Mounties shouldn’t (always) investigate themselves

A new report, into the RCMP’s mechanisms to investigate allegations of misbehaviour by its staff, recommends the police force limit its own role in the investigations. Paul Kennedy, head of the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, says the Mounties should increase civilian involvement in investigations involving death, assault causing bodily harm and sexual assault. In fact, in cases where someone died, Kennedy says RCMP members shouldn’t be involved at all and instead refer the matter to an external or provincial police body. The report, two years in the making, looked at whether the RCMP had behaved appropriately in investigating its own members in 28 separate cases. Although Kennedy lauded the Mounties’ good intentions going into the investigations, he noted they had acted either partially or entirely inappropriately in 68 per cent of them.

Montreal Gazette