Judge likens police officers to Sgt. Shultz of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’

A judge has admonished several Niagara police officers in a recent ruling, saying their claim they had no idea what the others were doing during a violent takedown of a suspected impaired driver “simply beggars belief.”

“When a police officer, or any other person, steps into the witness box, they have just one job to do … tell the truth,” Judge Fergus Odonnell wrote in a judgment handed down Friday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines. “Period. Full stop, end of.” Odonnell found David Quirk, 33, guilty of obstruction of justice and driving with an excessive alcohol level despite his “significant misgivings” about the evidence of several of Niagara Regional Police officers.

The officers testified at trial they were focused on their own actions during the takedown, and did not know what their fellow officers were doing.

Four officers restrained the offender, court heard, one at the man’s feet and the others on either side of his torso.

Odonnell said the officers were “as close, or closer, to each other than one would be to a dinner companion across a two-person table.”

Being selective about what one records and narrates later in court is an “abrogation of the witness’s role,” he said.

“It is an assault on the truth,” he added.

“Anything less (than complete honesty) is inconsistent with both their oath as witnesses and the oath they took upon becoming police officers.

“Does it reflect a blind loyalty to their fellow officers, ahead of their duty to the public and their own honour and integrity? Does it reflect a failure in training on the part of police leadership to inculcate and retain officers’ unswerving fealty to public service? Who knows?”

Quirk was arrested after two police officers observed a BMW moving at a high rate of speed in downtown St. Catharines.

The St. Catharines man initially stopped the vehicle for police, but then drove off, resulting in a brief pursuit.

He was later confronted in a strip mall parking lot.

One officer employed a “takedown” manoeuvre and Quirk ended up on his back.

He refused to comply with police demands that he show his hands so he could be handcuffed and was struck multiple times before being handcuffed and carried to a police cruiser by the four officers.

Quirk was later taken to hospital after he complained of injuries.

A blood test determined he had more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system.

In his ruling, Odonnell compared the involved officers to Sgt. Shultz, a character from the 1960s television show “Hogan’s Heroes.”

The sitcom was set in a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War.

Sgt. Schultz was clumsy and inept and never reported allied prisoners to his superiors for fear of being punished or sent to fight at the Russian front.

“Whenever something went awry in the prisoner of war camp, Sgt. Shultz would intone forcefully, ‘I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing,’ or some variation thereupon,” the judge said.

“Coming from the mouth of actor John Banner, those words came to be very amusing. Coming from the mouths of witnesses in a courtroom, not so much.”

The judge said the fact the officers testified they had no clue what the others were doing when they were “kissing distance apart” simply “beggars belief.”

“When it came to what any other officer did during the arrest of Mr. Quirk, they were all Sgt. Shultz. But, Sgt. Shultz was funny. This is not.”

Selectively editing testimony, he added, only serves to undermine the police service’s relationship with the community “upon whose trust the police are dependent.”

“The public, who pay for the police, are entitled to expect better.”

Odonnell suggested the issues that arose during the trial could be avoided in the future through technology currently available to law enforcement, specifically body cameras.

Such cameras have been adopted by a number police services across Ontario, but not Niagara.

“Clearly, the decision to implement such technology is ultimately a matter between the police services board, who may consider it optional,” the judge said.

“Ensuring that your officers testify honestly and completely, however, is not optional.

“It should, to the contrary, be one of the highest concerns of every police commander and every police services board member.”

Quirk is expected to return to court in September for sentencing.