‘Blatant errors’ by police

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Oppal listed “blatant errors,” including:

Society — including most police officers, politicians and citizens — initially dismissed the poor, marginalized victims as “nobodies;”

Vancouver police took poor reports when families phoned to say loved ones were missing, and acted without urgency;

In March 1997, a Downtown Eastside sex worker called Anderson (her real name is protected by the courts) escaped from Pickton’s farm near-death after being violently stabbed. Pickton was charged with attempted murder (although the charges were later stayed) and a concerned RCMP officer attached a warning to his name on the police computer system. Anderson told police Pickton bragged about bringing women to his home. But still, Pickton was not a priority suspect that year when many sex trade workers disappeared from the Downtown Eastside;

There was “an unseemly fight” between former Vancouver city police Det. Kim Rossmo, who wanted to warn the public in 1998 that a serial killer may be preying on vulnerable women, and then-Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who vetoed the idea, arguing there was no evidence to support it. “Public safety was compromised by not warning the public,” Oppal said;

The Vancouver police missing person unit was understaffed, and had an administrative assistant criticized by the families as indifferent and rude;

Between 1998 and 1999, four informants had pointed fingers at Pickton, but Vancouver police did little with the information. The informants included Bill Hiscox, whose friend Lisa Yelds had seen women’s clothing on the farm and thought Pickton was killing women, and Lynn Ellingsen, who said she saw a woman being butchered in the slaughterhouse. (Police have said these witnesses were problematic, as they were drug users and changed their stories);

RCMP Const. Ruth Yurkiw phoned Pickton’s farm in 1999, but his brother, Dave, asked her to call back in the “rainy season” when they weren’t as busy and she agreed; and

Project Evenhanded, the joint RCMP-Vancouver city police task force, thought at first it was investigating only historic murders, despite the fact that women continued to disappear. It also spent too much time looking for a connection between three murdered sex-trade workers found near Mission and the Downtown Eastside cases.

Darryl Dyck/the Canadian Press RCMP Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, the commanding officer of the RCMP in British Columbia, reads a brief statement in response to Commissioner Wally Oppal’s inquiry report.