Missing persons review to call for ‘extensive’ police changes
Virtual town hall tonight will offer update on probe launched in wake of McArthur murders
A former Ontario judge is expected to make “extensive” recommendations for changes to how police conduct missing persons probes, after accessing never-before-seen police records and interviewing more than four dozen officers in the wake of the Bruce McArthur case.
Retired Court of Appeal justice Gloria Epstein is in the final stretch of her high-profile review of how Toronto police handle missing persons cases, a probe launched amid public outrage over the investigation into McArthur, who killed eight men from the city’s Gay Village between 2010 and 2017.
In an interview, Mark Sandler, lawyer for the Independent Civilian Review Into Missing Person Investigations, said Epstein’s “far-ranging” work has taken on even greater urgency after this year’s reckoning over policing — including the broader demands to remove officers from certain calls that involve social issues, such as those involving a mental health crisis.
Epstein will tackle “head on” the question of whether police always need to be involved in missing persons probes, which often have no connection to criminality, Sandler said.
“This is what the public discourse is all about now,” Sandler said.
“It’s not just about whether police investigate in a bias-free way, it’s also about whether or not police should be doing all the things that they are currently doing, in the areas that involve social issues.”
A virtual town hall on Wednesday is the final community outreach event before the report is released in January — on schedule, despite significant challenges presented by COVID-19.
Central to that report is a detailed accounting of police actions after the disappearances of McArthur’s victims — “what was done and what wasn’t done on these investigations,” Sandler said. This careful examination will “fuel” Epstein’s recommendations, which will be “extensive,” he said.
The review team’s unfettered access to internal police records and investigators means the report will contain new revelations about the McArthur case, despite heavy media coverage of the case, he said.
“We are going to explain what happened,” Sandler said. “I expect there is going to be quite a bit that will be new to the public.”
McArthur, 69, was convicted last year on eight counts of firstdegree murder in a killing spree that began nearly a decade before. The case has prompted fierce criticism of the Toronto police investigation into the disappearances of McArthur’s victims, five of whom were reported missing to Toronto police and a sixth to Peel Regional Police.
Investigators did not arrest McArthur during a 2012-14 probe dubbed Project Houston, which was struck after the disappearances of Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Majeed Kayhan, men now known to be McArthur’s first three victims. Investigators had linked McArthur to the men and brought him in for questioning, but he was not charged. After his release, McArthur went on to kill five more men.
Project Houston has been examined “in great detail,” Sandler said.
Most of McArthur’s victims were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent, and some were homeless, had a precarious immigration status in Canada or struggled with substance abuse. A key aspect of the review will be examining whether the missing persons investigations could have been “tainted by systemic bias or discrimination,” Epstein has said.
Since she began her work in 2018, the review team has conducted 235 interviews — including with 55 current and past Toronto officers — and consulted with LGBTQ and Indigenous community members and organizations representing refugees and people experiencing homelessness. When the pandemic struck in March, the review team had to make sudden changes to its operations, shifting interviews and panel discussions online; wherever possible Epstein has met people in person, especially for sensitive conversations including those with relatives and friends of McArthur’s victims.
Public consultation also included an anonymous online survey to get feedback on trust in Toronto police and missing persons investigations, completed by nearly a thousand people. Sandler said “there’s some important lessons” about public trust in policing to be drawn from survey results.
Epstein and her team are also examining other missing persons cases probed by police, including that of Alloura Wells, a 27-year-old transgender woman reported missing to police in 2017 and later found dead. Her family has alleged police said the case wasn’t a priority because she was homeless.
Sandler said the review team is examining the relationship between police and the trans community, as well as a “disconnect” between police and the provincial coroner’s office when it comes to connecting active missing persons cases to unidentified human remains.
“Some people have come forward to us, who have described searching for their loved one who had gone missing, only to learn that the bodies were held in the morgue,” he said. “We’ve got to take important measures to make sure that never happens.”
After McArthur’s arrest, Toronto police launched a dedicated missing persons unit, an initiative the review team is examining. Epstein has consulted with police services across Canada and internationally, from Vancouver to Scotland, to learn different approaches to missing persons probes.
Sandler said they’ve also reviewed “truckloads” of relevant past reports, including meeting with former British Columbia judge Wally Oppal — who authored a report on serial killer Robert Pickton — and examining the work of Ontario Justice Archie Campbell, who in 1996 found siloed policing in Ontario allowed serial rapist and killer Paul Bernado to go undetected.
Indeed, a “very significant part” of the report will be examining if there remain communication problems between police services, Sandler said. Epstein’s team has questioned officers from Peel region, where Faizi, McArthur’s second victim, was reported missing.
Attendees at Wednesday’s town hall will hear more about the review team’s work, and be invited to ask questions or make comments. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. on Zoom.