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Toronto Police,
2004
Scandal makes case
for civilian oversight
ROSIE DIMANNO, Toronto Star,
Jan. 23, 2004
It's not just a few bad apples.
It's a bushel full of cop rot.
But this compost of alleged
police corruption within the Toronto Police Service might yet
yield a decent harvest: A fair, transparent and robust civilian
complaints system.
Long before RCMP Superintendent
John Neily launched his meticulous and expansive probe of the
Central Field Command Drug Squad - at the request, it should
be stressed, of Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino - those very
same half-dozen officers who've now been charged with 22 criminal
offences were the subjects of civilian complaints that went absolutely
nowhere.
Such is nearly always the case
when civilians attempt to hold police accountable for improper
conduct, much less criminal behaviour.
A police-investigating-police
format - the former Tory government at Queen's Park, cop groupies,
legislatively reverted to the old way of doing things - is inherently
stacked against civilian complainants.
This is unfortunately true
even when the suspect officers are viewed dimly, skeptically,
within policing circles; even when they have been the targets
of internal scrutiny, as was the case here.
In one of the spectacular corruption-probe
affidavits released this week, Neily notes that the CFC drug
squad, under the command of Detective Sergeant John Schertzer,
"had been the subject of police complaints, internal suspicion
and prior investigations dating back before 1995 in some instances.
Yet, despite the repeated investigations
of these subjects, they continued to be involved in cases that
led to complaints of criminal behaviour or professional misconduct
until 1999, when the team was purposefully disbanded."
The public that came into contact
with these cops - now charged variously with falsifying search
warrants, trading in drugs, perjuring themselves, obstructing
justice and shaking down citizens - knew something smelled rotten.
But the system in place to
address their beefs, a sham of a system, was either incapable
of eliciting the truth or unwilling to pursue the allegations,
precisely because this is an incubated police culture, instinctively
averse to seeing cops as guilty of anything, ever.
Presumption of innocence is
one thing; pre-emptive dismissal of allegations, simply because
the subject is a police officer or because the complainant has
a disreputable character, something else entirely.
Many of the individuals with
whom the accused CFC officers interacted, and quite a few more
cops who have not been charged because their cases didn't meet
the elevated standard of proof for prosecution that was applied
here by Neily's task force (although Police Act charges might
yet be laid), were unsavoury characters, sleazeballs.
Most reasonable people, and
the courts as well, are prepared to grant police generous latitude
in the methods they use to investigate and ultimately charge
such creeps. But we can't accept cops turning into creeps and
crooks in the process.
The CFC six, of course, are
alleged to have gone far beyond bending the rules merely to facilitate
arrests and drop the dime on bad guys. Evidence painstakingly
ferreted out by the task force is shocking in its breadth and
depth of self-serving criminality - individuals beaten and threatened
and extorted, one officer selling drugs and weapons to drug dealers
in return for large quantities of cash, money and jewels disappearing
from safety deposit boxes and the homes of rousted suspects -
all of it suggesting avarice, cunning and a staggering degree
of corruption, the kind of hyper-illegality more commonly associated
with accomplished gangsters and crime kingpins than two-bit hoods.
And these cops flashed badges, carried guns, wore uniforms that
afforded them instant respect and unchallenged authority, in
most quarters.
It's the uniform that's been
shamed and defiled.
While the courts will now deal
with the accused, in their own protracted and sluggish fashion,
it's the Toronto police force, under Fantino, that will have
to contend with the fallout. That might seem unfair to the thousands
of police officers who did no wrong. But the damage to public
trust has been severe, given that the allegations against these
accused officers follow the earlier conviction of other cops.
The threshold for prosecution
- a reasonable shot at conviction - is always so much higher
for cops than it is for civilians. And while the hard numbers
of police involved in such reprehensible conduct may yet be relatively
small, there is the widening stench of tacit complicity and outright
mendacity - the greater number of those who knew about the wrongdoing,
effectively condoned it, and flatly refused to co-operate with
Neily's investigators. Just as too many police officers have
pulled every trick in the book to avoid co-operating with the
loathed Special Investigations Unit.
The same cops who complain
about the reluctance of witnesses when crimes occur in public
places, all those bystanders who won't speak a peep, are clearly
guilty of the same thing: an unwillingness to get involved, at
best; deliberate obstruction of justice and criminal collusion
at worst.
Given the grievous damage done
to public confidence in the police, it surely behooves cops,
especially the Toronto force and more specifically the Toronto
Police Association, to immediately drop all objections to a vastly
altered police complaints system. How could they possibly justify
intransigence now?
Only a week ago, the president
of the police union dismissed out of hand any overhaul of the
complaints system. He vowed the new Liberal provincial government
would have a huge fight on its hands if it moved in that direction.
"The public doesn't want
any changes,'' Rick McIntosh told the Star. This was a doubtful
statement at the time. It's preposterous now.
In the wake of the public release
of those aforementioned task force affidavits - illuminating
documents that must jolt and dismay even the most avid police
apologists - there's no place for cop bullies to hide, no way
they can continue to claim that rigorous civilian oversight is
unnecessary and unfairly intrusive.
McIntosh asserted that the
impetus for change was being driven by the "usual suspects,''
primarily defence lawyers and scattershot cop-bashers. This is
the same old, same old - demonizing even gentle police critics
as special-interest cabalists who don't represent the larger
public.
Nonsense.
Yet there was McIntosh going
on the offence yesterday by posturing defensively - warning about
plummeting police morale, as if the public is responsible for
this state of affairs and not the actions of the indicted colleagues;
dumping on Neily's three-year probe for "smearing the reputations''
of officers not subsequently charged; and urging citizens to
hug-a-cop, poor things.
I've no problem with showing
affection for cops, go right ahead. I like and respect most of
the cops I've ever met. And they probably need some comforting
right now, the good ones, the decent ones. They've been so terribly
betrayed by some of their own. But how to tell the good from
the bad, how to trust?
Details of the task force investigation
do not arrive in isolation. And Toronto cops are not necessarily
tops, so spare me the bromides.
Even before this week's revelations,
there was the matter of a recent human rights report that documented
the troubling extent of racial profiling by police in Ontario,
itself prompted by an earlier newspaper investigation chronicling
the problem
Cops have earned vigilant scrutiny,
whether it makes them unhappy or not.
Attorney-General Michael Bryant
has already given notice that the Liberal government hopes to
pass legislation this year to create a "more fair and transparent''
civilian oversight system, one that will end the unacceptable
practice of police investigating themselves.
While they're at it, the government
should also revisit the whole befuddling matter of whether suspect
police officers have the right to decline to co-operate with
the SIU.
Suspect officers routinely
say no to interviews with the SIU, arguing they have the same
right to silence as anybody else.
But do they? It's never been
tested in court because no government, of any political stripe,
has ever had the nerve to challenge the prevailing view.
That central issue needs to
be resolved. It's time.
Just as it's time for good
cops to stop protecting bad cops at the expense of public trust
and their own honour.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday,
Friday and Saturday. E-mail: dimanno@hotstar.net .
Fantino wants two more
years
LINDA DIEBEL, Toronto Star,STAFF
REPORTER, January 21, 2004
Chief Julian Fantino has told
the Toronto Police Services Board he wants to stay in his job
for an extra two years, taking his mandate to 2007.
But what appeared a slam-dunk
last spring, when new contract negotiations began, has run into
problems.
Fantino's negotiations with
a special three-member committee, set up by the police board
last year to finalize his contract, bogged down - apparently
over salary differences - shortly before the Nov. 10 election
of Mayor David Miller and the subsequent rejigging of the board.
Fantino will not comment on
contract negotiations.
``His view is that he will
discuss his preferences with the people who employ him,'' Mark
Pugash, the police force's director of corporate communications,
said last night.
However, the chief's future
now appears to hinge on shifting winds at the volatile police
board. The board is in disarray, rocked by scandal, poor morale
and confusion, and operating with only five of its mandated seven
members - four appointed by the city and three by the province.
``These are dreadful circumstances,''
says its new vice-chair, Councillor Pam McConnell. ``We've got
a board full of rookies. Our bench strength is weak, our corporate
memory is not deep.''
The board stands one provincial
appointment short with the resignation last month of former Ontario
Conservative cabinet minister Al Leach. All appointments by new
Premier Dalton McGuinty remain frozen, according to an Ontario
government spokesperson.
As well, former chair Norm
Gardner is out of action, possible only temporarily, in the aftermath
of a gun scandal.
Acting chair Alan Heisey is
embroiled in a controversy with the potential to drag the board's
critical agenda to a dead halt, including the issue of a new
chief.
Last year, things looked rosier
for Fantino, now 61.
In fact, last spring, when
former mayor Mel Lastman brought the idea of the chief's reappointment
to the police services board, then chaired by Gardner, Fantino
told the meeting an extended contract suited him because he wanted
more time ``to look at who he could bring up to replace him from
lower in the ranks,'' according to a source. Several officials
told the Star that, under Lastman, Fantino appeared to have free
rein, even to the point of fingering his successor.
But, said one, ``to be fair,
it wasn't the chief's fault. The view of the board was always:
`Whatever Julian wants, that's what we'll give him.'''
There were no annual performance
reviews for the chief, sources say, and no careful examination
of his budget by a special board subcommittee. No such scrutinizing
agency has ever existed in what is described as a fast-and-loose
atmosphere dominated by the chief.
By fall, the board had appointed
a committee to enter into talks to reach a new contract with
Fantino. Its members were Dr. Benson Lau, a provincial appointee,
Heisey and Leach. They met several times, according to Lau, to
work out the conditions of the contract.
Fantino ``expressed his intention
to stay,'' Lau said. ``He wanted to extend his contract another
two years. These were formal labour negotiations ... We are negotiating
right now.''
However, Lau added that ``nothing
can happen until (the question) of the chair is settled.''
``We are required to talk about
the issue of the chief in a very little while,'' said vice-chair
McConnell. ``His contract is coming to a conclusion (in March,
2005), and there is an indication he is looking for an extension
before the board.''
That's why the timing of last
week's leaked memo about Heisey threw such a wrench into the
board's agenda. Written 18 months ago by a Toronto sex crimes
detective and leaked a week after Heisey took over as acting
chair, it raises questions about Heisey's propriety in asking
about a child pornography case, as well as his view of such a
disturbing subject.
"I find the inference
I `understand' a pedophile or pornographer deeply offensive,''
Heisey said last week. While he continues as chair, his position
is uncertain. The matter is under external legal review.
Several sources said they are
deeply suspicious about the timing of the Heisey leak. It neatly
shifted attention away from last week's hearing by the Ontario
Civilian Commission on Police Services, on whether Gardner acted
improperly in accepting ammunition from police stores and a handgun
from a private dealer.
Several sources suggest that
time slipping away from the unravelling board works in Fantino's
favour. The longer the board waits, the harder it might be to
roll out a red-carpet executive search to find a successor.
Fantino, with responsibility
for a 7,000-member force in Canada's largest city, earns $177,000.
While one official said it's thought ``he made a mistake'' in
not grabbing his contract when he had the chance under Lastman,
there is a general feeling that the chief is underpaid.
``My personal feeling is that
he has a tough job to do, and every organization has to have
a strong leader who can maintain the integrity of the service,''
says Lau, who supports a new contract for Fantino.
It's thought that if his reappointment
becomes really messy - or messier than it already is - he might
withdraw rather than face defeat at the police services board.
Miller declined to sit on the
new board himself, appointing Councillors McConnell, John Filion
and Case Ootes. Heisey is a city appointment, and Gardner, whose
term extends to December, could well return.
One source last night described
the ``spookiness'' of the atmosphere around the board.
``Sure, you should be careful
what you say after a few glasses of wine in front of detectives,
so, okay, what Heisey did was not wise,'' he said. ``But it's
scary for everybody around it. There's a sense that if you're
not a cheerleader for the police, they're may get you. You know
- one misstep and watch out!''
For Fantino, it's already
a bad year
JIM COYLE , Toronto Star,
January 21, 2004
This year doesn't look to be
starting out any better than the last one did for police Chief
Julian Fantino.
It will be intriguing to see
if his response to challenge and criticism has evolved with the
passage of time, to see if his world-class case of denial has
subsided with the mounting evidence of a force with serious problems.
The embarrassments began piling
up right away last year.
In January, 2003, homeless
petty criminal Thomas Kerr, who claimed to have been savagely
beaten six years earlier by a gang of 51 Division cops, was awarded
a financial settlement in his suit against the Toronto Police
Service, a case which a recent Toronto Life profile said
``raised the spectre of a lawless force, of evidence tampering,
of police drinking on the job.''
In April last year, an Ontario
Court of Appeal judgment in the drunk-driving case against former
Raptor Dee Brown said racial profiling by police may exist. That
echoed an earlier Star investigation on police practices. It
also foreshadowed a report later in the year by Ontario Human
Rights Commissioner Keith Norton on the human cost of racial
profiling, and amounted, black leaders in the city said, to a
``significant wakeup call for police.''
As the year progressed, the
chief assumed an unwished-for spot centre-stage in the worst
of times - the murder of 10-year-old Holly Jones in May and the
disappearance of 9-year-old Cecilia Zhang in October.
After five people were killed
in a single week in November, three as a result of shootings,
he called for a public inquiry into the effectiveness of the
criminal justice system, saying gangs and drug dealers with no
respect for the law were responsible for an outbreak of gunplay.
In December, Fantino dismissed
Norton's recommendation of installing cameras in police cruisers
as an insult to his members, which, he said, would brand them
all as ``racists and no-goods and unprofessional people.'' Then
a tape was produced showing a young Somali immigrant, charged
with assaulting police after the Caribana festival, actually
being sucker-punched in the face without provocation by a cop,
whose notes bore scant resemblance to the events on tape.
As criticism of his force mounted,
Fantino dismissed it all. As the city's overall crime rate dropped,
he continued to shout dire warnings of streets deteriorating
into anarchy.
If anything, 2004 looks only
to have gotten worse for the chief.
In the first week of the year,
six veteran drug-squad officers were charged with 22 Criminal
Code offences after a years-long RCMP investigation.
Though saying he was saddened
at the news, Fantino, as is his custom, minimized the damage,
assuring that ``the allegations are isolated and confined.''
Then came Monday. And with
it the release by Ontario's highest court of affidavits filed
by the RCMP in the investigation, documents suggesting a rot
that runs much wider and much deeper through Fantino's force
than the proverbial few bad apples to which most misconduct is
usually written off.
These documents contain shocking
allegations of police corruption: allegations of shakedowns and
beatings and death threats, of the theft by police of jewelry,
narcotics and cash, of a tax charged to let drug dealers operate
unimpeded in part of the city, of cops who stole drugs and guns
during the execution of search warrants, then sold them to other
dealers, of perjury and doctored evidence.
Worse still were allegations
of a Toronto force closing ranks against RCMP investigators,
seeming to put misplaced loyalty ahead of both sworn duty and
respect for the uniform.
It's important to remember
that the allegations are, as police association president Rick
McIntosh said, still merely that, allegations untested by trial.
But the language, coming from those not inclined to toss words
around lightly, is breathtaking and the consequences of the alleged
crimes huge.
A pattern of misconduct. Serious
criminal activity. Repeated patterns of suspected criminal activity
by the same officers.
``Confidence in the proper
administration of criminal justice can only be assured once every
file that these suspect officers have touched during their terms
on the drug squad is reviewed,'' RCMP Chief Superintendent John
Neily said in one affidavit.
It's difficult to see how Fantino's
preferred defence of deny, deny, deny can stand against the weight
of such allegations.
These, after all, come not
from the usual suspects -so-called liberal media, minority activists,
and cop-hating malcontents - but a senior RCMP officer with almost
three decades on the job.
For too long, Fantino has done
nothing to diminish a culture of defensiveness and paranoia fuelled
by the bellicose leadership of a police association that seems
to see anyone outside the blue tent as an enemy, and all criticism,
however valid, as a declaration of war.
It now seems all but certain
that Fantino's call for a public inquiry will be heeded, though
with a focus far different than what he once imagined.
If it is, as the chief has
said, that gangs and drug dealers have been chiefly responsible
for the gunplay that has littered Toronto streets with bodies,
mayhem that has seen innocent citizens killed in their homes
by stray bullets, how much has a drug squad out of control and
allegedly turned to crime itself contributed to the lawlessness
and its ghastly consequences?
In any event, it had better
be a considerable time before Fantino asks again for more officers
to keep Toronto streets safe.
- His first order of business
would seem to be ensuring that those he already has are working
for him, not against him. And that the rest of the force remember
who it is they swore to serve and protect.
-
-
- Fantino denies force
rife with corruption
30-month inquiry: Drug squad issues 'being dealt with'
Shannon Kari, CanWest
News Service, January 21, 2004
TORONTO -- Toronto police chief
Julian Fantino says a 30-month internal investigation of a now
disbanded drug squad did not uncover widespread evidence of corruption.
Chief Fantino confirmed yesterday
that internal disciplinary proceedings may be initiated against
former drug squad officers who are not facing criminal charges.
However, he insisted the task
force did not uncover systemic problems in the former Central
Field Command drug squad.
"Over 2 1/2 years, as
the investigation progressed, the allegations against the remaining
officers that have appeared in today's media were fully investigated
but not supported by evidence," said Chief Fantino.
"Whatever issues fall
out from this investigation, they either have been dealt with
or they are being dealt with," said the chief at a news
conference yesterday.
Six veteran officers were charged
earlier this month with 22 counts of perjury, theft, extortion
and assault related charges. Four other former drug-squad colleagues
were named as unindicted co-conspirators, which means their past
conduct may be used in the prosecution of the six charged officers.
The corruption allegations
have also resulted in the staying of charges in more than 200
drug prosecutions in Toronto, dating back to 1996.
Affidavits made public this
week by the Ontario Court of Appeal revealed the internal task
force, led by RCMP Chief Supt. John Neily, found evidence of
"criminal activity" by as many as 17 officers.
The allegations included theft
of money and drugs during raids, trafficking, threats against
witnesses and even the sale of weapons to drug dealers.
The findings outlined in a
series of task force affidavits, appear to contradict the assertions
of Chief Fantino that the allegations were "not supported
by evidence."
The task force indicated it
had "isolated significant criminal behaviour on the part
of 12 serving Toronto Police Service officers against whom I
believe I have reasonable and probably grounds to believe they
have committed serious criminal offences," said Chief Supt.
Neily in an affidavit file in June 2003.
The task force evidence was
turned over to the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General,
which has suffered a number of high-profile defeats in recent
prosecutions of Toronto police officers.
It eventually decided to lay
charges against only six of the officers under investigation.
The task force was required
by the Court of Appeal to file the affidavits, every six months
since July 2001, to explain why it should continue to seal information
that led to the sudden release of convicted heroin trafficker.
When criminal charges were
announced Jan. 5, the Appeal Court unsealed the documents and
it lifted a publication ban on the information in the affidavits
Monday.
Ontario Attorney General Michael
Bryant has refused to call a public inquiry into the corruption
allegations. A spokesman for the minister said yesterday he would
have no further comment because "the matter is now before
the court."
"We have a terrific police
force, but the comments of a chief superintendent of the RCMP
have to be taken seriously," Toronto Mayor David Miller
said.
The impact of the task force
findings, however, may not be limited to the criminal charges
or any internal disciplinary proceedings filed under the Police
Act. The allegations could also result in another wave of civil
lawsuits being filed against the force and the Police Services
Board.
The task force identified 28
cases where there was suspected "criminal misconduct"
by drug squad officers.
Convictions were registered
in at least 14 of these proceedings, which all took place in
the late 1990s. The federal Department of Justice, which handles
all drug prosecutions, said it was not aware of the misconduct
allegations in these cases until the task force affidavits were
unsealed earlier this month.
The police services board has
already settled three of at least seven lawsuits that were previously
filed against drug squad officers, but it has refused to make
public any details of the agreements.
More than $100,000 in damages
was paid to Simon Yeung, a convicted heroin dealer whose prosecution
triggered the task force investigation.
The police services board also
agreed to a $50,000 settlement last fall with a Vietnamese woman
and her two young sons. The settlement included a formal apology
to the family by a senior member of the Toronto police force.
The family had claimed it was
terrorized by several officers, who were part of a unit of the
Central Field Command drug squad that is not currently facing
any criminal charges.
Some of these same officers
have been accused of the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars
from bank safety deposit boxes during the execution of search
warrants.
The task force investigated
these allegations and found that while there was not a basis
to lay criminal charges, "the cases show a suspicious pattern
of similar behaviour."
© Copyright 2004 National Post
'Conscience is clean,'
Fantino says
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Globe
and Mail, Jan. 21, 2004
Julian Fantino sounded a little
beaten up. "On days like this," the Toronto Police
Chief said yesterday, "I'd rather be in Kosovo, doing peacekeeping."
Except for the loss of an officer
in the line of duty, there probably is nothing so difficult for
a police chief to bear as a scandal such as the one now revolving
around the Toronto force.
What honourably distinguishes
this one, and ought to offer comfort to the citizens of the country's
largest city, is that it was Chief Fantino himself who drove
the investigation that led to the whole contretemps.
It was he who in the late summer
of 2001, unsatisfied that an earlier internal-affairs probe had
managed to get to the bottom of things (and this is less a reflection
of the quality of that probe than a function of its focus), invited
in Chief Superintendent John Neily of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police. Chief Fantino did this in the face of enormous pressure
from a variety of quarters, including the Toronto Police Association,
which argued that a second probe was unfair.
Chief Supt. Neily's mandate
was to run a broader investigation - and an expensive and arduous
one it turned out to be - into allegations of serious wrongdoing
against former members of the disbanded central command drug
squad.
That culminated earlier this
month with significant criminal charges being laid against six
officers and with four others being named as unindicted co-conspirators.
The gory and sometimes alarming investigative details came to
light only two days ago, when the Ontario Court of Appeal unsealed
a whack of affidavits from Chief Supt. Neily that had been used
to justify keeping the whole kit and caboodle under wraps for
so long.
It was also Chief Fantino who,
a few months after calling in Chief Supt. Neily, hired retired
judge George Ferguson to review some of the larger policy and
arguably systemic questions raised by the allegations, or, as
the chief put it yesterday, to find out, "Why did this happen?
What failed us? And what safeguards do we need to ensure this
never happens again?"
The judge's work - he has reported
back regularly, and Chief Fantino says some of his recommendations
have already been implemented - continues, with a full report
yet to come, and if the chief gets his wish, made fully public.
Among the issues the judge
is looking at is the question of "high-risk jobs" such
as those done by drug squad officers, and what red flags supervisors
ought to be alert to spot.
This is part of the background
to the chief's remarks at a press conference yesterday, where
he defended his force against suggestions - found in Chief Supt.
Neily's various affidavits, filed as the investigation progressed
over more than two years - that the Mountie's task force encountered
widespread lack of co-operation.
The chief pointed out, and
fairly so, that some of the most egregious alleged misconduct
- the threatening of witnesses, for instance - is by now historic.
This is true: Chief Supt. Neily
was effectively reporting back to the appeal court at approximately
six-month intervals about the progress of the case. Thus, when
his six affidavits were released this week, what was fresh to
all of us in many instances dates back to other charges that
have already been dealt with by the courts, and in some instances
even to unrelated cases.
Some allegations were duly
investigated, en route, by the task force, and found to be either
unsubstantiated or not involving criminal conduct, in which case
the complaints have been referred back to internal affairs, which
still could proceed with Police Act charges.
So while the chief was pooh-poohing
the notion yesterday that the task-force investigators ran into
a "blue wall" of silence - this was a persistent theme
in Chief Supt. Neily's affidavits - his position is understandable.
As he told me yesterday: "We persevered. We dealt with this.
There were barriers, but we broke down every barrier. These are
the results of what we initiated. No one here is championing
the view that police officers aren't to co-operate with the administration
of justice. This is not the culture of this organization."
The thoughtful new boss of
the police association, Rick McIntosh, had a nugget to add in
this regard yesterday. He points out that Chief Supt. Neily likely
suffered something of a culture shock in his dealings with the
Toronto rank and file. The RCMP, Chief Supt. Neily's home force,
does not have a strong police association; only about 10 per
cent of members belong, Mr. McIntosh said.
So when Chief Supt. Neily encountered
witness officers in Toronto who wanted to bring an association
lawyer along to a task-force interview, he may have found it
jarring.
And, Mr. McIntosh said, he
personally knows of one officer who was told the task force wanted
to talk to him as a witness, but who, when he arrived for the
interview, found he was now considered a suspect officer, an
unenviable position. Toronto officers often encountered this
same shifting suspect-witness reclassification in the earlier
days of the province's special investigations unit; they don't
shrink from exercising their right to silence.
That said, Mr. McIntosh agreed
that police are "not quick to judge each other" because
they know, from experience, what can happen "when people
open their mouths without knowing the whole story, when they
see only a slice of something. It's not that they're purposefully
covering up, but sometimes what investigators think you should
have seen is not what you saw."
At bottom, the wide-ranging
task-force probe (staffed largely by Toronto police officers,
it should be noted, if headed by a Mountie) that saw all this
properly come to light might well have been swept under the carpet
somewhere else. The original internal-affairs probe, from which
all this sprang, found insufficient evidence to proceed with
criminal charges. How easy it would have been to let things lie
there, to shrug and say, "Well, we tried."
Instead, Chief Fantino made
two phone calls, and this week we all saw the results. "We
didn't shirk from it," he said yesterday. "We weren't
intimidated by it, by the lawsuits [some of the now accused officers
are suing the force]. None of it has worked to deter us from
doing what is in the public interest.
"My heart is heavy,"
he concluded, "but my conscience is clean."
© 2004 Bell Globemedia
Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Top cop denies T.O. officers
blocked RCMP probe
CTV.ca News Staff
Responding to newly released
court documents that suggest an RCMP police corruption probe
was a target for death threats and intimidation, Toronto's top
cop denied allegations his officers interfered with the Mounties.
RCMP Chief Superintendent John
Neily began investigating Toronto's special drug squad more than
two years ago.
By the time it was over, 22
criminal charges were laid against six officers.
The top-secret investigations
had found evidence of officers who falsified search warrants,
traded in drugs, supplied perjured testimony and shook down citizens.
But according to documents
from the Ontario Court of Appeal, those charges weren't easily
laid. Witnesses were threatened and RCMP investigators were systematically
stymied -- by cops not facing charges -- for the duration of
the probe, the documents suggest.
Among the evidence revealed:
A man thought to have damning
information about the police was pulled over on a Toronto highway
and threatened at gunpoint; Another officer known to have co-operated
with the RCMP probe heard indirectly he would have his kneecaps
broken; An officer related to an RCMP task force member was threatened
with bodily harm by a police colleague hostile to the probe;
Charges against three officers were dropped when a key witness
said he was afraid, recanted his testimony and intentionally
injured himself.
The documents were released
after a two-year access battle by The Globe and Mail and the
CBC.
The Globe's Christie Blatchford
said that from the moment RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily
began to investigate the allegations, he was met with the "blue
wall" of silence in which officers refuse to rat on one
another.
Blatchford said in all her
years of covering the police, she is particularly saddened by
this story because of its scope.
"It's quite clear from
the documents that there's a larger number who either tacitly
or actively condoned this behaviour, and perhaps an even larger
number of officers who simply flatly refused to talk to the investigators
who were looking at it," she told CTV's Canada AM.
"And I find that really
troubling."
For his part, Toronto Police
Chief Julian Fantino said the allegations contained in the just-released
court documents are unfounded.
"Over two-and-a-half years,
as the investigation progressed, the allegations against the
remaining officers that have appeared in today's media were fully
investigated but were not supported by evidence," Fantino
said Tuesday.
"The officers against
whom those allegations were made were not the subject of criminal
charges."
Criminal lawyer Edward Sapiano,
who first alerted the Toronto police chief to the corruption
allegations in 1999, disagree. He says any officers accused of
stonewalling investigators should be dealt with summarily.
"Fire them and let them
sue for unlawful dismissal," he told CTV's Toronto affiliate
CFTO News. "Let's go to court and let's litigate the issues."
But Fantino assured reporters
that charges under the police service act are being considered
in some of the cases. That means a more cautious approach.
"Just because an allegation
is made, I think in today's democratic system of justice we have
here that we're all entitled to a fair day and a fair hearing,"
Fantino told reporters.
The six officers facing criminal
charges are Staff Sgt. John Schertzer and Constables Steve Correia,
Joe Miched, Ray Pollard, Ned Maodus and Richard Benoit.
Charges include conspiracy
to obstruct justice, attempt to obstruct justice, perjury, theft
over $5,000, assault causing bodily harm and extortion.
Four other officers have been
identified as un-indicted co-conspirators. They are Greg Forestall,
John Reid, Jason Kondo and Mike Turnball.
The documents unsealed yesterday
indicate that members of another drug team were accused by suspects
they had arrested of drug thefts.
Toronto police blocked
RCMP corruption probe
KIRK MAKIN, Globe and Mail
, Jan. 20, 2004
A massive RCMP-led operation
to root out corruption in the Toronto Police Service was jolted
by death threats to witnesses and a solid wall of hostility within
police ranks, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.
Released after a two-year access
battle by The Globe and Mail and the CBC, the documents read
like a detective thriller. They reveal a chilling spectrum of
improper practices and alleged criminality extending well beyond
six officers who were charged with 22 offences earlier this month.
The top-secret investigation
that began into the Toronto police drug squad in 2001 found evidence
of rogue officers who falsified search warrants, traded in drugs,
supplied perjured testimony and shook down citizens. Other evidence
revealed:
· A man who was thought
to have supplied damning information against a group of suspect
officers was later pulled over on a Toronto highway and threatened
at gunpoint.
"The assailants told [him]
that if they found out it was him who had co-operated with the
investigation, he was dead," states an affidavit sworn by
RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily. He said no link was found
to the officers, but the incident highlighted potential dangers
to witnesses.
· Charges against three
officers were dropped when a key witness "expressed extreme
fear for his safety, recanted, intentionally injured himself,
threatened further self-mutilation if forced to testify, and
was ultimately assessed by the Crown as unreliable."
· An officer who was
related to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force member
was threatened with bodily harm by a police colleague hostile
to the probe.
· Another officer known
to have co-operated with the task force "heard indirectly
- and in a way that cannot be linked to any of the accused police
officers - that he would get his kneecaps broken for having talked
to the Internal Affairs investigators," according to Chief
Supt. Neily.
Many of the suspect officers
simply refused to be interviewed, the affidavits state, while
their memo books went unaccountably missing. Indeed, a search
of one officer's home revealed a hidden stash of them.
A Toronto defence lawyer whose
agitation helped launch the internal investigation said yesterday
that the unsealed documents reveal a startling number of previously
unknown allegations that did not result in charges.
"In my opinion, it portrays
a degree of criminality that exceeds the cops who are charged,"
Edward Sapiano said.
"When it comes to prosecuting
police officers, you don't just have to have proof beyond a reasonable
doubt - it has to be beyond, beyond, beyond a reasonable doubt."
A last-ditch bid by police
lawyers to have the documents suppressed yesterday was thwarted
when three Ontario Court of Appeal judges ruled that the prejudicial
effect on future trials was insufficient to "trump"
freedom of the press.
The Globe and the CBC had been
seeking to open information since 2001, when convicted heroin
trafficker Simon Yeung was freed in the middle of his prison
term. The Court of Appeal sealed the case to ensure that the
RCMP operation remained secret. (As it turns out, Mr. Yeung's
1999 conviction was reversed because officers had obstructed
justice and committed perjury.)
Every six months, the RCMP
and the Crown renewed the sealing order using affidavits from
Chief Supt. Neily. Amongst the riveting inside details is an
elaborate sting operation which targeted a prime suspect - Constable
Joseph Miched.
An undercover RCMP operative
initially gained his confidence by posing as an ex-police officer
turned money-launderer for organized crime. Constable Miched
swallowed the bait, according to Chief Supt. Neily, and was eventually
"present at, and actively participated in, several transactions
where several hundred thousands of dollars of money were delivered
to the undercover operator purportedly to be invested and laundered."
The affidavit states that Constable
Miched - armed on at least one occasion with his police-issue
weapon - helped provide security, and counted and transported
money and diamonds that were supposedly derived from large-scale
drug deals.
It says he also tried to persuade
his superior, Staff Sergeant John Shertzer, to join the scheme.
However, Staff Sgt. Shertzer smelled a set-up. Constable Miched
abruptly went off on a lengthy sick leave, and was shunned thereafter
by other suspect officers.
By late 2001, 26 officers and
five support staff were investigating allegations that included
fraudulent search warrants, non-existent confidential informants,
drug trafficking, use of hard drugs and the theft of a total
of as much as $500,000 in money and jewellery from citizens.
Chief Supt. Neily estimated
that 2,100 prosecutions and 600 search warrants would have to
be re-investigated. The Crown eventually stayed or withdrew approximately
200 cases because of concerns about the honesty of the investigators.
In March of 2002, task-force
investigators who searched the home of a suspect found a large
volume of search warrant forms, confidential informant documents
and videotapes in police exhibit packages. They also found two
ounces of heroin and cocaine and four ecstasy tablets.
Chief Supt. Neily said this
was particularly alarming, since the officer involved - Constable
Ned Maodus - hadn't worked on a drug unit since 1999, and had
been on sick leave for 200 days. The task force often sought
information from underworld informants with whom the target officers
had shared startlingly close relationships. "It was actually
a social relationship in some cases," Chief Supt. Neily
noted.
He expressed unhappiness with
the surly reaction the RCMP encountered from Toronto officers,
including the alteration or destruction of police notes. "We
are receiving very little co-operation from witness police officers
of the Toronto Police Service and in fact, it can be fairly stated
that witness police officers are antagonistic towards this investigation,"
he said in one affidavit.
By November of 2002, the task
force had thousands of documents pointing to criminal activity
by 17 members of one drug unit alone. The task force also had
evidence of a suspect who had been beaten and extorted; of officers
who had "taxed" drug dealers in return for permission
to operate unimpeded in certain portions of the city; and of
an officer who sold drugs and weapons to drug dealers in return
for large quantities of cash.
"In isolating the strongest
cases, we have eliminated many more than those being presented
for criminal prosecution," Chief Supt. Neily noted.
He expressed increasing concern
for the welfare of their informants, and made preparations for
witness relocation and protection programs to kick into gear
at a moment's notice. "The threat level attached to this
is extremely high and of significant tactical concern to us in
future," Chief Supt. Neily said.
- © 2004 Bell
Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
-
-
- Drug squad rot goes
deeper: task force 'Serious
criminal activity': 17 Toronto officers suspected of theft, affidavits
reveal
Shannon Kari, CanWest News
Service, January 20, 2004
TORONTO -- Almost 20 Toronto
drug squad officers were suspected of "serious criminal
activity" ranging from the sale of weapons and narcotics
to the theft of money, according to allegations contained in
sworn affidavits made public yesterday.
A special police internal task
force had "reason to suspect" the officers were also
involved in the theft of drugs, numerous searches of homes without
warrants and a willingness to participate in money laundering,
according to the documents.
The affidavits reveal that
more than 200 drug prosecutions, dozens more than has been made
public, may have been stayed in Toronto since 1996, because of
credibility problems with certain officers.
The allegations follow a 30-month
investigation that resulted in six officers being charged earlier
this month.
The officers, all former members
of the now disbanded Central Field Command drug squad, face a
total of 22 counts of assault, extortion, theft, perjury and
obstruction of justice related charges.
The ongoing findings of the
internal investigation were outlined in six affidavits filed
by a senior Toronto detective and RCMP Chief Superintendent John
Neily, who was called in to lead the 31-member task force in
August, 2001.
The affidavits had been sealed
by the Court of Appeal and were linked to the case of Simon Yeung,
a convicted heroin trafficker, who was released from prison in
July, 2001, after serving 18 months of a 45-month sentence.
The Court of Appeal did not
give its reasons for releasing Mr. Yeung at the time because
of fears that the drug-squad investigation might be compromised.
However, the court requested
updates, which were given in the form of the affidavits.
Last week, when the officers
were charged, the court was prepared to release the documents
but agreed to hear arguments from their lawyers and legal representatives
of officers named in the affidavits.
Yesterday, Earl Levy, the lawyer
for the six charged officers, claimed they would not receive
a fair trial if the material was unsealed. However, Justice David
Doherty, one of a three-member panel, ordered the documents unsealed.
"This isn't evidence.
This is what the police say the results of the investigation
have yielded. Evidence is what you hear in court," said
Judge Doherty. "We are talking about the public's right
to know about this investigation and why it has lasted two and
a half years."
According to the affidavits
released yesterday, within a few months of the creation of the
task force, Chief Supt. Neily alleged that his probe had uncovered
"a pattern of misconduct," by the officers involved
in the Yeung case.
The affidavits say the internal
affairs investigation suggested that a team of officers led by
Staff Sergeant John Schertzer may have committed perjury and
obstructed justice in the prosecution of Mr. Yeung, who was arrested
in April, 1998.
More than 1,100 charges in
286 drug investigations, were laid by members of Staff Sgt. Schertzer's
crew between January, 1997 and May, 1999. More than 80% of those
charges were stayed or withdrawn by federal prosecutors before
going to trial and not as part of a plea bargain, according to
the affidavits.
"I don't know whether
his [Supt. Neily's] figures are accurate," James Leising,
the director of criminal prosecutions (Ontario) for the federal
Justice Department, which is responsible for all drug prosecutions,
said last week after reviewing the affidavits.
By November, 2002, according
to the affidavits, the task force said there was "evidence
of criminal activity" against 17 drug squad officers, which
included 27 allegations that police, "stole large amounts
of cash from targets of their drug investigations."
The task force investigation
also alleged that it had reason to believe that a second unit
of drug squad officers may have been involved in stealing nearly
$500,000 while executing search warrants of bank safety deposit
boxes.
None of these officers has
been charged.
The Justice Department has
stayed prosecutions involving the second unit of officers, but
Mr. Leising insisted he was never informed by the task force
about its suspicions in this area.
The affidavits also contain
allegations against Constable Ned Maodus, a 15-year veteran of
the Toronto force who is scheduled to stand trial this year on
assault, sexual assault and weapons-related charges. He has also
been charged with assaulting another officer and various drug
trafficking offences in addition to corruption charges.
- The task force reported that
a "reliable" informant said Const. Maodus and other
officers were involved in the theft of weapons and drugs while
executing search warrants and then sold "drugs and in some
cases, the weapons, to other drug dealers for large quantities
of cash." © Copyright 2004 National
Post
-
-
- Unfair trial feared
Affidavits' release
ripped by lawyers
ALAN CAIRNS , TORONTO SUN,
January 20, 2004
Six former drug cops facing
criminal charges and named in a series of affidavits released
in the Simon Yeung appeal could suffer prejudice at trial, their
lawyers said. Earl Levy, who represented Staff-Sgt. John Schertzer
and detectives Steve Correia, Joseph Miched, Raymond Pollard,
Richard Benoit and Ned Maodus, said while precise details may
be forgotten at trial a year or two from now, prospective jurors
might not be able to purge a general picture from their minds.
Acting for four officers who
were named as unindicted co-conspirators and other cops mentioned
but not charged, lawyer Peter Brauti questioned why the affidavit
referred to allegations against uncharged cops.
When it comes to evidence,
"you either get it, or you don't," Brauti said.
"It was totally unnecessary
and unfair to the officers."
Brauti conceded that he and
Levy did not have much of a legal foothold when they argued the
affidavits should remain sealed to Justices David Doherty, Michael
Moldaver and Marc Rosenberg of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
TAKEN TO TASK BY JUDGES
Levy had barely began decrying
how the material could prejudice the trials of the six officers,
when all three appeal court justices took him to task.
The justices said the fact
the affidavits contained prejudicial materials did not matter.
The test, said, Justice Moldaver,
is "at the end of the day, can you get a fair trial".
"I've probably looked
at these affidavits four or five times now," Moldaver said.
"I still can't understand
who is who. Even if the press published the whole thing tomorrow,
and even if I read the whole thing tomorrow, I still couldn't
understand who is who."
The first of the seven affidavits
filed in the appeal of Simon Yeung go back to July 5, 2001, when
Toronto Police internal affairs Det.-Sgt. Randy Franks wrote
an affidavit detailing what he had found in his probe of the
case.
Yeung had pleaded guilty to
possession of heroin for the purposes of trafficking in 1999
after being picked up by Staff-Sgt. John Schertzer's crew.
He had served 18 months of
a 45-month sentence when police and prosecutors told him they
would support an appeal.
Franks wrote some officers
in the Schertzer team are alleged to have hidden the role of
a drug user who worked for them to set up Yeung. By law only
confidential informants can be shielded.
Franks alleged that at a preliminary
hearing in the Yeung case, Schertzer, Miched and Correia "may
have perjured themselves and obstructed justice."
RCMP Chief Supt. John Neily's
affidavits were filed in an effort to keep disclosure on the
Yeung matter under wraps until after his probe had yielded charges
against drug squad officers.
In his first affidavit of Dec.
17, 2001, Neily claimed his task force had uncovered information
"that demonstrates a pattern of misconduct by officers ...
in the Yeung matter."
'ACTS OF DISHONESTY'
Neily alleged that evidence
suggested certain officers had "acted in concert in committing
acts of dishonesty commencing in 1995." This included dealings
with confidential informants, search warrants and testimony.
The impact on the administration
of justice "is tremendous," Neily wrote.
In a subsequent affidavit,
Neily said the task force had discovered that information attributed
to confidential informants had not been given by the stated informant
and informants had been given drugs for information.
Neily wrote that suspect officers
memo books for the "bulk" of the probe timeline were
"missing."
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
