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A
round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada | Previously on this page: Saskatchewan
in chaos |
The Final report of the Stonechild
Inquiry
was released October 26 | News reports | trapped: Chief Sabo | Mayor
Atchison | Justice Minister Quennell
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The Stockholm
syndrome?
Nov. 18:
Gormley had Ron Sterling on for a full hour. Geoff Dufour was with him. There
was general bashing of Justice Minister Quennell for releasing
details of the settlement. Ron continued his gushing gratitude
to Dufour. Halfway through the show, Pam Shetterley phoned in
to gush her thanks to Borden and Holgate, claiming they had put
money out of their own pockets etc. etc.
As I recall
it was Richard Klassen's father-in-law who ponied up most of
the money for the Klassen/Kvello civil claim and as far as I
know, not one of them have paid him back a single cent.
Any time
a lawyer tells you he/she is "out of pocket" you can
be certain that whatever they have put out, they will claw back
at least ten fold.
Why does
John Gormley want to maintain the secrets of Saskatchewan lawyers?
Policing scandal was avoidable
John Gormley, Special to
The StarPhoenix, November 12, 2004
When a big public scandal hits
hard -- whether in politics, business or show biz -- and things
are spinning out of control, doing nothing is generally not an
option.
It is time that someone stepped
up to save Saskatoon's police force. And it will take leadership,
the likes of which we have not seen yet.
The police scandal continues
to spiral downward, threatening to take with it public confidence,
morale of rank and file officers, the future of police Chief
Russell Sabo and the reputation of Mayor Don Atchison.
And the truly confusing part
is that much of this scandal arose in the past 17 days -- all
attributable to people who should know better.
Nearly every problem now being
debated -- including whether a special group should be brought
in to wind up and reconstitute the police service -- was completely
avoidable.
On Oct. 26, the Stonechild
Commission of Inquiry issued its report into the 1990 freezing
death of 17-year-old Neil Stonechild.
The presiding judge, Queen's
Bench Justice David Wright, spent more than $2 million investigating
the case, hearing witnesses during 43 days of testimony. Wright
did not blame anyone for Stonechild's death but did conclude
that two city police officers had Stonechild in their car and
that when the boy's frozen body was found four days later, his
injuries were consistent with handcuffs.
Lawyers and participants in
the inquiry knew in advance, when Wright issued "notices
of adverse finding," that his conclusions were going to
name names. Everyone had time to get ready and get the response
right.
Within minutes of the release
of Wright's report, the head of the police union, Stan Goertzen,
came out strongly opposed to the judge's key findings. Goertzen
even engaged in a heated public exchange with a reporter he accused
of reporting lies.
Within hours, Chief Sabo accepted
the inquiry's findings and recommendations, apologized and promised
to move forward. He also suspended the two officers with pay
pending a discreditable conduct hearing.
The police commission -- effectively
the police department's board of directors -- is chaired by the
mayor, who also accepted the findings of the inquiry and extended
condolences to the Stonechild family.
But then, just four days after
the report, Sabo confided to a cops' meeting that he believed
"in my heart" that the two officers had no involvement
in Stonechild's disappearance.
Besides contradicting his initial
response -- and lessening public faith in the police department
-- this disclosure of the chief's personal opinion hampers him
from conducting a disciplinary hearing that appears unbiased.
Instead of recusing himself,
the chief went ahead and conducted the officers' hearing anyway.
And the mayor and police commission did nothing to stop him.
At the same time, 100 police
officers decided to hold a silent protest in the hallway outside
the hearing room.
And, to add insult to the community
that pays their salaries, 200 cops conducted an unnecessary and
provocative "unanimous vote of confidence" in support
of the two officers and blithely dismissed the judicial inquiry
as merely an opinion.
Then the mayor -- who has also
been talking to cops more than he should have -- admitted that
he had not read the inquiry report, when the police commission
had already been carefully examining the report for several days.
Everyone involved in this --
even the police union which has repeatedly shown that it is pretty
well beyond redemption -- had an opportunity to do things right.
They could have managed this case properly but they didn't do
it.
Once the apologies were over,
the first issue should have been restoring public confidence
in the police. This includes distancing today's young professional
and dedicated men and women in uniform from certain sins of the
past which they had no part in.
The approach for everyone --
from individual cops to the police chief, the mayor and police
commission members -- should have been to take a deep breath
and then focus on important outcomes like restoring confidence,
learning the lessons of history, dealing constructively with
race issues, putting the past behind us and moving ahead.
The language -- or messaging
-- should have been simply "the inquiry report is complex,
it requires careful analysis, we'll deal with the issues it raises
and the chief will have to examine the full range of options
under the law with respect to the two officers."
Strategically, everyone should
have stayed on message, kept returning to it, avoiding speculation
or getting drawn into traps and then shutting the hell up.
Instead of doing this, the
entire cast of characters -- police union agitators, the mayor,
the police chief and dozens of rank-and-file officers -- have
blown it.
They've done and said unnecessary,
harmful and just plain dumb things. Now they -- and all of us
-- are paying for it.
It is easy to say "a pox
on all their houses" because, really, there should be a
pox on the houses of all these people. They have let us down
that terribly.
But the reputation of our city
and the futures of many bright young police officers are too
important to walk away from now. They deserve our support.
But we deserve leadership.
Who will step up to lead? Who, indeed?
John Gormley can be heard Monday
to Friday at 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on NewsTalk radio 650 CKOM
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
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Truth can never be told so as to be understood,
and not be believ'd. 