Calgary police officer charged with criminal harassment

A Calgary police officer was charged with criminal harassment on Wednesday.

Jacqueline MacNeil was arrested and charged with criminal harassment by the RCMP. Police say MacNeil, who has been with the Calgary Police Service for 16 years, is not currently on active duty.

Since the incident is being investigated by the RCMP, no further information can be released by the CPS.

An officer with the same name was also charged with criminal harassment in 2019. CPS has not confirmed nor denied whether it is the same person.

In 2019, an officer with the name Jacqueline MacNeil was charged with unwanted communication and criminal harassment after an internal investigation alleged she threatened to ruin a victim’s reputation both professionally and personally, between April 2018 and November 2018. The victim, who was not named in the 2019 CPS press release, reported the incident to the police and an investigative report was sent to the Edmonton Crown Prosecutor.

The charges were stayed in court early last year because of lost evidence. However, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rodney Jerke ruled in March that MacNeil was either “negligent” or “strategic” in not pursuing video evidence at the center of the charges.

“It is reasonable to find that the respondent (MacNeil) was negligent in pursuing disclosure, or to infer that she made a strategic choice to not pursue it until she knew it would be lost,” Jerke wrote in the decision.

The judge sent the case back to trial.