Globe: Editorial - Where are the answers about Ian Bush's death?
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Where are the answers about Ian Bush's death? Globe and Mail, Tuesday May 9, 2006
If the death of Ian Bush in RCMP custody was horrifying, what is the word for the subsequent investigation -- conducted by the RCMP -- that has taken six months and has so far produced not a word for the public? Outrageous? Frightening?
Mr. Bush, who was 22, was holding an open beer outside a hockey arena in northern British Columbia on Oct. 29 when RCMP Constable Paul Koester, an officer for just five months, asked him for his name. Mr. Bush gave the name of a friend. Const. Koester drove Mr. Bush to a nearby police station, a scuffle broke out, and 20 minutes later Mr. Bush was dead from a bullet to the back of his head.
The death seems impossible to understand. Mr. Bush held a job, lived at home and was universally well-liked -- "according to everyone in town, the nicest kid you'd ever meet," The Globe's Gary Mason reported. Not only Mr. Bush's family but his entire community of Houston, halfway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, has a right to answers. Was it murder? Self-defence? An accidental discharge?
It is inconceivable that it should take more than six months to answer these questions and decide whether charges should be laid. "It takes long because it takes long," explained Staff Sergeant John Ward, the RCMP spokesman in Vancouver. Ever helpful, Staff Sgt. Ward had this to say about RCMP procedures: "The public doesn't have a right to know anything."
The RCMP is beginning to sound like a law unto itself. This is not the only glacial death probe in British Columbia. The RCMP took more than a year to investigate the Dec. 19, 2004, death of Kevin St. Arnaud, an unarmed robbery suspect shot by police in Vanderhoof; it was not until Feb. 23 of this year that the Crown announced no charges would be laid. (The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has initiated a complaint alleging that the RCMP acted improperly and caused Mr. St. Arnaud's death.) At the very least, the RCMP could have referred the Bush case to an out-of-province detachment.
But no one can tell it what to do. The B.C. government has no power to order an independent inquiry. And a spokesman for the RCMP complaints body, which is an independent federal agency, says it does not do criminal investigations. In cases of death or serious harm caused by municipal police forces in B.C., an independent police complaints commissioner monitors the investigations and has the right to order that they be referred to an outside agency. Not so for the RCMP.
Ian Bush's death was probed by the serious-crimes unit of the Prince George RCMP, which has sent its report for review to the New Westminster local police force -- a force that rushed to the microphones to defend itself last summer when it had its own high-profile police shooting. The unconscionable delay in the probe undermines the RCMP's legitimacy in local communities, and makes the public cynical about the impartiality of the investigation.
If the death of Ian Bush in RCMP custody was horrifying, what is the word for the subsequent investigation -- conducted by the RCMP -- that has taken six months and has so far produced not a word for the public? Outrageous? Frightening?
Mr. Bush, who was 22, was holding an open beer outside a hockey arena in northern British Columbia on Oct. 29 when RCMP Constable Paul Koester, an officer for just five months, asked him for his name. Mr. Bush gave the name of a friend. Const. Koester drove Mr. Bush to a nearby police station, a scuffle broke out, and 20 minutes later Mr. Bush was dead from a bullet to the back of his head.
The death seems impossible to understand. Mr. Bush held a job, lived at home and was universally well-liked -- "according to everyone in town, the nicest kid you'd ever meet," The Globe's Gary Mason reported. Not only Mr. Bush's family but his entire community of Houston, halfway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, has a right to answers. Was it murder? Self-defence? An accidental discharge?
It is inconceivable that it should take more than six months to answer these questions and decide whether charges should be laid. "It takes long because it takes long," explained Staff Sergeant John Ward, the RCMP spokesman in Vancouver. Ever helpful, Staff Sgt. Ward had this to say about RCMP procedures: "The public doesn't have a right to know anything."
The RCMP is beginning to sound like a law unto itself. This is not the only glacial death probe in British Columbia. The RCMP took more than a year to investigate the Dec. 19, 2004, death of Kevin St. Arnaud, an unarmed robbery suspect shot by police in Vanderhoof; it was not until Feb. 23 of this year that the Crown announced no charges would be laid. (The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has initiated a complaint alleging that the RCMP acted improperly and caused Mr. St. Arnaud's death.) At the very least, the RCMP could have referred the Bush case to an out-of-province detachment.
But no one can tell it what to do. The B.C. government has no power to order an independent inquiry. And a spokesman for the RCMP complaints body, which is an independent federal agency, says it does not do criminal investigations. In cases of death or serious harm caused by municipal police forces in B.C., an independent police complaints commissioner monitors the investigations and has the right to order that they be referred to an outside agency. Not so for the RCMP.
Ian Bush's death was probed by the serious-crimes unit of the Prince George RCMP, which has sent its report for review to the New Westminster local police force -- a force that rushed to the microphones to defend itself last summer when it had its own high-profile police shooting. The unconscionable delay in the probe undermines the RCMP's legitimacy in local communities, and makes the public cynical about the impartiality of the investigation.
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