Mother continues to call for investigation into son’s death
The death of a Cape Breton teen after a prom party earlier this month continues to reverberate throughout the community, with the dead boy’s mother calling for the province’s Serious Incident Response Team to launch a full review of the Cape Breton Regional Police’s actions that night.
Jenn Hanna believes the driver of the vehicle that struck and killed her son should have been given the breathalyzer for alcohol impairment.
For their part, police earlier released a statement that said they had no grounds to ask the driver for a breath sample, as he showed none of the signs of impairment that would have given them the legal right to do so.
SiRT director Felix Cacchione says investigations concerning police misconduct do not fall under
SiRT’s jurisdiction.
Chief Peter McIsaac of the
Cape Breton Regional Police contacted Cacchione, requesting the arm’s-length body conduct a review of its investigation into the death of Joneil Hanna, who was struck and killed by a vehicle in Leitches Creek during the early morning hours of June 10.
The 17-year-old teen was struck about a kilometre away from a prom party which was attended by Hanna and the driver of the vehicle.
McIsaac has not made himself available to the Chronicle Herald, other than an email statement saying he has full confidence in his officers.
According to Mayor Cecil Clarke of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, the chief wanted the investigation to prove the police conducted the investigation appropriately.
Clarke, acknowledging growing public concern, said he supports an independent SiRT investigation for that reason. But he said he has confidence the police department will produce a comprehensive investigation.
Clarke also said a public report with details of the investigation will be made available but offered no timeline.
“We deal with the actions of the police which result in serious injury,” said Cacchione. “We do not deal with conduct or misconduct. … It does not fit our mandate.”
Cacchione said matters of police misconduct fall under the mandate of the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner.
The commissioner’s office will investigate only if a member of the public files a complaint first.
As of June 22, no complaint regarding this incident had been filed with the comissioner’s office or the Cape Breton Regional Police.
Jenn Hanna has launched a petition asking that SiRT review the Cape Breton Regional Police investigation and so far has compiled about 300 signatures.
She says she will submit the petition to Justice Minister Mark Furey, who has the power under the Police Act to initiate an investigation.
“I want to know all the ways this investigation went wrong before I make a formal complaint,” said Hanna.
SiRT’s mandate is defined under the Police Act: “A chief officer shall notify the Director as soon as practicable if the chief officer (a) has reason to believe that an incident may have occurred in which the actions of a police officer may have resulted in the death, serious injury or sexual assault of any person,” reads part of the act dealing with SiRT’s mandate.
Wayne MacKay, a law professor at Dalhousie University, says a case could be made that SiRT could investigate Cape Breton Regional Police.
MacKay also says an independent investigation ought to happen in an effort to restore people’s trust in the police department. “The broad language as quoted sounds like you could argue that this might fall within the jurisdiction of SiRT,” said MacKay.
“It does not fit the kind of normal profile of the SiRT case where it’s usually an officer uses unreasonable force or has injured or shot a suspect — that’s normally what it’s been dealing with from what I’ve seen. But it doesn’t mean on this kind of broader language that it might not extend to this kind of a situation.
“I would think that one of the general purposes of SiRT is to maintain the confidence and credibility of the police force. It would appear that maybe this is getting to a point where that’s now becoming in question, so anything short of an independent investigation of that may not satisfy lots of people that what happened here was all appropriate.”
The justice minister has said all along that he has complete confidence in the Cape Breton Regional Police and has no plans of ordering an independent review into the department’s investigation of Hanna’s death. Furey said on Wednesday he expects the department’s investigation to wrap up soon, but also offered no timeline.
“That investigation has to complete itself,” said Furey. “I’m of the understanding they are very close to concluding that investigation.”