The SIU (Special Investigations Unit) is a civilian law enforcement agency, independent of the police, that investigates circumstances involving police and civilians which have resulted in serious injury, including sexual assault, or death. Part VII of the Police Services Act in Ontario creates the SIU and defines its powers.
The SIU is independent of any police service. The Unit reports to the Attorney General, however the SIU's investigations and decisions are also independent of the government. The Director of the SIU is empowered under the Police Services Act with causing criminal charges to be laid against police officers where warranted on the basis of the evidence gathered during an investigation.
Although unique in model, Ontario's SIU is part of a worldwide movement on the part of governments aimed at enhancing mechanisms of police accountability. The SIU's motto: Independent Investigations, Community Confidence.
The SIU was created in 1990 after a series of police shootings of black civilians provoked community backlash and fear the incidents would be covered up by police-friendly investigations. In one case in 1988, a Peel Region officer shot and killed teenager Michael Wade Lawson as he drove a stolen car.
Supporters of the new agency, including the Toronto police chief of the day Bill McCormack, said the independent SIU would boost public confidence in police oversight. But community groups expressed concern that the unit, staffed by former police officers, would not be independent enough. Today, the SIU employs 54 full- and part-time investigators, 47 of whom are former police officers.
Unfortunately, the SIU has gradually been losing the respect by the general public it had hoped for. There have been suspicions for some time that the SIU has not been doing its job properly. The Toronto Star has done a series of investigations into the failure on the part of the SIU to conduct proper investigations and take the necessary action to punish police wrongdoers. It would appear that the SIU’s motto is a sham since it appears on the surface that its investigations are not independent and it certainly has lost community confidence.
The problem with organizations like this one which is supposed to investigate crimes and other wrongdoings by police officers is that the SIU’s investigators are former police officers who are suspected as being too cozy with the police forces they investigate. It’s like having foxes investigate other foxes who are suspected of raiding hen houses.
What follows are cases that in my opinion, the SIU bungled, either by design or by negligence.
A Toronto police officer inexplicably floored his gas pedal, sped into an illegal right turn and ran down a grandmother, severing her brain stem and killing her instantly.
An OPP constable wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a baton and pepper spray shot, used his gun instead and killed an intellectually challenged 59-year-old man holding a small pocket knife.
During a traffic stop near Canada's Wonderland, York Region officers roughed up a small, 50-year-old accountant, breaking his arm and leaving him on the roadside.
A Peel Region police officer sucker-punched a handcuffed prisoner and broke his jaw in two places.
Two teens chatting while lying on the grass in a public park were run over by a Durham Region squad car, suffering extensive injuries.
All of these officers were quickly cleared by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and all still work as police officers.
The Toronto Star investigated two decades of SIU cases. It found that police officers across the province are treated far differently than civilians when accused of shooting, beating and running over and killing people.
Ontario's criminal justice system heavily favours police and gives officers breaks at every turn — from the SIU, which hardly ever charges officers, to prosecutors, juries and judges. Where civilians causing similar damage are typically prosecuted, cops walk. Even in the rare instances when officers are charged and convicted, they almost always avoid jail time.
The Star also found police officers' lack of preparation, reckless and ill-advised tactics, and tendency to use excessive force led to civilian injuries and deaths.
The head of the SIU, Ian Scott, defended his agency in an interview with the Star but said, “Police officers get all kinds of breaks in the criminal justice system.” The Star found in many cases that the reckless actions of some police officers have tarnished the oft-stated mottos — “to serve and protect” or “leaders in community safety” — of police forces across the province. The Star found the SIU is hampered by a justice system that heavily favours police, and has not done its job holding officers to this standard.
In its 20-year history, the SIU has conducted at least 3,400 investigations and laid criminal charges after only 95 of them, according to a Star analysis. The SIU does not track what happens to those it charges. But the Star has, and found only 16 officers have been convicted of a crime. Only three have seen the inside of a jail as inmates.
The numbers should not surprise Scott. Four years before he took the helm in 2008, he said he had little faith in the agency's effectiveness given the constraints of the justice system.In a presentation he made to a lawyers' conference in 2004, Scott, who once worked as a prosecutor, noted that police officers accused of using excessive force stood a less than one-in-five chance of facing the same level of justice as civilians accused of similar crimes. He said in 2004,
“It is an ineffective use of state resources to investigate, charge and prosecute cases in which the high probability is acquittal,”
He proposed a second option — give the SIU the power to send some suspect officers to the Ontario Civilian Policing Commission, an independent oversight agency, where they could be fined or fired. He said a commission verdict would act as a “deterrent” to police misconduct. But Scott's call went unanswered. He said,
“While the SIU is far from perfect ... the alternative is to return to the police investigating the police, an option that has fallen into disfavour due to the conflict-of-interest issues.” But isn’t that what is already happening, ex-police officers investigating current police officers?
The Star, through police, court and civilian witness sources, built files on 700 SIU cases. In some cases, sources provided evidence collected during SIU investigations.
The Star found:
• The SIU missed or ignored crucial evidence in at least six cases.
• Officers are too quick to take aggressive action against civilians.
• A cozy relationship between police and prosecutors has allowed officers to avoid punishment.
• Police officers involved in an incident investigated by the SIU break a conduct rule by delaying writing their notes, and share the same lawyer, leaving victims worried officers are collaborating to get their story straight and prevent the SIU from learning the truth.
As a result, neither police nor victims believe the SIU can conduct the kind of independent, “rigorous” investigations it was set up for.
Some cases the Star reviewed involved innocent bystanders while others involved those with criminal records, histories of violence and a variety of backgrounds police often come into contact with in the course of their duties.
In my next article, I will go into some more detail about some of the specific cases the SIU bungled.
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