CITY POLICE CHIEF OVERRULES RCMP ON ABUSE CLAIMS

10 Complaints Against Officers 'Substantiated'

The RCMP found 10 of 56 claims of abuse made against Vancouver police
officers were all or in part substantiated.

Last week, Vancouver police Chief Jamie Graham said none of the claims
were substantiated.

Graham, the police department's discipline authority, simply overruled
the RCMP's "substantiated" rulings.

The Pivot Legal Society initiated the $1-million RCMP investigation by
collecting affidavits and giving them to the Office of the Police
Complaints Commissioner.

Graham maintains that the society used slick tactics to draw media
attention to their complaints, leading

to the investigation into alleged police misconduct between May 2001
and May 2003.

"Both the RCMP and the Vancouver police investigators concluded there
was not a single case of criminal activity by a Vancouver police
officer, not one," Graham said last week.

"I find it very disturbing that this protest group purposely chose to
make these far-fetched accusations with little or no evidence to
substantiate them."

An examination of a Pivot-VPD spreadsheet on the police department's
website shows the RCMP found 10 of the complaints were substantiated,
in full or in part, including an allegation of assault and another of
abuse of authority.

In one case, the RCMP ruled there was a "questionable search and
detention" after a complainant was suspected of selling drugs to teens
at the corner of Hastings and Boundary.

In another, four of eight complaints within one affidavit regarding
the treatment of a man who was caught urinating in the 1600-block E.
Hastings Street were substantiated.

Other complaints substantiated by RCMP included a case where a man
claimed he was denied medical help following his arrest in a stolen
car and a claim a person was kicked in the shin by a VPD officer.

Another case was deemed substantiated and an abuse of authority after
a landed immigrant claimed officers cut his shoelaces and belt.

One complaint regarding the treatment of squatters at the Woodward's
squat was substantiated and referred to the Vancouver Police Board for
investigation.

In each of the cases, Graham reviewed the RCMP ruling and reversed it
in favour of his officers.

Graham, in a letter last week to Police Complaints Commissioner Dirk
Ryneveld, criticized the Mounties' handling of the investigation,
including their decision to set up office outside Vancouver and their
reluctance to work with the Vancouver Police Union.

Vancouver police have been under fire for misconduct
before.

Last year, six officers pleaded guilty to assault in the January 2003
beating of three drug dealers they had driven to Stanley Park.

Pivot will make a statement today regarding Graham's findings.