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Cop charged for allegedly racist meme as Ottawa police force probes media leaks
Chief of the Ottawa Police Service Peter Sloly. Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia An Ottawa police officer faces misconduct charges following the creation and distribution of a racist meme, Chief Peter Sloly announced in a lengthy open letter Monday, which also addressed criticisms of police after a weekend of unrest south of the border.
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Police services across Canada and the United States are grappling with public trust after the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who died after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. That officer has since been fired and faces murder and manslaughter charges.
“The local and international events of the last two months have shaken me as a police professional and as a person — from the still unfolding impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, to the tragic events in Minneapolis, to the latest series of internal and public trust issues affecting the Ottawa Police Service,” Sloly’s letter said.
“In these times we need to remain inspired to do our best and help every person and every community in Ottawa,” Sloly said.
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Indeed, Ottawa’s top cop acknowledged the particularly turbulent time for the local force, which has been racked with public misconduct allegations against members, from constables all the way up to a deputy chief. The allegations include creating memes of fellow officers; sexual harassment; ties to the criminal underworld; taking money from tow truck operators; and video-taping vulnerable women and mocking them.
“We need to be clear-eyed about the current state of affairs and remain fully committed to leading the organization through this tough and troubling period,” wrote Sloly.
He addressed various conduct allegations against officers, saying there are a number of “active and ongoing Professional Standards Section investigations and legal proceedings into the conduct of our members.”
The investigation into a meme depicting some racialized officers is “now fully concluded,” Sloly said. “We have laid Police Services Act charges against one member relating to the creation and distribution of one of the memes.”
The meme, which was created and began circulating in late April, shows a composite photo of 13 current or former officers, the majority of whom are racialized. The words “Ottawa Police Service” appears above the photograph, with “We’re always hiring … anyone” appearing below.
Twelve of the 13 people shown in the meme have either been accused or convicted of some form of misconduct, although the meme doesn’t note this.
This newspaper has previously reported that a drug unit officer, Const. James Ramsay, was suspended in that investigation. Sloly nor the service has publicly named him.
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While Sloly had previously called the meme “an overt act of racism,” that language was absent from his update Monday on the status of the investigation.
“We can rarely if ever determine the true intent of a person’s acts but we can see the impacts of those acts,” he wrote.
Sloly said that “regardless of intent of the people involved in these acts, I will not fail to act to do the right things to assess, address and redress them while also doing all I can to protect all OPS members and all community members from those who seek to do harm to them.”
He said, though, that there were “additional issues” that came from the investigation that needed to be resolved.
The chief alleged “there was a significant leak of highly confidential and sensitive information from this investigation to the media” and that it “further victimized the people depicted in the memes along with their families and … additional OPS members and their families.
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“It further damaged the OPS reputation and it further undermined the trust and confidence that the public has in the OPS.”
He called the leaking unethical.
Sloly has launched “a full (professional standards section) administrative investigation into leaks occurring in the OPS.”
In addition, the force is looking at how its culture allowed for the creation and distribution of the meme that officers forwarded along.
That means looking at policies, trainings, and best practices, which Sloly said was “insufficient to prevent and manage this.”
He said that now the service is “overhauling related policies … addressing IT issues and every member of the OPS … will participate in a service-wide training and awareness initiative that will be completed in the next 12 months.”
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These efforts are to begin immediately and “help the service to better understand and address the intersectionality issues affecting racialized and other minority members in our workplace.”
Sloly’s letter also addressed the service’s commitment to preventing and reducing sexual harassment in its ranks.
Officers, the association and police-watchers have criticized both the service and board’s handling of sexual harassment allegations made against Deputy Chief Uday Jaswal.
“There is no tolerance for workplace sexual violence and harassment in the OPS,” Sloly said. “We need to do everything possible to prevent such incidents from occurring while also increasing member confidence in reporting such incidents, reducing fear of reprisals and achieving better resolution outcomes.”
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The service and board launched a joint project to address sexual harassment. Sloly’s letter notes that the project began the week of March 16. That was five days before Jaswal was suspended by the board. The project was publicly revealed in May.
Sloly reiterated that the service will not tolerate any forms of harassment in the force.
“No member should be targeted and/or marginalized because of the race, gender, religion or any of the prohibited grounds.”
Sloly has often used the language of “fixing our house.” He said doing so will make our “family members healthy and safe (and) has been and will continue to be my number one priority.”
He called on officers to be aware of how efforts to undermine the work of the police and each other can happen in the workplace, “whether they be carried out as micro aggressions, bullying, mobbing, reprisals along with a variety of mean-spirited memes, unethical media leaks and all other related acts of omission and commission.”
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Sloly said “these are all examples of painful acts that negatively impact our members as well as the public’s trust in our service.”
Sloly said what’s happening in Minneapolis and across America is “impacting communities and police services in Canada and right here in Ottawa.
“It is impacting members of our local black community including our own black members. It is impacting communities across the spectrum and it is impacting every member of the OPS in some way. It has impacted me deeply as well.”
Those events “have opened still raw wounds here.”
Speaking out against what happened, Sloly said “new information and insights come in every day (but) there were so many things that could have been done which would have allowed Mr. George Floyd to still be alive today.”
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He said he joins “other police, justice and community leaders to express sorrow for the Floyd family for their loss” and that he joins “the chorus of those calling for immediate action” and change.
He also said that he recognizes that the city has “its own examples of racially charged flash points between the police and community.” He committed to doing what he can to improve those relationships.
He said there would be dialogue with groups and communities and then action.
“We can do this but only if we do it together.”
Twitter: @shaaminiwhy
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Sons of murdered Portapique couple say trauma stays with family members
Brothers Cory and
Harry Bond, whose parents were killed in Portapique on the night of
April 18, 2020, attend the Mass Casualty Commission public inquiry at
the Halifax Trade Centre on Monday, March 7, 2022.
“RCMP, they know what they are signing up for when they become officers,” said Bond, seated Monday at a table with his brother Cory at the Mass Casualty Commission public inquiry in Halifax.
“They have people there, professionals to talk to,” Bond said. “In these trauma situations, what about the families. They (police) get to go home at the end of the day, there is one officer who unfortunately didn’t get to go home, but the rest of them go home to their loved ones. Family members don’t. Family members never see (loved ones) again.”
The loved ones that the Bond brothers don’t get to see are their parents, Peter and Joy Bond, two of the 22 people killed in the murderous rampage on April 18 and 19, 2020.
Peter Bond, 74, a retired truck driver, and Joy Bond, 70, a homemaker and a former cook, raised their sons in Chester but moved to the seaside Colchester County community of Portapique 15 years ago into the home at 46 Cobequid Court where they intended to spend their retirement years.
The Bonds were shot and killed by Gabriel Wortman, a Dartmouth denturist, some time between 10:05 p.m. and 10:20 p.m., according to a timeline provided by the commission in the foundational document about Portapique.
Peter Bond was shot at the doorway entrance to their home and Joy Bond was killed in the living room, the commission revealed, tragically two of the 13 people killed in Portapique before the gunman fled the community by way of a little used blueberry field road.
After killing nine more people the next day, the gunman was shot and killed by police at the Enfield Big Stop in the late morning of April 19.
“Those witnesses need to come in,” Harry Bond said of the RCMP officers who first responded to Portapique and their commanding officers.
“I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about the trauma for this person, the RCMP, and don’t want to traumatize the families of the victims anymore,” Bond said.
Any time the families are misled, “that’s trauma,” he said. “Why not tell the truth right from the beginning.”
Without first responders and others providing sworn testimony, the inquiry is no more than a review, Bond said, “what they wanted to give us in the first place,” before families of the victims insisted on a public inquiry.
The public inquiry heard from lawyers Monday arguing why and why not specific police members and others, including a 911 call-taker, should have to testify in person, a continuation of arguments that began last week.
Nasha Nijhawan, the lawyer for the National Police Federation union that represents RCMP officers with a rank of staff sergeant or lower, said participants, including families, are free to suggest areas for which the commission should conduct further exploration in order to supplement foundational documents.
“That is not, however, the test for whether police should be subpoenaed,” Nijhawan said.
Nijhawan said the NPF agrees that it is very possible that further information from officers might be appropriate.
“That does not at this time justify a subpoena as being necessary, under oath,” she said.
Sandra McCulloch, a lawyer at Patterson Law, which is representing the families of 14 victims, emphasized the importance of “creating a fulsome, factual record,” by hearing directly from 18 police officers requested to give sworn, live testimony, including those officers in supervisory roles who weren’t on the ground in the communities affected.
“By not creating a fulsome, factual record, it’s also worth considering, whether it’s the commanding officers or other first responders, by not giving them an opportunity to answer questions … may also be trauma-inducing as well,” McCulloch said.
Lori Ward, a lawyer for the federal Justice Department that oversees the RCMP, joined Nijhawan in arguing that it was premature to call the witnesses the families want to testify, saying the appearances of such witnesses, if necessary, would better coincide with foundational documents to be presented later in the proceedings.
Ward also took issue with a comment from McCulloch.
“Ms. McCulloch characterized those in supervisory positions as not first responders,” Ward said.
“Some of these guys and some of these women with 20 and 25 and 30 years experience saw 22 people killed that day, including one of their own, experienced trauma just as any other Nova Scotian, probably moreso,” Ward said.
“Those RCMP members in supervisory roles and the other RCMP members want to assist this commission and provide the information that you need,” she said.
“We’re surrounded by trauma and there needs to be a balancing of trauma and how those traumas are balanced is a tall order and that’s why you’re sitting up there,” Ward said to commissioners Michael MacDonald, Leanne Fitch and Kim Stanton.
Harry Bond described his parents as “the most kind, loving people you could ever meet.”
“They’d help anybody,” he said. “Dad … was old school, that’s just the way they grew up. I said it before and I’ll say it to the day I die, if it wasn’t for mom and dad, and the way dad was, me and my brother wouldn’t be the men we are. Mom will always be remembered for her kindness, her beautiful smile and her one-of-a-kind laugh.
“I miss them, I miss them like crazy.”
Cory Bond said it’s very seldom that someone loses two parents at the same time.
“The hardest thing about trauma, try laying two parents at once to rest,” he said.
“We’re still trying to find out answers.”
The answers the Bond brothers want concerns the time frame of when their parents were killed and why they weren’t discovered until 4:47 p.m., the following day, more than 18 hours after they were killed, even though the front door of their house was wide open.
“Let’s consider the trauma on the family if the commission is not able to fulfil its mandate and we don’t hear witnesses, we don’t hear police witnesses,” said lawyer Joshua Bryson, who is representing the Bonds.
“Yes the police did suffer some trauma, but they have specific training to address court testimony, they are trained to be witnesses.”
Bryson said had the killer survived, each of these RCMP members would have had to testify in 22 homicide trials.
“I am quite certain that no one would be suggesting that those trials couldn’t go ahead because the members could not testify. They would stand up and fulfil their obligation to testify in a court of law.”
Bryson said the families have lots of questions surrounding timelines and containment and “we need to test the evidence, we have no testing of these statements.”
MacDonald, the commission chairman, said the commissioners will pore over all the submissions about who should testify, and “make our decision and respond as quickly as possible.”
He wouldn’t say if that decision would come as early as Wednesday when the commission reconvenes for the presentation of a foundational document covering what the killer did overnight in Debert before continuing his rampage and killing nine more people.
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