Alberta’s police watchdog is taking on a complex case outside its own jurisdiction — even though an existing high workload means it can take four years or more to wrap up investigations in its own province.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is the independent body responsible for investigating police and RCMP interactions that result in serious or fatal injuries, as well as allegations of serious misconduct.
For years, it’s been working through a massive backlog of Alberta case files — but now, ASIRT is taking on a complex investigation in British Columbia.
The case ASIRT has agreed to investigate dates back nearly two decades, and involves allegations of historical misconduct involving members of the Prince George RCMP and Indigenous girls.
In 2004, B.C. judge David Ramsey pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Indigenous girls and some of them also made allegations of criminal behaviour by RCMP officers — but no Mounties were ever charged.
Recently though, former RCMP officers have been speaking out about the case.
That caught the attention of B.C.’s Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, who asked ASIRT to lead a new investigation into the allegations — even though B.C. has its own police oversight body called the Independent Investigations Office (IIO).
In a statement, ASIRT’s acting executive director, Matthew Block, wrote: “ASIRT is fully aware of the seriousness of these historical allegations and the necessity to provide answers to the public, and specifically the indigenous community, that has been impacted by these allegations.”
“ASIRT will be doing a comprehensive review of the investigative materials and then will determine our next investigative steps. Until we have reviewed all the materials a timeline for our investigation can not be provided, but we are mindful that an investigation needs to be both thorough and also timely.”
This comes as ASIRT continues to grapple with a big pile of Alberta cases.
Last week, the watchdog concluded its investigation into an RCMP shooting that dated back to 2018.
Late last year, ASIRT also released the findings of its investigation into a controversial Boxing Day 2018 shooting in southeast Edmonton where police bullets ended up inside innocent people’s bedrooms — including that of a three-year-old child.
Edmonton’s chief of police, Dale McFee, said in a statement: “Certain investigations greatly benefit from being able to reach across organizational boundaries to ensure independence and legitimacy, and all police agencies should be willing to participate when required, as is required in this important case. So to this end, we have no concerns.”
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“As part of assisting another agency, ASIRT must also ensure it is able to meet, and improve on, its own investigative priorities to ensure timely administration of justice.”
Temitope Oriola is a professor of criminology at the University of Alberta, who was also a special advisor to the Alberta government when it undertook a review of the Police Act.
“It is a vote of confidence in it. So it shows that it is very well respected in the field, not just here in Alberta, but outside the province,” he said of ASIRT’s call into B.C.
But he noted the optics are not great for the general public.
“For Albertans in general, I think it’s one of those head-scratching moments. Why Alberta cases are taking four or more years and we’re taking on additional workload?”
The B.C. government has offered to provide funding to ASIRT to ensure it can bring on additional investigative resources, Block added.
“These additional resources will ensure that this investigation is given immediate attention, while also ensuring that our organization can continue to serve Albertans and attend to our open investigations in Alberta,” Block said.
But Oriola said that proves more can be done to address the backlog in ASIRT’s existing Alberta caseload.
“It also shows somewhat ironically, that the backlog that we’re currently seeing here in the province is superficial and that, in fact, we can expedite the resolution of these cases if we were serious about doing so.“
Oriola said it’s important for public confidence, for officer’s mental health, and for any involved civilians and their loved ones to have timely resolutions on these files.
“The most egregious, the most serious cases should not take longer than one year,” he explained — adding less complex cases should be resolved within three months.
“That is the standard globally amongst many of our peer countries, our who have some of the best outcomes in terms of the level of use of force.”
Alberta’s police watchdog has been closing more cases in the last year or so, after being given more resources and investigators to catch up.
The budget was increased from $3.9 million in 2021-22 to $5.3 million in 2022-23.
In 2021, ASIRT concluded 26 files.
In 2022, that number jumped significantly to 51 cases.
Already in 2023, 13 cases have been concluded — setting ASIRT on pace to wrap up another 52 files by the end of the year.
“We have seen considerable improvements in timelines and hope that these continue,” McFee said.
Global News reached out to Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis. His senior press secretary, Dylan Topal, issued the following statement:
“Alberta’s government is providing assistance through ASIRT to help find much needed answers to these very troubling allegations. This will not impact the important work ASIRT is doing as the BC government is providing funding to ASIRT to ensure that ASIRT can bring on additional investigative resources.”
— With files from Simon Little, CKNW
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