2020-12-26

A tale of two police investigations

If you recall, a "May the Fourth" police takedown in Lethbridge was the topic of international attention and outrage a few months back. As I wrote at the time:

Somebody on the Lethbridge Police Service needs to be fired over this. There can be no wiggle room. A person currently on their payroll needs to be unemployed.

Who? Well that depended on what we learned this week: 

If the officers did not act appropriately within LPS policies and procedures the officers need to be fired.

If the officers did act appropriately within LPS policies and procedures than LPS Chief Scott Woods needs to be fired and a new police chief hired on the sole condition that these procedures be rewritten.

The verdict (as it is) is in: no criminal charges will be laid against the cops. 

The investigation, conducted by the Medicine Hat Police Service, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) and Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, was recently concluded with the findings being forwarded to the Lethbridge Police Service.

According to that investigation, the court is not proceeding with any criminal charges against any of the officers involved.

So is that the end of the story? Not entirely...

Now that the formal investigation into the incident is complete, a professional misconduct investigation, under the Police Act and Police Service Regulation, will proceed.

The LPS will provide no further comment on the incident until that investigation is over.

So there's still a small chance the cops themselves will suffer some negative consequence of this.

But hold on...there's another crime story that's a big deal this week...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L -- Ten correctional officers have been charged with crimes ranging from manslaughter to criminal negligence causing death in connection with the 2019 death of an Inuk man in a St. John's jail.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary announced the charges in a Tuesday news release that didn't include the officers' identities, when they were arrested or under what conditions they were released.

RNC Const. James Cadigan said in an interview that the correctional officers' identities will not be released until the charges are sworn in court, which he said must happen before Feb. 11, when the 10 officers are due before a judge. 

So let's get this straight: despite the fact that we don't even know yet if officers did anything, let alone whether they contributed to this Red Indian's death, charges are still being laid? And that we'll eventually learn their names, which Lethbridge police have yet to provide us about their misbehaving members?

How much do you want to bet that if Ashley were a nigger or an Injun that we'd be seeing a different outcome in Lethbridge?

Bonus dead Injun: Even at the "healing centres" they get to stay at due to systemic (anti-white) racism, they die at an expeditious rate.