Corrupt cop oversight agency
to oversee investigations
into cop corruption
Even if they wanted to, could Stan Lowe and his crew
handle the Abbotsford allegations competently?
Feb. 19, 2015
Making excuses for cops and covering up for cops is easy
when you can work in near secrecy and with zero accountability.
But is Stan Lowe capable of more rigorous work?
Put aside the matter of their own corruption. Are Stan Lowe and his Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner competent to review what are likely to be fairly complicated investigations into corruption allegations against 17 Abbotsford cops?
Lowe might have been reasonably intelligent at one time. But he’s spent many years getting away with extremely subjective decisions, when he’s not taking part in outright cover-ups. His rationale for the YVR death squad—that the five Taser blasts and other brutal treatment leading to Robert Dziekanski’s death were “reasonable and necessary”—wasn’t just opportunistic. It was offensively stupid.
Lowe continued with comparable decisions, not just subjective but downright dumb. Take, for example, the case of Vancouver constable Lee Chipperfield, who killed Paul Boyd by repeatedly shooting him as Boyd crawled across the road on his hands and knees. Lowe hired a self-proclaimed “police psychologist” named Bill Lewinski to supposedly explain what happened. Lowe knew in advance that Lewinski always sides with police. Lowe then concluded that Lewinski’s bought-and-paid-for story “reasonably explained” why Chipperfield kept shooting the crawling man until he died.
Judgements like that don’t require intelligence. But they’re probably typical of Lowe’s work—again, when the cover-up king’s not helping police conduct cover-ups.
There’s no getting around it—deputy police complaint commissioner
Rollie Woods is dumb as well as dishonest. But he has the two main
qualifications for his job. He’s an ex-cop and a liar.
Nor is there any sign of real intelligence among Lowe’s staff. Undoubtedly deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods is not just a liar but an absolute dolt. His record with Vancouver Police Professional Standards and the OPCC demonstrates that.
The work of OPCC investigative analyst Andrea Spindler and former deputy police complaint commissioner Bruce M. Brown betrays similar problems. They’re dumb as well as dishonest. They’ve gotten away with it because they work in near-secrecy. And because they answer to no one—absolutely no one at all.
Back to Abbotsford, maybe Lowe’s just grandstanding on a case that’s had considerable publicity since May 2013, when Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich accused constable Christopher Nicholson of corrupt practices that risked other officers’ lives. But, in the extremely unlikely event that Lowe and his crew want to conduct competent reviews of these investigations, are they capable of doing so?
Read more about the Stan Lowe/Bruce Brown/Rollie Woods/OPCC cover-up
of VPD constable Taylor Robinson’s assault on a disabled woman
Read more about B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner
Read more news and comment about police accountability in B.C.