B.C. media’s courtier coverage of police accountability, the OPCC and the IIO

hits counter

No need indeed
to heed Kash Heed

His clueless comments about fellow failure Garry Begg
beg questions about Kash’s credibility. More…

Nobody becomes
B.C. solicitor general

Like the last nobody, Nina Krieger
will have to do as she’s told. More…

A B.C. perspective on
Paul Palango’s RCMP exposé

This province could have written the federal/Nova Scotia
Mass Casualty Commission playbook. More…

Canada’s broken police force,
corrupt elite and media courtiers

Anatomy of a Cover-up: The Truth about the RCMP
and the Nova Scotia Massacres, written by Paul Palango.
More…

Read it there first

Three months before the Vancouver Sun and Province,
the Toronto Star reported new revelations about
the RCMP cover-up of rape allegations
against Prince George RCMP. More…

A study by the Toronto-based Globe and Mail finds
B.C. cops rank last in Canada for co-operation
with oversight agencies. More…

More than any B.C. media the Globe and Mail advocates
police accountability—especially for B.C. More…

Such is B.C. journalism

The Victoria Times Colonist celebrates
Stan Lowe’s disgraceful decade as
police complaint commissioner. More…

How and why was B.C.’s new
police complaint commissioner chosen?

Alone of B.C.’s media, Georgia Straight editor
Charlie Smith questions Clayton Pecknold’s appointment:

Should three ex-cops be on five-member committee
recommending new police complaint commissioner? More…

Acting legislature clerk refuses to divulge demographic info
about B.C. police complaints commissioner applicants. More…

Spin, smear and serve
to a compliant media

By shifting blame for his Frank Elsner cover-up,
police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe
tries to revise his disgraceful record. More…

This guy is the Vancouver Sun’s
legislative columnist?

Vaughn Palmer can’t support his claim that
Stan Lowe “has done a good job.” But no amount
of contrary evidence will change his mind. More…

The B.C. media: Courtiers to the corrupt

It takes a wide-ranging support network to prop up an organization as
obviously corrupt as B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.
Among the collaborators, if only through incompetence or gutlessness,
are B.C. journalists. More…

Who’s behind the campaign against
B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office?

Cops, ex-cops and cop-friendly IIO insiders actively oppose
police accountability. And they have the media’s ear. More…

The Straight sides with the establishment

Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith still treats OPCC liar Rollie Woods as a
credible source. Meanwhile, his paper has barred me from commenting. More…

Has the Georgia Straight gone
lamestream on police accountability?

The paper let B.C.’s deputy police complaint commissioner get away
with lying and passed up opportunities to ask questions about the
Taylor Robinson cover-up. More…

Hey media: Ask Stan Lowe and
Rollie Woods some obvious questions

I tried to get reporters to do so. The Vancouver Sun calls my effort a hoax.
Woods called the cops. But is anyone in the media actually
scrutinizing this agency? More…

This BCCLA lie has legs

Media proliferate the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s
disinformation about police accountability. More...

B.C.’s auditor general praises the OPCC.
But how was the audit conducted?

The auditor general and a committee of MLAs seem to have evaded public input
into the audit of B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. More...

An unprecedented blow
to B.C.’s police status quo

The CBC investigation into a consistently pro-police witness-for-hire
is the first real scrutiny the OPCC has ever had. More...

An appeal to B.C.’s media:

Okay, you told us about
IIO chief Richard Rosenthal.
Now what about OPCC boss Stan Lowe?

In just five days, B.C.’s media gave the new guy much more
scrutiny than ever devoted to Stan Lowe and his crew of ex-cops.
But they have a lot to answer for, starting with their cover-up
of a VPD assault on a disabled woman. More...

So much for our official activists,
the B.C. Civil Liberties Association

The BCCLA co-operate with corrupt bigshots and support
the BC Liberal con job on police accountability. More...

B.C.’s mainstream media
just can’t get it right

Once again the BC government fools
our fourth estate about police accountability. More...

For the second time in four days,
dozens of B.C. papers misrepresent the OPCC. More...

A few final (and marginal) notes

Political involvement is for designated victims, special interest groups
and powerful individuals. The rest of us get marginalized. More...

Police accountability:
Comparing B.C. with Ontario (VI)

You won’t read this in B.C.’s mainstream media.
And that’s part of the reason we’ll never have
effective police oversight. More...

Refuting the fallacies

Here’s some clarification to counter
misinformation about police accountability. More...

Police accountability:
Comparing B.C. with Ontario (V):

Ontario’s SIU faces public criticism and a
second investigation by the provincial Ombudsman.
B.C.’s OPCC continues to escape scrutiny. More...

Not fit to print?

B.C.’s media neglect some important problems
concerning police accountability. More...

An RCMP PR coup

Canada’s top Mountie gets lots of media for a misleading message
that avoids some embarrassing questions —
like why he’s keeping a rapist on the payroll. More...

Much ado about the RCMP

Media buzz notwithstanding,
proposals to make the Mounties more accountable
amount to almost nothing. Meanwhile B.C.’s biased
complaint system for municipal cops escapes media scrutiny.
More...

Andre Marin was here
but the media weren’t

Possibly Canada’s strongest advocate of police accountability,
Ontario’s ombudsman addressed a Vancouver forum.
His talk rated less than a minute of news time
on just one radio station. More...

Last April, referring to Manitoba’s proposed
Independent Investigations Unit, Marin stated the case
for civilian investigations of police. More...

More on civilian investigations here.

All’s well here, claims B.C.’s
Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner

We’re doing a great job — trust us,
their 2009 report implies. More...

Keeping a Lowe profile

Stan Lowe finally made his public debut
as police complaint commissioner.
But he needn’t have put if off
if this is the kind of media coverage he gets.
More...