PRIMECorp’s defamation database
B.C. police use false info to smear people
in an operation run by Russell Sanderson,
a proven liar and disgraced ex-cop
Surveillance video shows an unconscious Frank Paul being dragged out of the
Vancouver police station to be dumped outdoors on Russell Sanderson’s orders.
After Paul died of hypothermia, Sanderson lied before an inquiry into the death.
But a Crown corporation closely linked to the Solicitor General’s department
now employs Sanderson to compile trivial, false and malicious information
that’s used to smear British Columbians.
Buddy Tavares was on his hands and knees, completely defenceless and fully complying with police orders. That’s when RCMP tough guy Geoff Mantler rushed up and delivered a hard, swift kick to the face. How did Mountie brass respond? By smearing the victim.
They told media Tavares was under investigation for beating his wife. She had to hold a press conference to denounce the allegation as a lie.
So where did the lie come from? Most likely the PRIME-BC database (Police Records Information Management Environment). It contains negative information about some 4,452,165 British Columbian adults.
One problem, though, is there are only about 3.8 million adults in the province, and that’s counting everyone over the age of 15.
Judging by the numbers, PRIMECorp likely has a file on all British Columbians. But what kind of file? Some are trivial — for example one person was smeared because, as a teenager many years ago, he was caught in a park with an open beer. Another was labelled “emotionally disturbed” because he protested a false arrest.
PRIMECorp employs zero checks or balances against inaccuracy, triviality or sheer malice. Apparently any cop can upload any info of any kind about any person for any reason.
Other cops then use this garbage to smear people who face encounters with the cops, or need reference checks for volunteer work, education and employment.
After the B.C. Civil Liberties Association brought the problem to light last March, Solicitor General Shirley Bond attributed the four and a half million names to multiple entries caused by misspelled names. With that as Bond’s sole response, there’s no sign that PRIMECorp intends to clean up its act.
What the media didn’t report, however, suggests that neither PRIMECorp nor the government could care less about accuracy, let alone ethics. The defamation database is run by one Russell Sanderson.
Sanderson is the disgraced former Vancouver police sergeant who ordered VPD Constable David Instant to drag an unconscious Frank Paul out of the Main Street lock-up and dump him outdoors on a rainy winter night. Instant did as Sanderson ordered. Consequently Paul died of hypothermia in a back alley.
His death eventually led to a formal inquiry conducted by William Davies. Here’s what Davies had to say about Sanderson’s honesty:
“The various explanations offered by Sgt. Russell Sanderson, responsible for the Jail on the evening of December 5, 1998, must be rejected in their entirety.”
In other words, Russell Sanderson is a liar. So who hired him and why?
PRIMECorp is a Crown corporation. One of its directors is Kevin Begg, a former RCMP officer and currently assistant deputy minister of the Policing and Community Safety Branch of the Solicitor General’s department.
A Crown corporation closely linked to the ministry responsible for policing actually hired a proven liar and disgraced ex-cop to store and release false information that smears British Columbians.
Obviously PRIME-BC isn’t going to get fixed. The defamation database is here to stay.
Nothing’s changed as lying ex-cop Russell Sanderson
and PRIME-BC continue to smear British Columbians
B.C.’s privacy commissioner expresses alarm over PRIMECorp’s usage creep.
Meanwhile a cop offers a totally false defence of the defamation database
A North Vancouver father takes the RCMP to court
after Mountie mudslingers refuse to stop smearing
his daughter on PRIME-BC
B.C. Crown corporation/cop defamation database PRIMECorp
smeared a Richmond volunteer because he reported a crime
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