Disgraced Mountie to be transferred to BC

CBC News//Posted: May 24, 2012

B.C.’s top Mountie says a disgraced RCMP officer who has been transferred to the province from Edmonton will be closely supervised.

Sgt. Don Ray will be posted to a federal area of responsibility and if he reoffends he will be removed from duty immediately, Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens told a Vancouver news conference Thursday.

Ray admitted to having sex with subordinates, drinking on the job and exposing himself to a co-worker, and was reprimanded, demoted from the rank of staff sergeant and fined 10 days pay.

Instead of firing him, an RCMP disciplinary panel ruled that Ray deserved a break because of his long years of satisfactory service and support from other Mounties.

North Vancouver man awarded $15,000 for wrongful arrest by RCMP

By NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN May 11, 2012

METRO VANCOUVER — A North Vancouver man was awarded $15,000 in damages for wrongful arrest and imprisonment by two North Vancouver RCMP officers.

“If they had used common sense, this wouldn’t happened at all,” the claimant, Jeung (Austin) Park, 29, said in an interview Friday.

“I thought it was totally unreasonable behaviour.”

Woman Says Officers Sexually Attacked Her

By DARRYL GREER//http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/05/11/46438.htm

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) – A former media relations officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sued the Canadian government, three fellow officers and an RCMP doctor claiming she was subjected to years of sexual harassment by superiors and fellow officers.
In a complaint filed in Supreme Court of British Columbia, Catherine Galliford claims the harassment began when she was a recruit in 1990.
It was then, she says, that she met defendant Marvin Wawia when he responded to a complaint at her mother’s home.
“Following that meeting, the Defendant, Wawia, aggressively pursued the Plaintiff, forcing himself upon her sexually, threatening her that if she did not gratify him sexually, he would make sure that she did not get accepted into the RCMP,” the complaint states.
Wawia allegedly began stalking her and forced her to wear a ring while she attended RCMP training to deter other men from pursuing a relationship with her. He was “extremely jealous,” according to the complaint, and circulated a letter among every other recruit in her training class warning them to stay away from Galliford because she had a sexually transmitted disease.

Transit Police: Overpaid pigs that harass us for their salary.

Copwatcher says: The money for transits’ over priced and often aggressive police comes partly from taxes and partly from the sale of transit fare tickets. Kind of a conflict of interest when your getting stopped & dragged off a bus by a guy with a gun who wants to secure his overstuffed paycheck.

CBC News//Posted: May 15, 2012

A review of Metro Vancouver’s Transit Police says officers are making double the overtime of their colleagues at the Vancouver Police Department, but there is little TransLink can do to lower the cost.

The review, which was conducted by the audit unit of the Vancouver Police Department, looked at a wide range of operational and administrative issues, and made 30 recommendations, many of which have already been implemented.

But the review concluded transit police are in a unique position because they are part of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union, the same union that represents a number of other TransLink employees — and that collective bargaining agreement simply isn’t suited to police work.

Missing women were considered ‘scum of the Earth,’ inquiry hears

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Missing+women+were+considered+scum+Earth+inquiry+hears/6508611/story.html

Vancouver police were racist and sexist, former 911 operator testifies

By Suzanne Fournier, Postmedia News April 24, 2012

A former 911 operator told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Monday that Vancouver police officers viewed missing sex workers as “scum of the earth” who weren’t worth “wasting valuable time and money trying to find.”

Rae-Lynn Dicks, now in a criminology master’s degree program, testified that she believes many officers held “both sexist and racist” attitudes that prevented them from halting an active serial killer preying on sex trade workers.

Ever wonder why the city never seems to have enough money for social programs?

Copwatcher says: Those of us living in Vancouver, over the last few years, have witnessed increases in homelessness, poverty, gentrification, condo developments for the rich, and a huge need for social housing that just never gets filled. We find ourselves pushed out of our own neighborhoods and desperate to find rent that we can afford, even working 2 or 3 jobs. The funding cuts that have closed down dozens of programs and services for people just in the last year and school & daycare closures have made it even harder to find support to supplement our survival. After the Olympics, that 2 week party, the city was left with billions of dollars in debt, that we will be struggling to pay off for decades. All the while, the people running this city are walking away with huge paychecks every year, never feeling the weight of debt and poverty that they have inflicted on the rest of the city, the regular folks. And this is just a few vancouver police officers, there are also transit officers, the highest paid police force in canada, whos salaries are paid by our taxes and the ever increasing & unaffordable transit fares. Tack on the mayor, city councillors etc and their lavish expenses. And we wonder why there is never any money…. 

Inquest into North Van RCMP killing of Matthew Wilcox is underway

By James Weldon, North Shore News April 2, 2012

METRO VANCOUVER — Two years and three                                                                     months after North Vancouver resident Matthew Wilcox was fatally wounded in a police shooting, the B.C. Coroners Service has finally opened an inquest into the incident.

Wilcox, 39, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was shot by a North Vancouver RCMP officer on Deep Cove Road Jan. 9, 2010, after reportedly walking toward the officer and ignoring commands to stop. He died in hospital the following day.

An 18-month investigation by the Vancouver Police Department concluded in July last year that the officer “was in lawful execution of his duty,” when he pulled the trigger. The day after that finding was published, the coroners service announced its intention to lead a formal inquest into the incident, but waited another four months before setting the April 2 start date.