City constable pleads guilty to discreditable conduct
Former 911 employee testifies about workplace humiliation, name-calling
A former 911 dispatcher claims an Edmonton city police constable repeatedly humiliated her in the workplace to the point she dreaded going to work each day, a professional standards branch hearing was told Monday.
Romaine Fleck-Brezinski testified at the police disciplinary hearing that Const. Fiona Moffat would routinely refer to her as “the b--ch” and even called her “the c---” to other co-workers in the communications branch.
“I was completely shocked. I was very upset. I had no idea why she was referring to me in these horrific terms,” she told the hearing.
The workplace relationship started well enough when Moffat joined Squad B in late 2013, Fleck-Brezinski said, but within six months it began to sour.
Fleck-Brezinski said she was repeatedly ignored by Moffat and a group of three other sworn officers when she approached them to ask specific work-related questions.
“It was terrible. It was humiliating,” she said.
Under cross-examination, Moffat’s legal representative Pat Nugent disputed those claims, saying officers ignoring direct questions would be considered in neglect of duty, something the chain of command would have addressed. In another instance, Fleck-Brezinski said she came to Moffat with a 911 hang-up call, only to rebuffed and ignored. A non-sworn member took the information instead, she said.
Fleck-Brezinski also pointed to several other incidents she deemed humiliating, including when the group of four officers refused to eat breakfast she had prepared before a Sunday shift — in what she described as a department tradition — instead having a McDonald’s breakfast delivered to them by another officer.
Moffat was facing one charge of insubordination, one charge of discreditable conduct and 11 counts of deceit under the Police Act.
As the hearing began, Nugent pleaded guilty on Moffat’s behalf to the count of discreditable conduct in relation to “derogatory” language used when speaking with others in the workplace about Fleck-Brezinski.
Nugent also pleaded guilty to two counts of deceit, admitting that two responses in her explanatory report on Feb. 9, 2016, were “overly curt” and were “foolish” and “inappropriate.”
Speaking for his client, Nugent said it was a case of workplace interactions gone wrong and that Moffat could have conducted herself differently. He said his client simply didn’t want to have a social relationship with Fleck-Brezinski.
Nugent pointed to the force’s harassment policy, which suggests a person feeling harassed should speak directly with the offending party to try to resolve the issue.
Fleck-Brezinski never spoke to Moffat about her alleged behaviour before filing the complaint that sparked the professional standards investigation. FleckBrezinski left the Edmonton Police Service in late 2016. Moffat is set to give evidence Tuesday.