‘There’s just no justification’: More than 120 police office

If the drift of Canada towards a police state has not yet affected you directly, you would do well to recall the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, writing in Germany before his arrest in the 1930s: "The Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up....by that time there was nobody left to speak up for anyone."

‘There’s just no justification’: More than 120 police office

Postby Thomas » Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:34 am

‘There’s just no justification’: More than 120 police officers in Ontario are currently suspended with pay

At a time of calls to defund the police, the Ontario government has still not given police forces greater ability to suspend officers without pay.

After five years, four Toronto cops accused by a judge of planting drugs to justify a search, then fabricating a story to “cover their tracks,” are finally set to face a disciplinary tribunal to determine their fate as police officers.

In the meantime, they’ve all been suspended with pay since January 2016 — at a rank that currently pays more than $100,000 a year.

Their example is far from rare. Despite repeated calls for change from chiefs and politicians and recent pressure to defund police, police forces are still bound by decades-old provincial legislation that only allows officers to be suspended without pay if they are convicted of a crime and sentenced to jail.

As a result, chiefs remain forced to pay cops facing criminal or misconduct charges, regardless of the seriousness of the allegations — even in extreme cases including murder.

According to a Star survey of a dozen of the largest Ontario police services, the four Toronto officers are among more than 120 Ontario cops currently being paid while suspended. The Ontario Provincial Police has the most officers suspended while on the payroll, with 37, followed by Toronto police with 31 and Ottawa and Peel regional police each with 13.

“I think it’s shocking. I think the public should, frankly, be offended by this,” said Kim Schofield, the lawyer representing Nguyen Son Tran, the man whose case led to the allegations against the four Toronto officers.

Officers suspended with pay

According to a Star survey, 123 police officers are suspended with pay as of April in 12 of Ontario's largest police services.

OPP - 37
Toronto - 31
Peel - 13
Ottawa - 13
York - 8
Durham - 5
London - 4
Halton - 3
Waterloo - 3
Niagara - 3
Windsor - 2
Thunder Bay - 1

Ontario’s limits on suspension without pay, believed to be the most restrictive in Canada, mean accused officers can be paid for years while awaiting trial, and even after being convicted but awaiting sentencing.

“There’s just no justification for some of these,” said Jeff McGuire, executive director of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, which has been calling for greater latitude for chiefs to suspend officers since 2007.

The OACP has asked the Ontario government to allow police chiefs to suspend officers without pay if they are facing serious criminal or professional misconduct charges and the force will be seeking the cop’s dismissal.

Mayors and police boards have also urged change in recent months. Last fall, Ottawa city council passed a motion calling for changes first promised by Kathleen Wynne’s government in 2018, which would have expanded chiefs’ powers to suspend without pay. But the Liberals’ omnibus policing legislation never came into force, after the Progressive Conservative provincial government paused its implementation to do a re-write, calling it “most anti-police legislation in Canadian history.”

Some police unions have pushed back against changes to suspending officers, arguing that some officers will unfairly lose their paycheque only to be cleared of the allegations.

Stephen Warner, a spokesperson for Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, said in a statement that the province’s new policing legislation, the Community Safety and Policing Act, will allow a chief to suspend an officer without pay “as an interim measure under particular circumstances” when it comes into effect.

What those circumstances are, and when the law and its regulations come into force, will be determined pending ongoing consultation, Warner said.

Last year, the Toronto city council and the police board each asked the province to allow for greater ability to suspend without pay and, in certain circumstances, dismiss an officer.

“At the board, (Mayor John Tory) has seen officers remain suspended with pay for years at a time and has also seen that it is almost impossible to revoke the appointment of an officer clearly unfit to continue in the job, both of which are indicators of a broken system in need of reform,” said Lawvin Hadisi, spokesperson for Tory.

The four Toronto police officers appearing before the tribunal this week are each facing professional misconduct charges stemming from allegations made by a judge in 2015. Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan accused the officers of planting heroin on the console of a man’s car to justify a search, which then led to the discovery of 11 grams of the drug tucked behind the steering column. He accused the officers of colluding in their court testimony, calling it “egregiously wrongful” conduct.

Const. Michael Taylor, Const. Benjamin Elliot, Const. Jeffrey Tout and Const. Fraser Douglas were criminally charged in 2016 with more than two dozen perjury and obstruction of justice charges after a damning 2015 judge’s ruling, but the criminal charges were withdrawn in 2017.

The Crown lawyer on the case cited “difficult and complex” disclosure issues, including the inadvertent release of privileged information, that had made a timely prosecution no longer possible. The move was criticized by some as “folding the tent” prematurely on a case with high public interest.

The officers still face multiple charges each under Ontario’s police services act stemming from the judge’s ruling. If found guilty at the hearing, which starts Tuesday, they face consequences ranging from a reprimand to a dismissal.

Asked why the four officers are only now being brought before the tribunal, more than three years since the criminal charges were withdrawn, Toronto police spokesperson Connie Osborne cited factors that impact timing, “some of which are outside of the service’s control.” That includes the availability of defence lawyers, hearing officers and prosecutors, she said.

“In this particular case, each of the four officers are individually represented, an external prosecutor and hearing officer have also been brought in and the hearing is expected to last two months,” Osborne said.

Osborne confirmed all four officers are first-class constables. According to the January 2021 payment scheme, officers at this rank receive an annual salary of $104,492.

Peter Brauti, the lawyer representing Taylor at the tribunal and who frequently defends police officers, said in the majority of cases officers would prefer to be put to work in some capacity while suspended. He noted James Forcillo — the ex-Toronto cop convicted of attempted murder in the 2013 death of Sammy Yatim — was granted permission to work in an administrative capacity while awaiting trial.

Brauti blames police services for failing to find some task, such as washing a police cruiser or sorting mail, to get some value out of officers receiving a full salary — “at the end of the day, it’s the employer who is unwilling or unprepared to find a role for them.”

At an earlier appearance for the four officers, where the case had to be postponed, a concern was voiced about ongoing delays while the officers were suspended, Brauti said.

“And my retort, on the record, was they’re prepared to work — you just won’t let them,” Brauti said.

“Suspended with pay may sound inviting but it is purgatory when the charges are ill-founded and your career in policing is forced into suspended animation,” said Alan Gold, the lawyer representing Douglas at the tribunal.

Lawyers for Tout and Elliot declined to comment.

Osborne said that when considering whether the officer can be re-deployed, each case is considered to assess the seriousness of the allegations and any potential risks to the service and public. Only in minor cases “could restricted duties be an option while an officer is under investigation,” she said.

Toronto police interim chief Jim Ramer is supportive of chiefs having more latitude to suspend officers without pay, Osborne added.

McGuire, the OACP executive director, said chiefs are only looking to suspend without pay in certain circumstances, and that he’s hopeful ongoing conversations with the province will result in change. He stressed that chiefs are mindful of important factors to support the need to pay a suspended officer, including that police are the subjects of “vexatious” complaints and that halting an employee’s pay can have implications for entire families.

Nonetheless, it can be damaging to public trust when an officer is facing serious criminal charges but remains on the payroll, McGuire said. There were times, as chief of the Niagara Regional Police Service, he’d pull into his driveway and a neighbour would ask why a certain officer who’d been in the news was still being paid — sometimes there was just no explanation, he said.

“We’re talking about a very small percentile of people,” McGuire said. “But with the extremely egregious ones, something has to give.”

Bryan Larkin, chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said the issue of suspension with pay has been longstanding and speaks to a broader need to change an “antiquated” employment system within policing across Canada. That includes a disciplinary system that can take years to hear a case, he said.

In 2015, Larkin made headlines for releasing a letter sent to the force by an ex-Waterloo cop, who thanked the service for his continued paycheque during a three-year suspension — allowing him to play golf, travel and take a firefighting course.

In an interview Monday, Larkin stressed the need for procedural fairness for officers, saying those doing “lawful, on-duty work should have provisions of protection and support, because we ask them to do a lot.”

But at a certain point, including when officers are suspended for years at a time, the public won’t trust the system, he said.

“We get bogged down in bureaucracy and in systems which really, in my view, are destructive to positive change. They’re destructive to building the future of policing,” he said.

Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/0 ... h-pay.html
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