From: Greg Klein
gklein79@hotmail.com
December 3, 2013

To: The Law Society of British Columbia
professionalconduct@lsbc.org

 

A complaint to the Law Society of British Columbia
against Stanley Thomas Lowe: Introduction

 

I’m writing to make a formal complaint that Stanley Thomas Lowe, a British Columbia lawyer and former Crown attorney who is currently B.C. police complaint commissioner, is unfit to practise law. While heading B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, Lowe has engaged in unlawful and deceitful practices to cover up or otherwise excuse police misconduct, including breaches of the Police Act and offences under the Criminal Code.

As a lawyer, Lowe brings the legal profession into disrepute. Should he retain his professional standing it’s highly possible that, following his term as police complaint commissioner, he will get important government legal appointments or resume work as a Crown attorney. His background of colluding with police in deceitful and unlawful practices makes him especially unsuitable for such positions.

 

Summary of the case involving
VPD constable Taylor Robinson

 

Among the evidence of Lowe’s deceitful practices is his collusion with the Vancouver Police Department in covering up the case of VPD constable Taylor Robinson, who shoved a disabled woman named Sandy Davidsen to the ground for no apparent reason. Lowe’s own statements, in his Notice of Public Hearing dated November 12, 2013, unintentionally reveal his part in the cover-up.

Lowe knew and approved of Vancouver police actions to keep Robinson’s actions secret, evade public disclosure, evade a criminal investigation, evade a Police Act investigation and evade any repercussions to Robinson.

Therefore none of those things happened until after media learned about the incident, more than six weeks after the fact and not from Lowe’s OPCC or the VPD.

Indeed media accounts reported that Robinson continued walking a beat in the same poverty-stricken neighbourhood where he could encounter his victim again. He wasn’t transferred until after the publicity.

By colluding in the Vancouver police scheme to keep Robinson’s actions secret, Lowe also kept secret Police Act violations by unnamed officers of Vancouver Police Professional Standards. They knew about Robinson’s actions and covered them up by not ordering a criminal investigation, as duty requires, and not informing the OPCC, as the Police Act requires.

Additionally Lowe does not explain his decision to accept the Vancouver police exoneration of two constables identified only as Thiara and Hill. They were present when Robinson shoved Davidsen to the ground but they did not check the victim’s condition or provide help, as their duty requires. Robinson faces Police Act discipline for those reasons, in addition to Police Act discipline for shoving Davidsen.

It’s important to clarify the chronology of events because there was a significant delay before Lowe’s OPCC learned about the incident, according to Lowe’s account. But Lowe’s OPCC did find out well before the media and the public. Still, no Police Act or criminal investigation took place until after the media found out and publicized the story for several days starting July 22, 2010.

According to Lowe’s Notice of Public Hearing, the incident took place on June 9 2010. The OPCC learned of it—from the victim, not the police—on June 28, 2010. A Police Act investigation was ordered on or after July 27, 2010.

Those are the dates Lowe gives in his Notice of Public Hearing. What Lowe doesn’t acknowledge is that the Police Act investigation wasn’t ordered until the media blitz that started July 22. The VPD cover-up lasted over six weeks, more than half of that time with Lowe’s collusion. The cover-up ended with media publicity, which took place despite the efforts of Lowe and the Vancouver police.

The publicity forced Lowe to do something, so Robinson was investigated. But Lowe let Thiara and Hill get away with neglect of duty for failing to check the victim’s condition or provide assistance. Lowe let VPD Professional Standards officers get away with failing to inform the OPCC, as required by the Police Act.

 

Information from Lowe’s Notice of Public Hearing
regarding Taylor Robinson

 

In paragraph 3 Lowe states that Vancouver police officers learned about the incident and watched the surveillance video several hours after it took place. On June 11, Lowe states, Professional Standards officers interviewed Davidsen.

In paragraph 5 Lowe states that VPD undertook only what they called an “informal investigation” that was neither a Police Act nor a criminal investigation. Lowe acknowledges that VPD Professional Standards did not inform his office of the incident and that their excuse “is lacking merit.” Lowe does not acknowledge that the VPD Professional Standards officers committed a very serious breach of the Police Act. Lowe was duty-bound to order an investigation into the way those officers handled the case.

In paragraph 6 Lowe states the conduct of the VPD Professional Standards officers is “concerning.” Again, Lowe doesn’t mention their very serious breach of the Police Act and his duty to order an investigation into them.

In paragraph 6 Lowe states that his office received a complaint from Davidsen on June 28, 19 days after she was shoved to the ground.

In paragraph 7 Lowe states an investigation was called following consultation between VPD chief Jim Chu and the OPCC on July 27. Lowe doesn’t acknowledge that the July 27 “consultation” occurred 29 days after his office learned about Robinson’s actions.

Lowe does not explain, let alone acknowledge, his failure to act during that 29-day period. Moreover, Lowe does not acknowledge that several days of intensive media coverage began July 22. Throughout later passages in his Notice of Public Hearing Lowe states several reasons for delays in the progress of the Police Act proceedings, once they had begun. But Lowe provides absolutely no explanation for his failure to order a Police Act investigation into Robinson until after the media publicity.

Until then Lowe was colluding in a Vancouver police cover-up. A cover-up continues in the conduct of unnamed Vancouver Police Professional Standards officers, who face only mild criticism from Lowe despite very serious breaches of the Police Act and possibly criminal offences.

 

The case of Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Singh Dosanjh

 

Lowe also helped New Westminster Police and Port Moody Police keep secret the case of New Westminster constable Sukhwinder “Vinnie” Singh Dosanjh. Lowe also approved of treatment so favourable that Dosanjh might be considered to have benefited from his several highly disturbing actions. What information is publicly available came to light in a February 10, 2012, story by New Westminster’s Royal City Record. Lowe’s OPCC has not publicly revealed any information about this case.

According to the Royal City Record, New Westminster police suspended Dosanjh on July 28, 2008, pending a criminal investigation into allegations of off-duty offences including assaulting a woman and being unlawfully in the Port Moody home of another New Westminster police officer.

The Royal City Record stated:

“After several court appearances, Crown counsel dropped the original criminal charges against Dosanjh and the judge issued him a common law peace bond - a rarely used power a judge has to order someone who has not been found guilty of a crime to abide by court-ordered conditions. In this case, Dosanjh was ordered to report to a probation officer, have no contact with the woman he was accused of assaulting and possess no weapons, except through his work on the force.

“The peace bond expired in November 2011, but a parallel investigation into Dosanjh’s conduct as a police officer has been underway since shortly after the original incident. Once the Police Act investigation started, the investigator found other incidents of misconduct, according to a report from the police complaint commissioner, including Dosanjh possessing a police firearm while off-duty and without permission; doing an unauthorized search of his own vehicle's licence on the police record system, failing to notify the police about a change of address; and losing a knife that had been seized as evidence.”

The Royal City Record reporter obtained this information by directly asking New Westminster Police. Lowe’s OPCC has publicly divulged nothing. There had previously been three days of news stories about Dosanjh beginning November 3, 2008, that also occurred despite efforts by the OPCC (then led by another lawyer, Dirk Ryneveld) to keep the case secret.

Interestingly, Lowe’s OPCC deleted its online archive of news releases on or about February 18, 2012. On February 17, 2012, the Royal City Record printed a letter I wrote criticizing Lowe’s OPCC, including its secrecy. By deleting the archive, Lowe’s OPCC has made it harder to scrutinize the agency.

The Dosanjh case is particularly disturbing. A police officer apparently admitted to very serious charges but escaped prosecution. A number of criminal and Police Act breaches are mentioned. A judge was so concerned that he took extremely unusual precautions—he ordered Dosanjh to undergo psychological treatment and, despite the fact that Dosanjh escaped a criminal conviction, the judge ordered him to see a probation officer. The judge also ordered Dosanjh to have no contact with the woman he was accused of assaulting, possibly a New Westminster police officer herself.

With Lowe’s approval, Dosanjh’s only penalty was a temporary (15-month) reduction in rank to second-class constable, a minor inconvenience following Dosanjh’s suspension, which amounted to a nearly four-year vacation on full pay.

Lowe kept the case secret and approved of exceptionally lenient treatment despite the fact that Dosanjh admitted to highly disturbing actions that evidently alarmed a criminal court judge.

 

Additional information about Lowe and his OPCC

 

Since early spring 2010 B.C.’s Police Act has required “contemporaneous oversight,” in which Lowe’s OPCC is required to monitor Police Act investigations while they are taking place. That makes it all the more obvious that Lowe took part in the Vancouver police cover-up of Robinson’s actions and knew how Port Moody and New Westminster police were handling the Dosanjh case.

Media accounts report that at some time prior to the July 22, 2010, publicity, Davidsen received some sort of written apology, supposedly by Robinson. The letter wasn’t even signed. The letter stated that Robinson thought Davidsen was trying to grab his gun. The excuse is identical to that used by two other Vancouver police officers in the violent arrest of Ali Eltah Ishag in the same neighbourhood just one week earlier.

In paragraph 1 of his Notice of Hearing Lowe accepts, without substantiation, Robinson’s claim that he warned Davidsen, “Don’t touch a police officer’s gun.”

Deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods is a retired Vancouver police officer who led VPD Professional Standards. Lowe hired and promoted him.

It might be noted parenthetically that Lowe easily gets away with his deceitful, unlawful practices because he faces no outside scrutiny. The only pretence of scrutiny that Lowe’s OPCC has ever faced was from a cynical process involving the auditor general and a legislative committee that ended last March. The auditor general issued a vague press release praising the OPCC without divulging how he conducted his audit or came to his conclusions. He did state: “Excluded from the scope of the audit was providing an opinion about the validity of investigation decisions.”

Another part of that inquiry was a committee of seven MLAs. They met only with police interests and flatly refused to consider the written submissions that they received from the public.

Nor does Lowe answer to the provincial Ombudsperson or anyone else.

 

Conclusion

 

While these discreditable actions took place while Lowe was police complaint commissioner the Law Society can, as your website states, “also review the conduct of a lawyer outside the practice of law if the conduct reflects badly on the legal profession.” Moreover Lowe’s dishonest, disreputable practices can continue to harm the course of justice, especially if he gets other government appointments or resumes work as a Crown attorney.

Greg Klein

The establishment strikes back:
With arrogance matching her dishonesty,
Law Society liar Beverly Gallagher ignores evidence
against B.C.’s disgraceful police complaint commissioner
Read more about the Stan Lowe/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.