Manitoba to form unit to probe police

WINNIPEG—Manitoba is promising to form an independent unit to review criminal allegations involving police and has asked the RCMP to take over the force in a small community outside Winnipeg.
The moves announced yesterday follow a damning inquiry report into a car crash caused by an off-duty constable that killed a mother of three.

The report into Crystal Taman’s death also recommends there be a further outside review into the conduct of a former police chief and officer involved in the crash investigation.
The recommendations were welcomed by Taman’s family.
“Anybody who sat through that inquiry knows that it was black and white,” said her husband, Robert Taman. “There were no shades of grey—there was negligence, there was incompetence.”
Winnipeg constable Derek Harvey-Zenk was charged in February, 2005 after he smashed into Taman’s car at a red light. The crash initially was investigated by the East St. Paul police.
Attorney General Dave Chomiak pledged the province will implement all of the report’s 14 recommendations, which include having the Mounties immediately take over management at East St. Paul and turn it into an RCMP detachment by the end of the year.
The inquiry examined the investigation and prosecution of Harvey-Zenk, who has since resigned. It heard that he had spent the night drinking with other officers when he drove his truck into the rear of Taman’s small convertible and that he didn’t even try to stop.
He originally was charged with impaired driving causing death, refusing a breathalyzer, and other offences. But most of the charges were stayed and he was sentenced to two years of house arrest after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing death.
The sentence and plea bargain outraged the public, prompting the province to call the inquiry.
Chomiak said RCMP in British Columbia will investigate further the conduct of former East St. Paul police chief Harry Bakema and one-time officer Ken Graham.
In his report, inquiry commissioner Roger Salhany said the fact Harvey-Zenk was a police officer affected the way the East St. Paul police handled the case.
He also noted Harvey-Zenk once served under Bakema, and suggested the former chief gave “untrustworthy and inconsistent testimony” about whether he knew the accused and if he suspected that he had been drinking.
“The evidence . . . showed the East St. Paul Police Service investigation to be riddled with incompetence,” wrote Salhany, a retired Ontario Superior Court judge.
“Sadly, in the case of Chief Harry Bakema, Cst. Ken Graham, and Cst. Jason Woychuk, aspects of the investigation were also conducted in bad faith.