FILE SHUT ON COMPLAINTS AGAINST POLICE

Public hearing into 50 claims by city legal group not necessary,
commissioner decides

VANCOUVER - The public interest will not be served by holding public
hearings into any of the 50 complaints against Vancouver police filed
two years ago by the Pivot Legal Society, Police Complaint
Commissioner Dirk Ryneveld concluded Wednesday.

"I do not believe that a public hearing is necessary to preserve and
restore public confidence in the complaint process or the police,"
the commissioner said in his final report on the matter released Wednesday.

Ryneveld said he was satisfied that the audit of the Vancouver police
department currently being carried out by former B.C. Court of Appeal
judge Josiah Wood will identify any issues that need to be addressed
with the police complaint process.

The commissioner said he was closing the file on all 50 complaints
filed by Pivot in 2003 against the department on behalf of residents
of the Downtown Eastside. The complaints ranged from excessive force
and wrongful arrest to being breached -- relocated to another part of
the city without being charged -- for a suspected breach of the peace.

After the complaints were filed, the commissioner asked the RCMP to
investigate and substantiated 11 complaints, which Vancouver police
Chief Jamie Graham initially dismissed as unsubstantiated after an
internal review.

Last June 1, the commissioner asked Graham to reconsider five
complaints the RCMP deemed were substantiated.

In response, the police chief decided two complaints were
substantiated and ordered two officers to receive "managerial advice"
for future conduct as a corrective discipline measure because the
officers had not kept proper notes about the incident.

The chief found the officers had improperly arrested a man -- twice
on the same evening in August 2002 in the area of Seymour and
Dunsmuir streets, a known hangout for drug traffickers.

Police suspected the man, who had committed no crime but had a record
for drug dealing, was a potential drug dealer. He was taken by police
to Kitsilano and released without charge. When the man walked back to
the same area hours later, he was again "breached" by the same
officers to the Main and Terminal area.

The chief still maintains one complaint about excessive use of force
was unsubstantiated, although the police complaint commissioner
concluded it was substantiated.

Ryneveld said in his report that that particular complaint "raises
grave suspicions" that the officer breached his duty but there was
insufficient evidence "to transform that suspicion into a conclusion
that the complaint regarding the use of force is substantiated."

But the commissioner stated he was encouraged by a significant change
of attitude by the Vancouver police department's senior management
since the release of the commissioner's interim report last June 1,
which included harsh criticism of the department's lack of
cooperation during the RCMP investigation.

Vancouver police Const. Tim Fanning said Wednesday: "We acknowledge
that it has been a long and expensive process involving more than two
years of investigations, hundreds of police hours and more than a
million dollars in expenses. We are pleased that this matter has been
concluded and with the conclusions that have been reached."