Officer claims brass targeted him
Many alleged ‘severe reprisals’ followed wife’s complaint against deputy chief
An Ottawa police officer has been the subject of nearly a dozen complaints by his superiors in the months since his wife made sexual harassment allegations against Deputy Chief Uday Jaswal.
The complaints, which he alleged were “severe reprisals from specific senior officers” all the way up to the chief of police, led to him being transferred from his job on Christmas Day last year.
"These (alleged) reprisals are directly related to me supporting my wife in regards to her human rights complaint against the OPS and the ongoing (Ontario Civilian Police Commission) investigation into the (alleged) sexual misconduct of (Deputy Chief Uday Jaswal),” the officer wrote to the commission in February of this year, in one of several letters obtained by this newspaper.
In a statement to this newspaper, the Ottawa Police Service said it cannot comment on “legal matters and investigations that are active and ongoing.”
Since the Ottawa officer’s wife came forward in August 2019, Jaswal has been accused of sexual harassment by two more women and has been charged with six counts of misconduct under the Police Services Act. He has been suspended with pay by the police board. The public airing of the allegations has prompted the service to launch a project to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace and to stop reprisals against employees who come forward.
None of the allegations against Jaswal has been proven.
The officer, who the Citizen is not naming because his wife’s identity is protected as a victim of a previous sexual assault, had never faced discipline in a nearly 20-year policing career. Yet in the six months after his wife accused the service’s second-in-command of years of sexual harassment, the chief’s complaints — a complaint launched by a chief of police into the conduct of his officers — began to pile up.
“It is my belief and the belief of numerous OPS members who have reached out to my wife and I, that Chief Sloly’s decisions in these matters appear intentionally designed to support and promote DC Jaswal while simultaneously acting as a public reprisal against me and a public notice to other members of the OPS, should they consider coming forward with evidence against DC Jaswal or allegations against any other senior officers within the OPS,” the officer wrote.
The OCPC, when it learned of the timeline in which four chief’s complaints against the officer were laid, told Sloly in a March letter that they found the contents of the officer’s letter “deeply disturbing.” The commission requested the chief turn over all documents related to why the complaints were laid and when. The OCPC said Sloly told them the four conduct complaints against the officer were unrelated to the commission’s ongoing Jaswal investigation.
“If substantiated, the statements and allegations made in the correspondence from (the officer) and the (association) would suggest that your recent actions are, indeed, related to the support provided by (the officer) to his wife in connection with the ongoing commission investigation into the alleged conduct of DC Jaswal,” the OCPC wrote.
Documents viewed by the Citizen show that the service did, however, notify the OCPC of the complaints and the watchdog told the service to proceed because it initially believed the complaints were not related to the Jaswal investigation. The OCPC also requested that an outside agency investigate the claims.
The four outstanding chief’s complaints against the officer are being investigated by the York Regional Police Service.
The documents obtained by the Citizen detail the complaints.
In one complaint, the officer is under investigation for allegations that he attempted to get a junior officer to withdraw an impaired driving charge. That incident allegedly occurred in May 2019, but the officer alleged he wasn’t spoken to about it until December.
In one instance on Aug. 21, 2019, at the scene of a suicide call that led to a massive temporary police seizure of firearms, allegations were made that the officer left firearms unsecured. His wife had filed her human rights complaint two weeks earlier.
In a third complaint, also alleged to be from November 2019, the officer allegedly gave false information to another cop during a vehicle pursuit. The complaint alleged that the officer took control of the pursuit over the radio, failed to tell an officer there was a collision and then failed to complete proper reports.
In the fourth complaint, the investigation is for allegations that he improperly dealt with a loss prevention officer at a retail store and didn’t submit a report after releasing a theft suspect.
The officer has denied misconduct in all of the investigations.
In March of this year, the officer was also notified of six more performance issues and was told those would be dealt with through the force’s performance management policy.
The nature of those allegations were not detailed in the documents viewed by the Citizen.
The officer alleges that the four complaints that led to his job removal on Christmas Day were all taken up to the chief by one senior officer — Insp. Dave Zackrias.
Zackrias did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations made against him.
The officer alleged that Zackrias’s “surreptitious gathering of information” over a months-long period “were intentional actions designed to harm my credibility.”
The officer wrote “Zackrias’ actions and his conduct toward me constitute an abuse of power and warrants an independent investigation.”
The officer also alleged that Sloly, who has publicly championed the service’s recent efforts to deal with harassment in its ranks, hasn’t met with his wife, who is an Ottawa police civilian employee.
In the service’s statement to the Citizen, police said that, “Sexual harassment in the workplace is unacceptable in the Ottawa Police Service. The OPS is fully committed to improving our ability to prevent and reduce incidents of workplace sexual violence and harassment while enabling increased harassment reporting and decreased fear of reprisal.” The service said it will continue efforts “to create a harassment-free organization, and to advance equity, diversity and inclusion in the OPS.” The service said that there are no time limits for initiating chief’s complaints into officer conduct and that, “Once a supervisor is aware of an issue regarding a subordinate’s performance it is expected that they will address that issue within a reasonable period of time depending on the unique circumstances of each case.”
Sometimes there can be delays, though, the service said. In the case of a supervisor with concerns about a junior officer’s performance, “they can pursue a variety of options to address the specific details of each circumstance, dependent on the discretion of the supervisor and the severity/seriousness of the incident. A performance issue could become a conduct issue; and as such, could result in a chief ’s complaint,” the service said. syogaretnam@postmedia.com twitter.com/shaaminiwhy