Ombudsman speaks with victims families

(Update)

A spate of deadly shootings by police over the last year has prompted Ontario’s Ombudsman to hit the road. Thursday Andre Marin was in Burlington meeting with a group of family members who’ve lost loved-ones to police bullets.

Marin is in the midst of an investigation, to determine whether the province needs to develop new “use of force” guidelines for police in Ontario.

Scot Urquhart spoke to both the Ombudsman, and a representative of families involved and has the latest developments.

Many of the family members who were at Thursday morning`s meeting were either too shaken, or too angry, to speak on camera. Among them Norm Dorr who learned just Wednesday that the Special Investigations Unit of the province has cleared two Hamilton police officers of all wrong-doing in the shooting death of Steve Mesic, his daughter`s common-law husband.

Inside this Burlington hotel, lies an ocean of grief. A group of families, who have lost their loved ones at the hands of police. Karyn Graham, whose son Trevor was shot and killed by Waterloo police in 2007. Norman Dorr, representing the family of Steve Mesic, shot by Hamilton police in June. And family members of Andreas Chinnery, killed by police bullets in February 2011 and Phonesay Chanthanchak, who was also shot and killed by police one year later, in February 2012. All of them gathered to talk to Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin:
“Is there not a better way to deal with these situations, than to lead to fatalities?”

Marin is preparing a report on police use-of-force, focussing on de-escalation, something that Karyn Greenwood-Graham says is lacking in current police training: “He explained to us what the investigation entails, that he’s investigating the de-escalation techniques that the police are not using, not utilizing. It’s not even in the use of force model.”

Greenwood-Graham says the concerns of the families here — are fixed on three main points:

A lack of trauma support for family members who have lost a loved one in a confrontation with police.

Inconsistent policing practices across the province in regard to the use of force, and options for de-escalation.

And, an almost unanimous belief, that the investigations of police shootings by the SIU are flawed, and completely inadequate.

Marin: “They’re not satisfied by the thoroughness of the SIU investigation and that, we’ve noted before, is a work in progress. Often the SIU investigators do not approach the family for fact-finding. They don’t approach all of the witnesses that could be, in an investigation.”

But perhaps the biggest concern for both the families, and the Ombudsman, is the seeming reluctance of the 53 police services in the Province; to get involved in the issue.

Marin: “The official position of the OCPA is that they will not participate, which I think is childish — just grabbing your ball and your blanky and just running home is not going to help.”

Greenwood-Graham: “If they’re not looking at it, they’re not doing their jobs. They’re not looking at alternatives. Because, everything changes in the world. Everything. And if the police are the last to want to look at change — they’re not part of the world.”

The Ombudsman says that he is still three to four months away from completing his report. But he already has submissions from more than 162 interested parties, and experts stretching from California, to Scotland. Before that, however, Karyn Greenwood-Graham says there`s another meeting, that she hopes scores of every day citizens will attend. That’s the next meeting of the Hamilton Police Services Board, at city hall, on October 16th, at 4pm. She says it`s imperative that ordinary citizens weigh in on the use of force by police before they too become victims of its sometimes deadly consequence.