Senior RCMP officers had warned about Constable Kevin Gregson. The veteran Mountie showed no remorse for a May 2006 knife-wielding incident in Regina, they noted. He did not seek counselling to address his frightening, criminal behaviour.
It “would only be a matter of time” before he reoffended, the three senior officers cautioned, in a July 2008 RCMP adjudication board decision. The 21-page internal disciplinary report obtained by the National Post lays bare Const. Gregson’s behaviour and problems leading up to this week’s tragedy.
Const. Gregson is accused of killing Ottawa Police Const. Ireneusz “Eric” Czapnik with a knife, as the on-duty officer sat in his police cruiser outside a local hospital. Const. Gregson appeared in an Ottawa courtroom on Wednesday to face a first-degree murder charge.
His status as an RCMP officer, albeit one suspended without pay, demonstrates again the difficulty the RCMP seems to have with removing unfit personnel from its ranks.
In May 2006, Const. Gregson was a deeply troubled Mountie assigned to administrative duties in Regina. With eight years on the force, he was unhappy with the new desk job, and he showed it. He felt those with whom he worked were “beneath him,” according to the adjudication board decision.
There were other stress factors: a failed marriage, health issues. A month earlier, Const. Gregson collapsed and was rushed to a Regina hospital, where he underwent emergency brain surgery to relieve a medical condition known as hydrocephalus – or water on the brain – described as secondary to multiple cysts around his brain stem. He “left the hospital against medical advice,” according to evidence presented to the adjudication board. “The circumstances of Constable Gregson’s departure, against doctor’s orders, were apparently such that hospital staff called the police,” reads the adjudication board decision.
Several weeks later he walked into a Mormon church and threatened to kill a Church bishop with a knife unless his “Temple Recommend” was reinstated. According to the adjudication board decision, his entry to the Church’s inner sanctuary had been revoked because of what the bishop described as a sexual relationship outside of his marriage.
The bishop said he told Const. Gregson to repent. “I’m not like the rest of you people,” Const. Gregson responded, according to the bishop. “Do you expect me to cry or something, because I’m not going to cry.”
Const. Gregson pulled out a knife and placed it on the bishop’s desk. He told the bishop that “he had received Special Forces combat training, reserved for an exclusive few, on how to kill people.”
The bishop “feared for his life,” says the adjudication board report. “I either talk him down or I die,” the bishop said he recalled thinking. He talked him down. Later, the bishop called the police.
Const. Gregson would plead guilty in Saskatchewan provincial court to one count of uttering threats. Three additional charges were stayed by the Crown, and Const. Gregson, now 43, was granted a conditional discharge.
The incident led to his suspension from duty in September 2006 and to discipline proceedings before the RCMP adjudication board, an internal disciplinary tribunal. Its decision was rendered in July 2008.
Const. Gregson is described in the 21-page decision as an “average to below average” police officer who was once decorated for bravery but whose job performance had gone downhill quickly since 2003. One Mountie who presented evidence to the adjudication board says the record demonstrates Const. Gregson “to be a spoiled, arrogant child who is only concerned with his own goals; he cannot handle being told “˜no’ and when this happens he loses his temper.” He received informal discipline for a prior matter that the adjudication board did not describe in any detail.
Apparently, the prior matter led to an absence from work, and then to “reintegration” in March 2006, under an RCMP “gradual return to work” program. Things did not go well with his co-workers, and Const. Gregson suffered from his medical condition; symptoms included confusion, headaches, nausea, vomiting, memory loss and disorientation. He continued to show symptoms after his emergency surgery and as late as July 2006, according to evidence presented to the adjudication board. He was given a clean bill of health in October 2006.
At Const. Gregson’s two-day adjudication board hearing, his lawyer argued against dismissal. On the day that he threatened to kill the Mormon bishop, Const. Gregson “was frustrated [and] he wanted to get closer to God in order to deal with the pressures that he was facing in his life.”
The lawyer also said that Const. Gregson had taken responsibility for his actions. He asked the board to dock his client two to four days’ pay.
The adjudication board tribunal was unmoved. Const. Gregson had not offered an apology to the bishop, it noted, adding that “he shows no remorse and he has not addressed the problems underlying his behaviour nor sought the appropriate treatment to deal with them … This board has serious misgivings about Constable Gregson’s rehabilitative potential. Given Constable Gregson’s tendency to do or say whatever he wants with no regard to the consequences, the Board feels that the recurrence of a serious incident would only be a matter of time.”
National Post
bhutchinson@nationalpost.com
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