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Good to see some attention being paid to police oversight agencies, but this @CdnPressNews article has a few problems (a thread): http://ctv.news/kgRjjgV
First, there are factual issues. One of the academics quoted says "They typically have a high threshold for defining "serious injury" so anything that doesn't end in hospitalization is excluded from an investigation"
This is just not true.
This is just not true.
But more importantly, any of these articles that say "police oversight in Canada is broken because it clears officers in 99% of cases" misses some key context.
The first reason officers are cleared in 99% of cases is because the mandate of (most) oversight agencies is far too broad, and investigations are carried out in circumstances where it is obvious to the most casual observer that police had no involvement in the injury/death.
For example: Here's a case in Windsor where police *arrived* at a scene to find a house engulfed in flames. Occupant died in the fire. What grounds would you have to charge the officer criminally? https://www.ontario.ca/page/siu-directors-report-case-16-ocd-161
Or this where SIU cleared police after a man killed himself after police called him to ask him to attend an interview the next day in a suspicious death case. What grounds would you have to lay criminal charges against police? https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2019/01/17/siu-closes-case-into-death-of-hamilton-man-at-tews-falls.html
Or this one, where a man broke into a Tim Hortons, and when police arrived, tried to jump off the building to escape, breaking his heel and wrist. This was, in fact, an actual SIU investigation: https://www.ontario.ca/page/siu-directors-report-case-17-pci-230
When you consider oversight bodies investigate situations such as someone getting into a car accident if they speed away from police trying to pull them over, or someone dies from an overdose when police try to administer narcan, you can start to see why 99% of cases are cleared.
But that's not the entire picture. Another issue with the broad brush treatment is it completely lacks any form of context or nuance, which is necessary in these circumstances.
For example, ~60% of deaths happen in a hospital, and with no other context, you could say hospitals are the most dangerous buildings to be in throughout Canada, but we'd rightly dismiss that as being silly, because there's more information involved:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310071501
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310071501
Oversight #s are the same. It's impossible to take a 35,000ft view and say these agencies are too cozy with police because they don't lay charges more often without considering the specifics of each case, and the scenario that led to the investigation in the first place.
And we should note, in these cases, the only issue oversight agencies are considering is whether there was a *criminal* act committed by the officer, which is (and should be) a pretty high threshold.
Police are expected to make split second decisions under the worst possible circumstances, and to do it with limited information and, in some cases, horrible consequences. Officers are extraordinarily professional and well-trained, and yes, sometimes they make mistakes.
They should certainly be held accountable for those mistakes, both personally and professionally, but do all of those meet the threshold of criminal charges? Absolutely not. Professional discipline happens (regularly) and doesn't show up in these oversight numbers.
So the idea that if SIU (or ASIRT, or IIOBC, or...) don't charge an officer, they didn't do anything wrong is misleading at best, and flat out wrong at worst.
And if you want effective oversight (and I believe we all do), we need to have professionally trained investigators with experience in these issues (I.e people with policing backgrounds), and they need to have the resources necessary to conduct fast and fair investigations!
