Delta's police union is calling for a third party to review the investigation into an on-duty shooting that led to a seconddegree murder charge against one of its own.
Late last year, the Delta Police Association filed a complaint with the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in the hopes it would review how the Independent Investigations Office investigated a fatal 2012 shooting involving Const. Jordan MacWilliams.
Association president S/Sgt. Ryan Hall said this week the union was told the commissioner needed permission from the province's deputy attorney general, who in his response, said he was directing the IIO to review the investigation internally.
Hall said the police association is not happy with the idea of the IIO conducting an internal review and has petitioned the organization to have an external third party, like the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, that province's police
watchdog, brought in to conduct the review.
MacWilliams was charged in 2014 after an IIO investigation into the shooting death of Mehrdad Bayrami during an armed stand-off with police at a New Westminster casino. The officer was a member of the Municipal Integrated Emergency Response Team.
After the IIO submitted a report in 2013, Crown counsel charged the officer with second-degree murder. The charge was stayed last summer.
Hall said the union has concerns that some evidence had not been gathered by the IIO, specifically why the office chose not to interview key witnesses, such as Tetiana Peltsina, the woman who was held hostage by Bayrami.
In a response, IIO chief civilian director, Richard Rosenthal, said investigators did not interview Peltsina themselves but viewed her interview with New Westminster police officers.
Hall said the union is also concerned with the Crown's decision to go to trial by direct indictment.
Usually, a person accused of a crime has the ability to have a preliminary hearing where the judge decides if there is enough evidence to send the case to trial. In the case of direct indictment, the preliminary hearing is bypassed.
Hall said the union is concerned MacWilliams was treated differently through the investigation and indictment process because of his profession.
"Const. MacWilliams is a Canadian citizen first and foremost," Hall said. "His occupation should not have prevented him from having the same process as any other citizen while before the courts.
"The general public expects the police to be treated equally before the law. We, as police officers, agree completely with that statement and expectation, and ask only that we be treated equally before the law as well."
MacWilliams only recently returned to active duty after the final investigation into the shooting under the Police Act, which had to be put on hold when the criminal charge was laid, was completed. He was also called to testify at a coroner's inquest into the shooting.
"What's lost in this is Jordan lost two years of his life to stress," Hall said.
