NATALIE CLANCY AND GARY SYMONS

Excessive force

What happens when people in a small town are afraid of their own police force?

Excessive Force is a two-part CBC Television/Radio investigation that was broadcast in British Columbia on the supperhour news program Canada Now on October 16th and 17th 2001, and on CBC radio in BC.

It started with a tip to the CBC that a rogue police force was beating up young adults without good reason. Kelowna CBC radio reporter Gary Symons started working the phone. The rumors checked out. In all, he found details of several incidents of possible use of “excessive force” by RCMP Officers.

The CBC decided to pursue the story as a joint TV and radio investigation with CBC-TV. Television reporter Natalie Clancy joined forces with Symons and hit the road for Sicamous, British Columbia.

The most compelling story they found involved a teenager who was beaten by a drunk, off-duty officer for parking on his street. But there was more. An 18-year-old girl had the skin ripped off her backside when a junior officer dragged her one block on pavement. Another young man had his tooth knocked out while police knocked him to the ground without provocation at a party for teenagers.

In the end, there were more then 12 cases where police actions were questionable. Most cases occurred when police responded to rowdy teenage parties, not lifethreatening or violent crime.

We gathered court documents, medical records and photos. We tracked down witnesses, including those with no connection to the victim or the police. We doublechecked every statement to insure those arrested weren’t exaggerating their complaints.

This was crucial. Some of the people we were dealing with had long criminal records and may have warranted an aggressive police response. But experts and lawyers who we asked to examine the cases said for example that under no circumstances should an officer drag an 18-year-old girl who refused to cooperate down a block of pavement.

The most difficult part of the story was putting a police force under surveillance. We followed officers and filmed them out on the open. We were not permitted to film surreptitiously. We were pulled over for forgetting our headlights at one point and they took us to the station. They knew we were putting them under scrutiny.

The two officers most directly involved in our complaints refused to speak with us. So after speaking to many eyewitnesses and experts, we were convinced unprofessional conduct was consistently tolerated by the RCMP and a large part of the population was indeed afraid of the force that was supposed to protect them.

People in the town complained the officers acted with impunity, and were never held accountable.

In a phone conversation, a senior RCMP officials told us the complainants were “rats” and were just a group of teenage troublemakers conspiring to make them look bad. But many of the alleged victims didn’t know each other and one of the boys was a straight-A student with no criminal record.

It was clear that the police and Crown were unwilling to act on complaints or discipline officers even though there were dozens of witnesses to each incident.

Our sources said they were either told that there was no point to complain or that the commanding officer had examined their concerns and determined the officer in question acted appropriately. But when we confronted the commanding officer with the photographs of the injuries his officers caused, he agreed they were “worth investigating.”

As a result of our investigation one of the officers was charged with assault causing bodily harm three weeks after we made the story public, on November 8th 2001. Constable Alex Clarke is still awaiting trial. In the meantime, he continues to report to work.

RCMP officials say they are still investigating the other allegations raised in our report but that does not appear to be the case.

“Excessive Force” also won the RTNDA Dan MacArthur award for excellence in Investigative Journalism in both the radio and TV categories at BC’s regional convention in May 2002.

Natalie Clancy is a reporter with CBC Television in Vancouver. Gary Symons is a reporter with CBC Radio in Kelowna.