BC’s IIO up and running
Posted September 10, 2012 12:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The civilian office that will handle police involved deaths and serious injuries in BC is up and running.
Fair, competent, thorough investigations — those are Richard Rosenthal’s goals as he heads up the Independent Investigations Office.
He notes half his investigators are former cops, but they have to start somewhere.
“We are going to be investigating extremely serious incidents, including off-duty incidents that could be homicides and we have to have a level of competency from day one, so we have to have people who have experience in investigating these serious cases,” he believes.
Rosenthal adds none of those former cops have been policing in BC for the last five years.
As for a satellite office outside the Lower Mainland, he says that will be considered during a review by 2015.
“During that period of review [we’ll] be looking at to what extent can we justify having some satellite offices in other areas of the province so we can increase our ability to respond to incidents.”
Justice Minister Shirley Bond says rules are in place right now to protect scenes of incidents if it takes the IIO time to get there.
The Independent Investigations Office was one of the key recommendations to come out of the inquiries into the deaths of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski and freezing death of Frank Paul.
