Delay in reporting threat is an element at ethics hearing
The fact that Maria Altagracia Dorval waited almost two months before reporting to police that her estranged husband had threatened her and their three children at knifepoint is becoming a key element at a hearing into alleged breach of ethics by five police officers in the handling of her case.
On Friday, Det.-Lt. David Roy told the Police Ethics Committee hearing into the Dorval case that days after she was murdered on Oct. 17, 2010, he attended a meeting of senior officers at the investigation centre that handled the case.
At that meeting, all four officers agreed that Dorval’s case had not seemed “urgent” when the police complaint she filled out a week before she was killed landed at the centre.
In the report, dated Oct. 11, 2010, Dorval described an incident that she said occurred on Aug. 16, 2010, in which her estranged husband, Edens Kenol, is alleged to have brandished a knife and told her he wanted to kill her and her three children and then commit suicide. Dorval also wrote that Kenol had been harassing her day and night by phone, knocking on her door, following her in his car and warning a male friend to stay away from her.
Kenol is charged with first degree murder of Dorval and is awaiting trial.
Roy is not one of the five officers cited by the Police Ethics Commissioner, but he worked closely with Det.-Sgt. Geneviève Leclerc, who is cited for not investigating the case as soon as it came across her desk on Oct. 13, 2010, and for violating Dorval’s and her children’s right to safety. (Leclerc has not yet testified before the committee).
Roy described Leclerc as a motivated, hard-working and dedicated detective whom he was assigned to train when she was promoted to the investigation centre in early 2010.
He told the committee that on Oct. 13, 2010, Leclerc was handling another conjugal violence case, in which a man had just been released from police custody and had already violated the conditions of his release.
He noted that Leclerc had even made calls on that case in her off-hours, trying to locate that suspect.
Roy also testified that he had spoken to Det.-Lt. Marcel Thifault on Oct. 22 and in that meeting Thifault had mentioned that the incident (of the death threat) happened well before the date it was reported and that Thifault “did not see the urgency” in Dorval’s case.
Thifault is cited for not verifying the seriousness of the threats when the case came across his desk on Oct. 12, 2010, and for violating Dorval’s and her children’s right to safety. He has not yet testified before the committee.
Christian Matthieu, the lawyer representing the commissioner, asked Roy whether he would classify a conjugal violence complaint that mentioned a death threat two months earlier as “urgent.” He said he would not, although all conjugal violence cases are always treated as “priority” cases, he noted.
He estimated 10 out of the approximately 30 cases he was handling at a time are conjugal violence cases.
Another witness, a social worker from the Montreal North CLSC, testified under a publication ban Friday. Lawyers for the police commissioner and for the cited police officers asked for a ban on publication of her testimony because she might reveal information that was given at Kenol’s preliminary inquiry last February.
The Gazette is contesting several publication bans at this hearing, arguing the bans are not necessary or justified to protect Kenol’s right to a fair trial and that the Police Ethics Committee has a mandate to hold its hearings in public.
The hearing resumes Wednesday.