RCMP shouldn’t investigate itself: top Mountie

VANCOUVER – Amid conflicting internal accounts, disappearing e-mails and disastrous publicity following the death of Robert Dziekanski, a top Mountie admitted at the Taser inquiry Tuesday that the RCMP shouldn’t investigate itself.

The inquiry is probing Dziekanski’s October 2007 death, after he was Tasered five times by four RCMP officers at the Vancouver International Airport.

RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout, who was the third Mountie to take the stand Tuesday, denied a key part of his superior officer’s evidence and then told commissioner Thomas Braidwood that, “We are not perceived by the public to be able to investigate ourselves.

“We’re not good at this, we shouldn’t be doing this,” said Rideout.

He said he thinks “it is time” for B.C. to consider an independent body to investigate the RCMP.

“While we’re competent and confident in our investigation, we recognize that’s not the perception.”

Outside the courtroom, RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields echoed Rideout’s assertion.

“He’s not the only one with that view,” he said.

Shields said that B.C.’s top Mountie, Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass, also supports outside investigation of RCMP-involved incidents.

“We believe our investigations are impartial and thorough, but we’re aware of the optics,” he said.

Rideout’s dramatic admission came after two of B.C.’s top three Mounties took the stand, with RCMP Chief Supt. Dick Bent saying that he stood by his Nov. 5, 2007 e-mail that derailed the conclusion of the Braidwood inquiry last June.

The e-mail contradicts the four officers’ testimony heard earlier this year.

Bent quietly repeated on the stand Tuesday that he was just recording in his e-mail what the four Mounties’ supervisor had told him, “that the members had discussed en route and decided that if he (Dziekanski) did not comply that they would go to CEW (conducted-energy weapon).”

The e-mail was addressed to Assistant Commissioner Al MacIntyre and sent on the eve of the release of bystander Paul Pritchard’s video, which showed Dziekanski being Tasered, restrained and eventually dying on the airport floor.

But Rideout, noting that he “respected” Bent as a “busy” senior officer, insisted his e-mail contained “wrong” information.

When Bent’s e-mail surfaced last June, Braidwood declared its omission “appalling” and adjourned the inquiry until Tuesday.

MacIntyre testified he didn’t get Bent’s e-mail due to problems with his new BlackBerry.

Commission counsel Art Vertlieb told the inquiry that over the summer, since the adjournment but long past the date the commission was supposed to conclude, the RCMP forwarded 18,000 documents to the commission.

Vertlieb praised the efforts of Canadian government lawyer Jan Brongers in obtaining and releasing the documents, after Bent’s e-mail went overlooked during the first round of hearings.

Government of Canada lawyer Helen Roberts, who tearfully presented the e-mail last June, is no longer on the case and has been replaced by senior justice lawyer Mitchell Taylor.