The "personal transformation" of RCMP Commish Elliott

Pogge notes that last year RCMP Commissioner William Elliott

"attended a $44,000 course in Arizona that dealt with behavioural barriers to success.
He subsequently acknowledged to employees in a memo that he learned his actions "can and did have unintended, sometimes negative impacts."

and generously offers "to explain to him what a dick he is for half that".

If the RCMP is reading, Creekside would also like to enter the bidding fray at half again what Pogge is proposing to charge.
Oh wait. There were no other bids considered last year in the decision to send three RCMP to Arizona to take "personal transformation" and "100 per cent accountability" training for a $¼-million, accommodation and travel not included. At the time the RCMP said that Malandro Communication is the only known firm that can deliver the "leadership transformation services" it needs.
Well, at least they didn't send them off to Scientology.

Some might say "leader transformation" is the job of the government, but as noted yet again today by James Travers :

"Instead of bringing the fabled horsemen to heel for banana republic meddling in the 2006 election, the Prime Minister rushed to headquarters, cash in hand."

And then he laid off vociferous RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy, replacing him with a former Con party operative in what the G&M termed "one of the most cynical and discouraging appointments this government has made in the past four years".

"Horribly broken" continues....
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Mounties aim to block Braidwood Inquiry

The four RCMP officers who killed Robert Dziekanski with a TASER™ are asking the B.C. Supreme Court to prevent the Braidwood Inquiry from "making findings of misconduct against them" on the grounds "that a provincial inquiry doesn't have the power to make findings against federal police officers".

Justice Thomas Braidwood has warned that he may consider finding that the four RCMP "acted improperly and then tried to cover up their actions" in his final report.
The RCMP are hoping to use the excuse that they are a federal department not accountable to BC to pre-empt the BC Crown from possibly reopening their case. Not that there's been any indication that that's likely.

So far, Constables Kwesi Millington, Bill Bentley, Gerry Rundel and Corporal Monty Robinson have been exonerated by :

• the Criminal Justice Branch of BC, which, despite having watched the same Paul Pritchard video the rest of us saw, determined the officers were "acting lawfully and responded with reasonable force".
• the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, who also watched the vid and were so certain no charges would be laid that they didn't even bother to warn the officers first of their rights under the Charter that anything they said could be held in evidence against them or that they had a right to have their lawyers present.
• the federal Department of Justice, which advised the Mounties they were not legally required to attend the Braidwood Inquiry anyway.

Additionally, the official federal RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy has already said he is not given sufficient access to RCMP files to enable him to perform his job.

For the RCMP's lawyers to ask the BC Supreme Court to prevent a BC public inquiry from delivering on its purpose ... well that smells like shear flopsweat desperation.
But who is left who has the will to hold the renegade officers of this federal paramilitary organization to account?
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Update : RCMP distances itself from officers' lawsuit over Dziekanski inquiry

Sgt. Tim Shields, the RCMP's official spokesman in B.C. :
"The position of the RCMP is that the RCMP will co-operate fully with the inquiry and is also recognizing the jurisdiction of the inquiry as having authority.
These lawyers are representing the four officers; they're not representing the RCMP."
While Shields acknowledged the lawyers are paid for by taxpayers, he said the force itself has no power to stop them from contradicting RCMP policy.

UPDATE : BC Supreme Court rules Taser inquiry can find Mounties at fault

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Harper slashes RCMP watchdog funding

because watchdogs have this annoying tendency to call you out.

Last June, RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy issued a scathing report on the RCMP use of TASERs, citing the RCMP's over-reliance on the TASER™ manufacturer in developing their policies and training, sloppy reporting of TASER™ use, use of "the folk terminology excited delirium" as an excuse to deploy the TASER™, and failure to treat it as a "firearm".
The report from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP recommended that TASERs™ be used only on suspects that present a clear physical threat.

Two weeks ago Mr. Kennedy told the public safety and national security committee that he is powerless to tell whether the RCMP have made the changes needed to prevent another Maher Arar affair.
Justice Dennis O'Connor's federal inquiry two years ago into the RCMP's role in the rendition and torture of Maher Arar called for an overhaul of the RCMP complaints commission that would give it new powers to keep an eye on the Mounties' intelligence activities.
Mr. Kennedy told the committee that because this recommendation was not implemented and he does not have full access to RCMP files, he is unable to determine whether the RCMP has cleaned up its act.

Yesterday : Feds slash RCMP watchdog funding

"The Harper government is slashing nearly half the funding for the watchdog agency that monitors the RCMP and recently helped pressure the national police to craft a new policy on Tasers."

Mr. Kennedy said the funding was supposed to produce more than a report on Tasers.

"The commission is close to completing a report on cases where RCMP officers have been involved in deaths and been investigated by their own colleagues.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said the project is now over, and the government is consulting with the provinces about other ways to bolster the RCMP complaints process."

In his report last June Mr. Kennedy warned of the danger of the RCMP behaving like "a group distinct from the public" and following "a model in which officer safety takes precedence over that of the general public."

"The cumulative effect of these trends over time may reduce the degree of co-operation of the public that is essential to public safety in Canada."

Obviously. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan evidently has other priorities.


Meanwhile over at Runesmith, Jennifer is on a mission to save another government watchdog, Kevin Page, who has issued a public plea for help. Go.
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Abdelrazik has his ticket!

G&M : "More than 100 supporters of a Canadian citizen stranded in Sudan have flouted Canadian law by purchasing an airline ticket home for the one-time terrorism suspect.
The activists, including former solicitor general Warren Allmand, bought the ticket for travel April 3 and put it in the hands of Abousfian Abdelrazik. It's now up to the government to issue Mr. Abdelrazik travel documents, said his lawyer, Yavar Hameed."

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With thanks to commenter Sumeet Jain of the British Association of South Asian Studies who set up the facebook account to facilitate this and to everyone who responded.

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The ball is now in the Canadian government's court.

The RCMP have said there is no information linking him to criminal activities.

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Here the Montreal Gazette describes our government's vile and Kafka-esque machinations after Sudanese investigators cleared Abdelrazik. Canadian security operatives had originally requested to have Sudan - a country with a notorious record of torture and abuse in its prisons - arrest and detain him in our very own Canadian version of rendition :

"Our former Liberal government, and now the Conservative one, have persisted in treating this citizen this way. Look at the absurd Catch-22 he's in now, housed in our Khartoum embassy: For no stated reason, Ottawa refused to issue him a passport, so he can't come home. For some time Ottawa said he could be given a temporary passport - after he booked a flight home. He booked one; they withdrew the offer. Now Ottawa insists he have a fully-paid ticket, but he has no money, and anyone who helps him financially will be charged under anti-terror laws, Ottawa says.

Frankly, we would rather have a dangerous terrorist walking around than accept the idea that Ottawa can condemn a citizen to this sort of quasi-legal hell.

If they can do this to him, they can do it to you."

Exactly.

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So how's the Con's bid to revive Canada's draconian Anti-Terror Act powers coming along?

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Last Thursday, Paul Kennedy, chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, told a Commons committee he's powerless to tell whether the Mounties have made the changes needed to prevent another Maher Arar affair.
The RCMP watchdog says he can provide no assurances the government has enacted the Arar inquiry's recommendations.

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Two reports zap TASER™

but first let's look at one that doesn't.

Two weeks ago the Annual Canadian Conference of Chiefs of Police, sponsored in part by TASER™, wisely decided not to release the Canadian Police Research Centre's "2008 Conducted Energy Weapon Report" on TASERS™ pending further peer review. However as of July 31, excerpts from it were available from 2008 TASER™ Int. who were already using it as a marketing tool :

Two-Year Study by Canadian Police Research Centre Finds TASER Devices a SaferUse of Force
TASER International, Inc.(Nasdaq:TASR), a market leader in advanced electronic control devices (ECDs)issued the following NEWS ALERT:

"A two-year study by the Canadian Police Research Centre found that TASER(r)Electronic Control Devises (ECDs) "scored high" in safety for both suspects and officers in Calgary. The 14-page report examined 562 cases in which Calgary police used TASER ECDs, pepper spray, batons, unarmed techniques, and chokeholds against people resisting arrest. Of those cases studied, nearly half were detained with a TASER device and one percent of those suspects resisting arrest ended up Hospitalized and 87 percent sustained either minor injuries or no injuries, according to the report.
The study stated "the commonly held belief" that TASER ECDs carry "a significant risk of injury or death... is not supported by the data."

Yesterday the Star reported on a different independent study ordered by RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott and obtained Thursday by the Star under Access to Information (and why was an AtI necessary?) :

RCMP didn't study Taser use enough: Report
Hard-hitting review says force relied too heavily on manufacturer's input

"The RCMP did not do "due diligence" when it approved the Taser stun gun for use as a less-than-lethal weapon by its officers, a hard-hitting independent review concludes.

The review says the RCMP relied too much on the advice of the Taser's American manufacturer in developing its policies and training, did not consult widely enough with medical and mental health experts about its impact on people, and did not treat the weapon as a "prohibited firearm" – its proper legal classification.

"Excited delirium" is not a recognized medical diagnosis, but a term sometimes used by emergency room doctors or coroners, the report says. However, its use by police amounts to "folk knowledge" and it should be eliminated from the RCMP's operational manual unless formally approved after consultation with a mental-health policy advisory body, said the review."

Via the Star :
RCMP Use of the Conducted Energy Weapon(CEW) Final Report. Excerpted :

"The Commission knows that CEWs have been deployed or threatened to be deployed a minimum of 4234 times and that over the years the number of usage reports has increased."

"The main finding within this report is that the quality of data in the CEW usage database is so poor that any of the policy shifts following the 2001 introduction of the weapon cannot be factually supported. Supervision to ensure proper CEW deployment reporting is faulty and in some cases may be non-existent."

"The number of members present at a scene is also significantly related to the use of the CEW. More precisely, the two increase together. When only one member is present, the CEW is deployed in 71.4% of incidents. However, when two (2) or more members attend, the rate of deployment goes up to between 79.1 and 87.7%. So, if more than one member is present, the likelihood that the CEW will be deployed is increased."

"The command -Police stop or you will be hit with 50,000 volts of electricity! -is actually given prior to engagement in fewer than 40% of cases."

"RCMP training teaches that “excited delirium” is a medical emergency wherein gaining control of the individual for the purpose of treatment is paramount and where the CEW is viewed as the best option to gain that control."

Most importantly, the report also focuses on overall changes in police policy exacerbated by the use of CEWs (italics mine) :

"It is a harbinger of a new model of policing in Canada, one in which the police are a group distinct from the public and whose decisions are the preserve of public safety experts. It is a model in which officer safety takes precedence over that of the general public and where the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is significantly undervalued.
The cumulative effect of these trends over time may reduce the degree of co-operation of the public that is essential to public safety in Canada."

Yes. Stockwell Day, the man nominally responsible for public safety in Canada, has the reports. We'll see which one he goes with.

See also Cathie from Canada and A Creative Revolution.
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