, where his body was later found. But the committee mostly focused on Morrison’s bullying behaviour towards staff and allowed him to resign with the hundred-grand windfall.

 

Dirk Ryneveld and Bruce M. Brown enjoyed
their immunity and acted accordingly.

If B.C.’s cop establishment learned anything from the Morrison inquiry, it was to screen OPCC job applicants for potential whistleblowers. Under Morrison’s successor, corrupt lawyer Dirk Ryneveld and his equally corrupt ex-cop deputy Bruce M. Brown, the agency simply rubber-stamped cop-on-cop investigations that consistently found police 100% right and complainants or victims 100% wrong. The agency took on a really smug attitude, carelessly skimming written complaints before writing almost unbelievably sloppy and biased decisions. Brown retired on a cop/OPCC double pension. Ryneveld augmented his OPCC pension with lucrative legal services for police clients.

 

Bias, dishonesty and outright bigotry became even more outrageous under police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe and his ex-cop deputy, Rollie Woods.

 

Stan Lowe was named police complaint commissioner just one week
after announcing his shameless excuses for the Dziekanski death squad.

As a Crown attorney with B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch executive management, Stan Lowe took part in the unanimous decision to exonerate the four RCMP officers involved in Robert Dziekanski’s death. Lowe stated emphatically that the five Taser shocks and other brutal treatment inflicted on Dziekanski were “reasonable and necessary.” One week later Lowe was appointed B.C.’s third police complaint commissioner by a legislative committee that included future B.C. solicitor general Mike Farnworth. In 2015, despite overwhelming evidence of Lowe’s ongoing deceit and corruption, Farnworth took part in the decision to reappoint him.

 

Rollie Woods set up a lucrative retirement sinecure
while conducting cover-ups on behalf of the Vancouver
Police Department’s oddly named Professional Standards unit.

Under Woods’ direction at VPD Professional Standards, VPD investigators decided in advance that police were 100% right and complainants or victims 100% wrong, smeared complainants, interviewed complainants only at the end of investigations, conducted witness-tampering and lied about the Criminal Code. Woods’ cover-ups were then rubber-stamped by the OPCC.

Lowe hired and promoted this repugnant liar, ensuring a dishonest cop culture prevailed at the OPCC. As the OPCC’s media contact,  Woods continued lying on behalf of Lowe. Unfairly to some cops, Woods’ career supports the slogan All Cops Are Bastards.

Deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods
torqued his lying desperately with the OPCC’s Taylor Robinson
cover-up. His blatant dishonesty to the Georgia Straight and
Victoria Times Colonist showed sociopathic disregard
for truth, as well as contempt for the poor, natives
and the physically disabled.

 

Repugnant lying ex-cop Rollie Woods spoke on
behalf of, and therefore lied on behalf of, Stan Lowe.

That made B.C.’s police complaint commissioner, a prominent member of the province’s legal establishment and an independent officer of the legislature, a repugnant liar himself. In recognition of his service, Lowe gets a Crown attorney/OPPC double pension. He might also qualify for another lucrative retirement sinecure in any tax-funded agency that’s not embarrassed by rampant lying, corruption and contempt towards natives.

 

How does an agency like the OPCC
get away with so freaking much?

No matter how brazen its corruption, the OPCC enjoys the full support of B.C.’s main political parties, the media, salaried social justice phonies and legal establishment.

B.C.’s legal establishment

The Law Society of B.C. responded to my complaint about Lowe, a practising lawyer, by dishonestly stating I provided “no evidence” of the Robinson cover-up. An irrational and downright angry letter from the Law Society’s Beverly Gallagher revealed more about B.C.’s legal establishment than she likely intended. Gallagher’s manager, Katherine Crosbie, supported her.

B.C.’s politicians

MLAs from B.C.’s NDP, Liberals/United/Conservatives and Greens fully and unquestioningly support the cop status quo including the cover-ups.

In premier David Eby’s case, he began his career as a social justice charlatan pretending to address police issues. While working with poverty pimp legal hustles like the Pivot Legal Society and B.C. Civil Liberties Association, he became the media’s main source for comment about police misconduct. Yet he focused on individual incidents without acknowledging B.C.’s cop-friendly system of police accountability or the cop cover-ups allowed by the system. Later, Eby evaded media questions about police misconduct altogether by changing the subject to mental illness.

Under Eby’s leadership of the BCCLA, and very soon after I challenged the group to speak out on the VPD/OPCC cover-up, the poseurs scrapped their “Police Accountability Committee.”

Criticizing B.C.’s Police Act, let alone the OPCC and its cover-ups, would have angered the political and legal establishment Eby wanted to join.

 

As B.C.’s poverty pimp premier, Eby continues
to block cop accountability, including independent
civilian investigation of rape and other sexual
misconduct allegations against police.

 

As for other MLAs, B.C.’s legislature consists almost entirely of nobodies who follow orders in return for remuneration they’d never get in a real job. Solicitor general Nina Krieger typifies the problem.

 

As a completely unqualified B.C. solicitor general,
Nina Krieger will have to obey premier David Eby’s
opposition to OPCC transparency and accountability
as well as independent civilian investigation of police
sexual misconduct including rape. Krieger, formerly head
of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre,
just follows orders.

 

 

Having been solicitor general, opposition critic for solicitor general and at least twice
a member of legislative committees on policing, Mike Morris enthusiastically supported
Stan Lowe, rejected calls to bring transparency and accountability to the OPCC, and rejected
calls for civilian investigation of cop sexual misconduct including rape. Up to 2005, the
Prince George resident headed northern B.C’s RCMP while the Prince George RCMP
sexual misconduct cover-up was underway.

 

Through a series of all-party legislative committees, MLAs from B.C.’s NDP, Liberals/United/Conservatives and Greens have demonstrated consistent but profitable obedience to the cop status quo. Always unanimously, MLAs recommended cop-friendly OPCC appointments and Police Act tweaks. Committee members rejected evidence of OPCC cover-ups, calls to impose transparency and accountability on the agency, and calls to place allegations of sexual misconduct—including rape—under the civilian authority of B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office.

Almost alone in Canada, B.C. still opposes civilian investigation of police sexual misconduct.

That reform most likely would have prevented the long-running Prince George RCMP cover-up. As the region’s former top-ranking Mountie, MLA Mike Morris is implicated in the cover-up.

Here’s a detailed account of B.C. legislative committees and how they work (a topic that eludes B.C.’s born-yesterday journalists).

A key strategy now involves the manipulation of woke jargon and sentiments to obfuscate policing issues and prop up the cop status quo. Using that ploy a 2022 legislative committee report made highly nebulous recommendations that would create different (but very vaguely described) complaint procedures for different identity groups. None of that would improve police accountability.

One striking indication of the sham process recommends that children (indigenous girls) help oversee investigations into police. (See page 64, recommendations 5.7 and 9.2 iii.) Did 10 MLAs actually agree on that? More likely 10 MLAs signed off on recommendations they didn’t make, didn’t write and didn’t even read.

B.C.’s media

No B.C. journalist understands—or even bothers trying to understand—police accountability. With establishment deference they reject any info about the cover-ups (the Prince George allegations comprise a partial exception), the need for OPCC transparency and accountability, and the need for civilian investigation of sexual misconduct allegations. Nor will B.C. media acknowledge the sham process of legislative committees.

 

Soon after the last two of Stan Lowe’s four known cover-ups accidentally came to light,
Victoria Times Colonist reporter Louise Dickson celebrated him in an especially sycophantic
tribute. Sucking up to the OPCC has been a Times Colonist tradition also carried out by
reporter Katie Derosa. Vancouver Postmedia has since hired Derosa.

 

With only blue-moon exceptions, B.C. journalists prove themselves feckless, arrogant, cowardly or sycophantic. Examples abound, but a few of the more outrageous cases include Vancouver Postmedia legislative correspondent Vaughn Palmer’s pitiful naiveté about legislative committees, Vancouver Sun reporter Tiffany Crawford’s sub-literate confusion and snotty arrogance, Victoria Times Colonist reporter Louise Dickson’s cringing sycophancy to Lowe (also typical of her colleague Katie Derosa, who’s since been hired by Vancouver Postmedia), Vancouver Postmedia reporters Kim Bolan and Dan Fumano portraying lying ex-cop and corrupt OPCC deputy Woods as a credible media source, Derosa at the Times Colonist doing the same, Postmedia reporter Gordon Hoekstra’s enormous gullibility about “reformer” Garry Begg, and the province-wide media’s rejection of a press release with seven backgrounders providing easily verifiable info and good story leads.

That last one happened way back in 2011 but the media snub persists, even as problems with police accountability have become increasingly evident.

As well, B.C.’s entire media ignored troubling information about Mike Morris, the former solicitor general who opposed civilian investigation of cop sexual misconduct—and previously headed Prince George RCMP as repeated cop sexual misconduct against native teens allegedly took place.

All this calls into question media credibility on everything else.

B.C.’s natives

No one has nearly as much potential to influence reform, yet B.C. aboriginals squander their power.

Inarticulate, unfocused and confused, the B.C. First Nations Justice Council says almost nothing about anything. The BCFNJC even brushed off disturbing new info about allegations of Prince George RCMP sexual misconduct against indigenous women and teens. Only after Vancouver media reported it—three months after the Toronto Star—did the well-funded group speak out.

No aboriginal group or spokesperson ever spoke out on the OPCC/VPD cover-up of a gratuitous cop assault on a disabled native woman. Their silence allowed the Pivot Legal Society’s white American poverty pimps to manipulate the incident for their white American ambitions.

APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) joined the unofficial media blackout about Mike Morris, the former top-ranking Mountie, solicitor general and opponent of police accountability who’s mired in the Prince George cover-up.

 

Green MLA and aboriginal vendu Adam Olsen
boosted his pay and perks by sitting on legislative
committees that blocked police accountability.

 

Former Green MLA and legislative committee stalwart Adam Olsen repeatedly proved himself an indigenous sell-out. He’s now a regular media source on policing issues, despite having nothing intelligent to say.

B.C.’s poverty pimps

 

Pivot Legal Society police accountability spokesperson
Meenakshi Mannoe has nothing to say about police accountability.
So B.C.’s establishment pays her to say it.

 

A pestilential B.C. problem involves salaried social justice phonies. Media take these characters very seriously, oblivious of their shallow opportunism. Pivot Legal Society police accountability spokesperson Meenakshi Mannoe draws a paycheque by reciting fashionable, simplistic jargon without saying anything specific. She appears to have a pre-teen level of intelligence.

 

American poverty pimps Scott Bernstein and Doug King of the Pivot Legal Society
represented a disabled native woman who was shoved to the ground in a gratuitous
Vancouver police assault. Bernstein and King stayed quiet during a joint OPCC/VPD
cover-up. King later praised OPCC boss Stan Lowe’s handling of the matter. Pivot’s
collaboration also discredits former directors and management like human rights
commissioner Kasari Govender and premier David Eby.

 

Pivot pimps Scott Bernstein and Doug King declined to try their machinations in the black and Hispanic inner-cities of their own country. While drawing Canadian SJW paycheques they collaborated in the VPD/OPCC cover-up of a gratuitous VPD assault on a disabled indigenous woman. Pivot’s silence on this matter continues to tarnish Pivot spawn like B.C. human rights commissioner Kasari Govender and premier David Eby.

 

Like premier David Eby, B.C. human rights commissioner
Kasari Govender used the Pivot Legal Society as a career vehicle.
Both opportunists show poverty pimp ethics in their refusal to
denounce Pivot’s collaboration in a Vancouver police/OPCC
cover-up, even though the victim was indigenous.

 

 

Paycheques and promotions come to establishment lapdogs
like the BCCLA’s Josh Paterson.

 

Eby’s early ambitions also drew him to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, another social justice hustle that feigns concern about police accountability while staying silent. Another head of the BCCLA, Josh Paterson rejected an appeal to speak out on the OPCC/VPD Taylor Robinson cover-up. He’s now executive director of the Law Foundation of British Columbia and a King’s Counsel. Later BCCLA figures have been equally compliant.

B.C.’s activists

An additional hindrance to reform is the domestic American preoccupation of B.C.’s demonstrator culture. The George Floyd demos actually benefited this country’s cop status quo, as do the other copycat American causes that divert attention from Canada’s elite.

 

B.C.’s fixation on domestic American issues distracts
attention from the machinations of Canada’s elite.

 

The rest of B.C.’s establishment

And if B.C. police accountability is irredeemably corrupt, just wonder about other aspects of B.C.’s establishment.

 

Read more about B.C.’s Office
of the Police Complaint Commissioner

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