Cops increasingly reluctant to name murder victims
VICTORIA — It has been five days since a man died following a police shooting at the Departure Bay ferry terminal in Nanaimo.
We know from the RCMP that the victim was a suspect in a carjacking in Penticton and a shooting in Vernon, and that officers tried to arrest him as he drove off the ferry on Tuesday morning.
But, beyond that, we know very little about the man. We don’t know his name, age, where he’s from or how he lived his life.
That’s because the RCMP, B.C. Coroners Service and the Independent Investigations Office, that probes fatal interactions, with police have all declined to identify the man. In that, he’s not alone.
The RCMP also has yet to name a 35-year-old man killed in a homicide on Hillside Avenue in Victoria in March, although the victim’s
friends and family have identified him as Joe Gauthier, a father of four.
It’s an increasingly common, if inconsistent, practice across B.C. and other jurisdictions in Canada, in which agencies tasked with
investigating violent deaths have, in some cases, stopped releasing victims’ names.
Legal experts say it’s a trend that prevents Canadians from scrutinizing the criminal-justice system and the people who operate within it.
Law-enforcement agencies and others argue that they’re simply obeying privacy laws and respecting grieving families.
In a statement, RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said the RCMP is bound by the Privacy Act and can’t release a victim’s name unless the information is already publicly available, such as when someone has been charged; when information is required to further an investigation; or when public interest clearly outweighs any invasion of privacy, for example, if the public is at risk.
The Edmonton Police Service has taken a similar approach, choosing in some cases to withhold a victim’s name, arguing that releasing it “does not serve an investigative purpose and the (service) has a duty to protect the privacy rights of the victims and their families.”
Steven Penney, law professor at the University of Alberta, said it’s a “troubling” practice that departs from Canada’s long-standing tradition of having an open, transparent and accountable criminal justice system.
“As far as I know, that tradition has always included releasing the names of those who have been accused of serious crimes and those who have potentially been victimized by those crimes,” he said.
Penney said there are specific laws that prevent identifying certain people, such as young offenders or victims of sexual violence.
“But I think it’s a very different matter when you have individual police agencies making these kinds of decisions on a case-by-case basis without disclosing their reasoning or rationale and without having any degree of consistency in application across jurisdictions,” he said.