Ex-senior Calgary officer grilled over not investigating officers

A decision to refrain from initially investigating two officers, later charged in the arrest of a Hells Angels member, was defended Monday by a former Calgary Police Service deputy chief.

Trevor Daroux told the start of an inquiry — held by the Law Enforcement Review Board — that his decision to commit Const. Brant Derrick and Sgt. Les Kaminski for counselling, rather than an investigation that could lead to criminal charges, wasn’t the result of favouritism within the force.

When asked by lawyer Tom Engel if there exists a “code of silence” within the Calgary Police Service (CPS) in dealing with possible transgressions by officers, Daroux said such a culture probably exists in many police forces.

“It had no bearing on this incident,” added Daroux. “These are not decisions that are made lightly.”

When Engel, who’s with the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association, asked Daroux if he thought “these officers might have gotten together and cooked up their story,” the former deputy said it’s something they’d consider but stood by his decision.

The inquiry was launched after it took the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) eight years to charge the officers with assault and perjury linked to the Aug. 31, 2008 traffic stop arrest of Hells Angel Jason Arkinstall during a downtown traffic stop.

A video shot anonymously from a nearby hotel shows one of the officers slapping Arkinstall in the head as he’s pushed into a police vehicle after he pushed back at police.

And in the outlaw biker’s trial for uttering a threat to kill a police officer during the incident, it was heard he was struck twice with a police baton.

Following the trial which acquitted Arkinstall, provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk said he found the officers not credible or reliable in their testimony, when compared with the video.

But despite concerns expressed by a CPS lawyer that Semenuk “could have been more a lot more blunt” in his assessment, Daroux said he believed after a one-year administrative review, that counselling for the officers on how to take better notes for testimony purposes was sufficient.

“Would a service investigation provide me with information I didn’t already have? I didn’t believe it would,” said Daroux.

Daroux admitted he hadn’t read the transcript of Arkinstall’s trial nor had he spoken with Derrick or Kaminski, the latter who is now the president of the Calgary Police Association.

He relied on a colleague in charge with the CPS’s professional standards section to supply him with some of the information, said Daroux, who added he had seen the incident video.

“The officers’ conduct fell short of a criminal act,” said Daroux, adding by that time in 2012, Arkinstall hadn’t lodged a complaint against police.

Charges against Derrick and Kaminski were either dropped or the men acquitted.

Then-Insp. Catherine Light of the CPS’s Professional Standards section confirmed the review, done by the force, never acquired notes from either Kaminski or Derrick nor interviewed them.

When asked if she felt counselling was enough for the two officers given concerns expressed by a Crown prosecutor and Semenuk, Light deferred to decision-makers Daroux and then-chief Rick Hanson.

“In regards to the direction I received, yes,” she said.

The public inquiry can’t fix blame but it can make recommendations, which would be presented to Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley by August.

The five-day inquiry continues Tuesday.