Police feud with SIU heats up
Agency head accuses city’s force of flip-flopping as memos shed new light in complaints dispute
It was a baffling bureaucratic catch-22 that cut short a police brutality investigation, and prompted a heated public spat between Toronto police and the force’s watchdog.
Police were “refusing” to provide a document vital to a Special Investiga- tions Unit probe into an allegation that Malton man Tyrone Phillips was beaten unconscious by police, SIU director Ian Scott said in a January statement announcing he had to close the case.
Toronto police fired back, saying the document was not theirs to provide — it belonged to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, a provin- cial agency that probes grievances against police.
But documents obtained through a freedom of information request reveal that, on three previous occasions, Toronto police did directly provide OIPRD complaint material to the SIU.
The most recent occurrence was just four months before police spokesman Mark Pugash said the force did not have the right.
“Thank you for the OIPRD material received by the SIU today,” SIU investigator Allan Eaton wrote to Toronto police Insp. Scott Gilbert and Det. Sgt. Stephen Morse in a September 2012 email regarding a sexual assault complaint.
In June 2010, Toronto police faxed an OIPRD complaint, which also alleged sexual assault, to the SIU’s executive officer, Bill Curtis.
Another complaint, alleging a custody injury, was sent by Toronto police to the SIU in early 2011.
Pugash told the Star this week that in two of the cases, the OIPRD documents were sent to the SIU in error.
“It should not have been provided,” he said. “Those were mistakes on our part.”
But he said police have no records that show a third complaint — the 2011 grievance alleging custody injury — was sent to the SIU.
“I can’t say absolutely that it wasn’t, but we have no record in that case of it being disclosed,” Pugash said.
The documents obtained by the Star concerning that case, however, include an email from Eaton confirming the SIU “did receive the entire (Toronto Police Service) OIPRD file materials.”
An SIU spokesperson also said in an email that the agency’s records indicate police provided the police watchdog with the OIPRD report in question.
The details of the three OIPRD complaints passed from police to the SIU — including the names of the complainants and specifics of the allegations — were kept secret because publication “could constitute unjustified invasion of personal privacy” under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
No charges were laid against officers in any of the cases.
In a statement this week, Scott accused police of flip-flopping.
“I haven’t a clue why the Toronto Police Service changed its position and refused to provide the SIU with the Phillips complaint statement,” Scott said.
Pugash denied the force had altered its position, reiterating that mistakes had been made. Police will not be providing the document to the SIU, he said.
“I haven’t a clue why the Toronto Police Service changed its position and refused to provide the SIU with the Phillips complaint statement.” IAN SCOTT SIU DIRECTOR
“It’s a third-party record, and we are not in a position, unless compelled by judicial process, to release that.”
The problems with Phillips’ complaint began in January, when Scott issued a harshly worded statement announcing closure of the investigation into Phillips’ allegation that police beat him unconscious when he was arrested outside a Toronto nightclub in July 2012.
(Phillips was charged with one count of assaulting a peace officer and one count of obstructing a peace officer. Both matters remain before the courts.) His grievance had landed on the desk of SIU investigators — who probe police-civilian altercations involving serious injury or death — after Phillips filed a complaint with the OIPRD, a separate police watchdog that, unlike the SIU, does not have the ability to lay criminal charges. As per protocol, the OIPRD sent the complaint to Toronto police to investigate. Deeming the allegations serious enough to warrant an SIU probe, police forwarded the file to that agency. But when SIU investigators requested Phillips’ original complaint, Toronto police claimed they did not have the authority, which lay with the OIPRD. That agency, meanwhile, only shares information with the police force involved. The SIU ultimately reopened the case after Phillips personally obtained a copy of his OIPRD complaint, then handed it to SIU investigators, who picked it up at the aircraft parts supplier where Phillips is employed. Days later, the SIU ruled there were no reasonable grounds to charge police in the case. Reached at his workplace near Pearson airport this week, Phillips said he was “disgusted” to learn police had shared an OIPRD complaint with the SIU three previous times prior to the dispute over his case. “That’s really disturbing,” he said. “How is the public supposed to trust them?” Pugash said the two officers who provided the OIPRD documents to the SIU in error have not been disciplined.