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- Toronto Police
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Drug-squad case officer
arrested
ALWYNNE GWILT, Toronto Star
, September 17, 2005
A Toronto police officer awaiting
trial in the Toronto drug-squad case set for January, was arrested
Thursday on charges of assault, London police say.
Const. Ned Maodus was charged
after a road rage incident in London, Ont. last week, Const.
Brian Armstrong said yesterday.
Thirteen charges - ranging
from sexual assault to possession of a prohibited weapon - were
stayed against Maodus earlier this year by a Brampton judge because
the charges took too long to come to trial.
Maodus is one of six officers
charged with criminal offences during their work in the Central
Field Command Drug squad between 1997 and 2002.
The six officers - Staff Sgt.
John Schertzer and Constables Maodus, Richard Benoit, Steve Correia,
Joseph Miched and Ray Pollard - are charged with a total of 22
criminal charges.
Maodus, who has been suspended
with pay since March 2002, was charged Thursday with assault,
uttering a death threat and failure to comply with a recognizance.
The drug-squad investigation,
led by the RCMP, took 2 1/2 years and cost more than $3
million.
Police ordered to investigate
Court rules service must accept third-party complaint
- Says man was `directly
affected' by alleged assault of woman
JOHN DUNCANSON, STAFF REPORTER,
Toronto Star, September 16, 2005
In a landmark decision, a court
has ordered Toronto police to probe an alleged assault by one
of its officers on a drunk woman, even though the complaint originated
from a witness.
In a 2-1 ruling, Ontario's
Divisional Court said police must accept and investigate the
complaint made by Toronto researcher Roger Rolfe. The court said
he was directly affected when he saw an officer allegedly assault
a handcuffed woman, described by Rolfe as "intoxicated"
but "passive."
According to Rolfe, the skinny
woman in her 50s was "slammed to the ground with considerable
force" in front of him and his wife on Jan. 4, 2002. The
couple were out shopping when they watched the woman being escorted
from a store by police and firefighters.
Rolfe said the woman was bleeding
after she was shoved to the pavement. The alleged assault left
Rolfe stunned, and he still experiences anxiety and sleep loss
because of what he saw, court was told.
Although the woman filed no
complaint, Rolfe decided to complain for her. However, police
rejected the complaint, arguing he was not "directly affected"
by the incident. The Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services,
the province's main police watchdog, upheld the decision to throw
the complaint out.
With the help of the Canadian
Civil Liberties Association, Rolfe took the matter to court,
asking for a judicial review of the commission's decision.
In its decision released yesterday,
the court agreed with Rolfe, stating "his position goes
beyond that of a concerned citizen as part of the general community;
his experience was firsthand."
The court rejected the argument
that Rolfe was a mere witness and not directly affected by the
alleged assault.
"He was disturbed by what
he saw and shaken by it even after the event. In other words,
he was directly affected by what he witnessed, even though he
was not physically struck by the police," said Justice Anne
Molloy who wrote the decision on behalf of the majority.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice
Douglas Cunningham said "an enormous Pandora's box would
be opened if we were to extend the meaning of "directly
affected" to the extent urged by my colleague (Molloy)."
Still, Alexi Wood, director
of public safety projects for the civil liberties association,
said the decision was a landmark case that will bolster the argument
that the province must return to the days when third-party complaints
were accepted and investigated. "This case really shows
the insensitivity of the system," said Wood.
Earlier this year, former Superior
Court justice Patrick LeSage recommended that as part of an overhaul
of the complaints system, the province consider restoring the
right of third parties to make complaints about police conduct.
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- Mayor calls for review
of police litigation:
Miller reacts
to report that lawsuits against officers have cost city $30-million
since '98
By JEFF GRAY, Globe and
Mail, March 15, 2005
Mayor David Miller is demanding
a review of all litigation against the police force after a report
surfaced that lawsuits against the police have cost the city
$30-million since 1998.
"We obviously need to
take a look at the whole system," the mayor told reporters
yesterday. "Are there frivolous lawsuits? Are there underlying
policy issues? Are we doing something wrong that's inviting lawsuits?
Are we paying the lawyers too much?"
He was responding to a CBC
Radio report that the city spent more than $30-million on more
than 8,000 lawsuits against the police since 1998. The numbers
came after the CBC filed an access-to-information request.
Calling the cost "very
high" and a cause for concern, Mr. Miller wrote to Police
Services Board chairwoman Pam McConnell and city solicitor Anna
Kinastowski yesterday asking for a joint review of litigation
costs against the police.
The mayor said he would like
to see an annual report on police settlements, so the city could
keep an eye on any trends and patterns and try to keep the costs
down. And, Mr. Miller said, Vancouver's police force, when its
smaller size is taken into account, only pays about a third of
what Toronto does settling lawsuits.
Ms. McConnell said she welcomes
the review. She said it was clear the process needs more transparency,
given that until recently, she and the mayor had no idea how
much money was being spent to settle cases.
When someone sues the police,
because of a confrontation with an officer or after a police
cruiser slams into their car, for instance, the case is actually
handled by the city's risk-management department, which decides
whether to settle or fight the complaint in court.
City treasurer Joe Pennachetti
said in a statement yesterday that the $30-million includes insurance
claims, legal defence costs, settlement payments and reserves
set aside to cover claims in progress.
Louis Sokolov, a civil litigator
who often represents people who sue the police, welcomed the
mayor's review, saying he hoped it would allow the force to track
officers who repeatedly spark civil lawsuits. "I've had
a number of frequent fliers," he said.
For example, Mr. Sokolov said,
officers who are successfully sued for negligence -- for arresting
the wrong person, in one case he handled -- don't appear to ever
face discipline: "There's nothing internally to stop the
police from doing it again."
The review might also show
areas where police need better training, said Mr. Sokolov, a
partner at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell in Toronto.
For instance, it might shed
light on how often the city settles cases against officers accused
of trumping up, or contradicting, evidence at a bail hearing
to keep a suspect in jail. He said he had recently settled two
such "false bail synopsis" cases for a total of $130,000.
Toronto Police Association
president Dave Wilson said that while he did not disagree with
reviewing the litigation process, he said he would like to see
city lawyers fight for police officers more often, rather than
settle cases before they end up in court.
"The city needs to stand
by police officers, because policing in this city is a very tough
job," Mr. Wilson said. "For someone to make an allegation
against a police officer is very easy."
Lawyer and former police board
chairwoman Susan Eng said that it was important to know what
the breakdown of cases was within the $30-million. "It's
a question of whether we tend to have a lot of kicking down doors
-- I am not too fussed about that -- or whether or not we have
a lot of wrongful deaths."
Reached in Florida, former
police board chairman Norm Gardner said the settlement costs,
which amount to about $5-million a year over six years, didn't
sound out of line to him, given the number of confrontations
police face.
"There's a lot of people
who make allegations against the police," Mr. Gardner said.
"People think they are going to get paid off."
Police court payouts
under scrutiny
Documents show $30M
in civil suit settlements since 1998 `The number is very high
and I'm concerned,' Miller says
BRUCE DEMARA, Toronto Star,
CITY HALL BUREAU, Mar. 15, 2005
The City of Toronto wants a
review of why it cost $30 million over six years to settle thousands
of civil lawsuits against police officers, says Mayor David Miller.
"The number is very high
and I'm concerned," Miller said. "We obviously need
to take a look at the whole system. Are there frivolous lawsuits?
Are there underlying policy issues? Are we doing something wrong
that's inviting lawsuits? Are we paying the lawyers too much?
All of those have to be looked at."
Miller called for a review
of the settlements against Toronto police yesterday after learning
of the legal tab in a CBC report.
According to the CBC, an Access
to Information request reveals the city spent $30,633,303.63
settling actions involving police since 1998. The review period
takes in more than 8,000 cases, the CBC said.
"Front-line police officers
are in a very tough position and they need to know that they're
going to be backed up," Miller said yesterday in requesting
a joint review with the Toronto Police Services Board legal staff.
Board chair Councillor Pam
McConnell acknowledged the tab caught her by surprise.
"I'd like to know what
we're spending $5 million a year on, but I don't suspect that
there's anything untoward here," McConnell said.
"I think this is a classic
case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing,"
said McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale). "When
the head of council and the head of the police services board
both aren't aware of the numbers, then it says to me that it's
buried in the bureaucracy.
"Where's the public accountability
and public transparency around these numbers?" McConnell
said.
Miller noted the only comparative
figure he had yesterday was with Vancouver, which he said, on
a per-capita basis, spends about one-third of what Toronto does.
"There's obviously something
that we're not doing quite right. Some of it may be to do with
Toronto. It's just when you're bigger, it's a harder place to
police. But I think there's enough information here to indicate
that we're not doing something right. We need to understand the
trends and change them," Miller said.
Jane Doe, a sexual assault
victim who fought a 12-year legal battle to get police to acknowledge
their wrongdoing in failing to warn her and other women of a
serial rapist in her neighbourhood, said she wasn't surprised
given her experience.
Doe - who received a $220,000
settlement and an apology following a legal battle that ended
in 1998 with a legal tab of $2.5 million - noted wryly: "The
irony (is) that I offered to settle for $50,000.
"The strategy is to never
give in ... to use time and legal arguments to make the person
in my position go away. It's an historic and honoured tradition.
We've seen it happen time and again, and apparently it works
very well. The police services board engaged in that tactic in
my case," Doe said.
Further costs have since been
incurred in an audit ordered into how the force conducts sex
assault investigations, which has taken more than six years,
Doe added.
While Miller said the police
services board approves each settlement, McConnell said its role
is far more limited.
"The police services board
has nothing to do with these numbers. They might get them for
information once a year. They get them very globally, they don't
approve them, it's not in their budget," McConnell said.
"There doesn't appear
to be a political body that approves (these settlements). I think
this review will allow us to put the controls in place that need
to be put there and the political oversight that needs to happen,"
she said.
Miller said he understood the
money was paid out through the Ontario Municipal Insurance Exchange,
a self-insuring body representing various municipalities, but
settlements are actually approved through the city's risk management
division.
Toronto Police Association
president Dave Wilson said civil suits against police officers
are to be expected.
"In today's environment,"
he said, "it seems that everyone feels the recourse to take
is to lay a complaint or to make an allegation and pursue it
civilly."
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
