Bruce M. Brown personifies
the corruption of B.C.’s
police oversight process

The deputy police complaint commissioner
is a brazen but well-paid liar who answers to no one

As unaccountable as the cops
he covers up for, Bruce Brown enjoys
a comfortable — and profitable —
position with B.C.’s OPCC.

Bruce M. Brown is B.C.’s deputy police complaint commissioner and was an RCMP officer for 32 years. His job is to review police investigations into other officers accused of misconduct. In doing so, Brown has proved himself to be a liar and a corrupt public official who makes his living covering up for police misconduct.

In dealing with my complaint against three Vancouver officers, Brown went out of his way to rationalize contradictory statements made against me, ignored evidence in my favour, made claims based solely on assertion, refused to act on a violation of the Privacy Act and then praised the Vancouver cops who exonerated their colleagues.

All that shows Brown uses a variety of dishonest strategies to support police misconduct. But I think a particularly obvious example of Brown’s lack of integrity showed in his interpretation of Section 494 of the Criminal Code.

Brown insisted, as did Vancouver police, that it gives private security guards the right to handcuff, detain (and by implication, assault) people on a public street when the security guards can explain their actions only with vague and wildly contradictory allegations.

Brown’s interpretation of straightforward legislation is so far off that he can’t be mistaken. He’s lying.

His dishonest approach to my complaint was so obvious that I think it must be typical of how he reviews other complaints. The OPCC’s handling of a VPD assault on a handicapped woman further suggests Brown’s dishonesty is routine.

Brown gets away with this because he answers to no one. B.C.’s police complaint commissioner is a statutory officer (an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly) and therefore doesn’t answer to the province’s Ombudsperson or anyone else. In practice that immunity also applies to his deputy and the rest of his staff. There are sound reasons for granting immunity to some of B.C.’s statutory officers. But Brown’s lack of integrity makes him unfit for such a position. He personifies all that’s wrong with B.C.’s police complaints process — a dishonest ex-cop who rubber-stamps dishonest police investigations into other police.

There’s good money in it too. Brown most likely draws a fat cop pension in addition to his generous sinecure with the OPCC. Would an honest person qualify for that remunerative position?

Update: Liar Bruce M. Brown has retired, only to be replaced
by an equally disreputable character, corrupt ex-cop Rollie Woods
Read more about the Stan Lowe/Bruce Brown/Rollie Woods/OPCC cover-up
of VPD constable Taylor Robinson’s assault on a disabled woman
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