GC and I dropped into my local community centre on Thursday evening for Meet the Chief night.
But there was no sign of Police Chief Vern White.
“Where’s the Chief?” I asked my city councilor, Maria McRae, who organized the event.
She explained that the Chief couldn’t make it, but he’d sent his Inspector in his place. Perhaps I’d like to meet the Inspector?
Well, you know, I’m sure the Inspector’s an interesting person too, and under other circumstances I’d love to meet him, but this event was actually called Meet the Chief night and I had my heart set on meeting the Chief.
There wasn’t much reason to stick around, since the Chief wasn’t there and I didn’t feel like meeting the Inspector or the bylaw officers or anybody else who was there promoting safety in the community. I asked various official looking types what was on the agenda for the 2-hour meeting, but nobody seemed to know. Judging from the information booths, it looked like there wouldn’t be anything controversial or meaty going on, so we left.
It turned out the Chief really did have more important things to do than go to a Meet the Chief night. We found out the next day that he had been meeting with the taxi drivers, who were understandably upset about that off-duty racist thug.
That story made my blood run cold. If it happened the way the victim and the witnesses say it happened, Ottawa’s police force has some serious problems that require serious fixing.
This off-duty thug beat someone up while hurling racist insults, and then flaunted his authority and his badge, confident that he was above the law because he was a cop. And the responding officers treated him like a cop, not like a criminal, when he showed them his ID.
This suggests there’s a systemic problem in the force, and one that will not be easily remedied. The longer it’s permitted to go on, the harder it will be to eradicate, because it becomes entrenched as part of the force’s culture. Corruption is contagious.
Every time a cop gets caught abusing his power and doing something illegal or disturbing, the force closes in protectively around its own. We’re encouraged to think of it as an isolated incident rather than a systemic problem. We hear that a thorough investigation will be carried out, and we should be patient because a thorough investigation takes months, but we’re assured that justice will prevail in the end.
I don’t buy it anymore. I think they take months just to give public outrage enough time to die down and fizzle out. ‘Thorough’ investigations often end up going nowhere. If it comes down to one person’s word against another, the benefit of the doubt goes to the cop. Witnesses, understandably, aren’t comfortable coming forward against cops. Cops aren’t comfortable coming forward against other cops. So unless a case is absolutely rock-solid against a cop, and there are plenty of credible witnesses, bad cops seem to get away with atrocious and illegal behaviour. (And sometimes even with a rock-solid case and credible witnesses and even video evidence, cops get away with committing unspeakable acts. Remember Rodney King?)
The Chief’s got his work cut out for him. I don’t think this is just about damage control, or optics, or the force’s image. I suspect it runs much deeper than that.
Um, I think I’m lucky not to live in Ottawa. And I know I’m lucky not to drive a cab. It’s the shits.
I think you’re onto something that most citizens never catch on to. I worked in a Nice Upstanding Police Department as a dispatcher for seven years and I can’t count how many scandals were glossed over — aired if necessary for a moment, counting on the next scandal in the next city to take the limelight off the department. The scandals involved racism, sexism, prostitution, bribery, alcohol abuse, and drugs.
Cops break laws, and other cops cover them up. There are good cops, yes, men and women who believe in morality and helping little old ladies across the street, but they have a constant battle to fight to remain unbroken by their friends who have already decided some people deserve help, and some don’t. It’s hard, and I’ve watched people lose their core sense of truth and justice in front of my eyes.
It almost broke me, and I went to dispatch at a fire agency, which put me back together again. Firefighters can be blessed annoying, but they only want to help.
I think it’s true that some people walk a fine line: they’ll either turn into criminals or cops. You don’t need anything more than a high school education, just a drive to run toward trouble, whether that’s beneficial to society or not.
(Out of 105 cops at my old agency, I would say that no more than 20 were considered honorable. I hate that. And our agency was admired by neighboring cities.)
I will step off my soapbox now. xo
I live in Ottawa and love it. I know every barrel has it’s bad apples. I do expect the utmost from any police officer just as I do from a priest as yet another example. Look at the scandels and cover ups in that community. Having said that and with communication so open and widespread, the bad apples are being weeded out and identified. Unfortunately no job or person comes with a label ‘perfect’, ‘honest’ much less with a job application that requires that to be ticked off. How many times in our family/friends have we come together to cover up something? We are human and we have to find that path that allows respect for all. Off my soapbox now. But I do agree with Zoom, the Chief has his hands full in that it does run deeper!
Kat, I think you’re missing the point here. Police officers are the only ones allowed to use force against the population. That puts them into a special category where the oversight of their actions MUST be more transparent than it is now. The Ottawa police does have problem of systemic abuse of power. Everything from intimidation, use of evidence for personal gain, assault, the list goes on.
This started under that dill hole Vince Bevan and Vern White seems to just look the other way for fear of damaging the forces reputation and image.
I found that story disgusting too. I’m pretty pessimistic about a timely and just investigation or outcome, given the allegations and the people involved. Like you said, there are very deep and systemic problems involved.
I’m not very helpful today, sorry. 😉
Goodness knows I have empathy for cops. Most of of them deal with human beings when they’re not in their ‘best’ behaviour mode – breaking laws, lying, being irresponsible and much worse.
However, they must be held to the same standards, if not higher.
BTW zoom, your vote link to ProgBlogs seems to be wonky.
Rachael, I’m not so sure about firefighters, actually. It also self-selects for a kind of guy who usually has an OD of testoterone. We had the misfortune of living next to a pair of them for a while, and they were very aggresive, and felt themselves above the law (they had wild parties frequently, broken down back fences and went tromping around others backyards, tried to attack my mother once because she’d asked them politely to take the music levels down one night where it was well after midnight, and she had a small child who wasn’t able to sleep (she luckily made inside our house before they were able to do anything, but needless to say she was terrified, especially since those parties often involved cops as well!)
The police have become the bad guys. I never trusted them and never will. How can we trust such a corrupt system? The police has become legalized mafia.
A lack of justice and lack of security. What a shitty country we live in!
police crime and racism, although frequently seen in each other’s company, are separate issues – cops killed the westboro black man who was shot dead holding a guitar, but they didn’t stab the 19 yr. old muslim killed shortly after 9-11 – they’re just grunts in the war against the poor (not against poverty-that’s profitable!); the little school-girl with the swaztika reminds us whose interests they really represent: do we love our natives, welcome our non-caucasian neighbours, ponder our greedy investments that will starve billions, demand that our troops return?
If anyone wants to know how the Jews felt during WWII all they have to do is move to Ottawa. The police force is so racist that it’s not even funny. I really think that they should walk around with a swastika on their arms because that’s what they really are, a bunch of Nazi douchebags.
If you can find one government agency that isn’t corrupt, who are they, they deserve a pat on the back. In BC we have the RCMP. It’s hard to tell the RCMP, from the criminal. The RCMP credo used to be death before dishonor. The RCMP today, have taken a once honorable profession, they have dirtied and befouled the RCMP force beyond redemption. They are a disgrace to this country.
I am a black man who drove cabs in Ottawa for five years and I have come across cops quite often. I agree that Ottawa police is incredibly corrupt and racist.
I have picked up drunken cops at night and have seen their actions during the day, and it is scary. There appears to be a systemic problem that the city either prefers not to address or look the other way – what does that say about the mayor, city councel, etc? The Ottawa police behave like hooligans and seem to lack proper training. I have lost all respect for Ottawa police and tend to stay very far away from them to avoid abuse. The force makes the notion of “policing” rather comical with their abrasive nature and racism.
They also tend to be more concerned with giving away tickets. I think they have to meet a quota each month. It’s depression that our taxes pay for the abuse of the citizens of the city, particularly the poor, as disproportionate numbers of them come from middle class and/or affluent background.
Rachael wrote: “…Out of 105 cops at my old agency, I would say that no more than 20 were considered honorable…”
Yeah, that sounds about right.
To quote myself in another article’s post:
“Over the years, I’ve casually spoken with many (from walks of life across the board) about police, and I’ve yet to find anyone who has sincerely said that they have a reasonable level of confidence in them, or like them or the idea of them, or that this world would be less safe without them– things to those effects.
It is quite the consensus to get about any profession, never mind one that’s supposed to count for safety, peace and protection, etc..”
Regarding the cop’s homeowner-tax comment or whatever, and something about homelessness/renters/low-income:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft
Besides, if money does not really equal labour or land/resources, then much of their acquisition, via money, is invalid.