2012-06-29

G20 aftermath: Civilian police board barely asked any questions in leadup to summit

The report blames the federal government — which gave Toronto police four months to plan an event that typically requires up to two years of preparation — for contributing to the Toronto police’s shortcomings during the summit.

But it also found the police board was largely in the dark about policing plans and G20 operations.

While some board members felt Chief Bill Blair was being “secretive” or withholding operational information from them, Morden concluded the onus was still on the board to seek out the information it needed to ensure proper civilian oversight.

As a result, the board “became a mere bystander in a process it was supposed to lead” and “rendered itself a virtually voiceless entity.”

Beyond just probing issues specific to the G20, the report highlighted a larger problem with the board and how it has interpreted its mandate under the Police Services Act.

The crux of its failings, Morden found, stems from the board’s overly sensitive interpretation of the act.

Morden said the act makes clear that board members can seek information about specific police operations and make recommendations. In practice, however, the board has not done so.

“The board has limited its consultative mandate and has viewed it as improper to ask questions about, comment on, or make recommendations concerning operational matters,” said Morden.

“The board’s approach in this matter is wrong.”

All too often, the report said, the chief is the “gatekeeper” of information flowing to the board.

When Blair provided information about the G20, he largely glossed over matters of police planning and operations in his presentations to the board. Significant matters, like new equipment and training programs, were presented as “done deals,” the report found.

Morden repeatedly stressed the six-member board made no efforts to fill in its knowledge gap.

A March 2010 email from board chair Alok Mukherjee to Blair was a sterling example of this. He only asked about three G20-related matters: police budget, community and media relations and human resource issues.

“This was the only specific direction the board provided the chief regarding the information it wished to have on the policing of the G20 summit,” said the report, which called the email a “defining moment” in the flow of information between the board and Blair.

The only time board members requested operational information was when they questioned safeguards for the Long Range Acoustic Device, which they learned about through the media. Instead of encouraging these types of questions, they were shut down by Mukherjee, the report found.

“Our responsibility as a board is not to badger the chief, be suspicious of him or have our noses out of joint because of a news report we didn’t know about, but to do our part in making sure the city is safe and no untoward event happens,” Mukherjee told a board member in an email.

Mukherjee declined to comment Thursday, but a spokesperson said he would make an official statement Friday.

Throughout the report, Morden emphasizes that if the board had asked more questions, glaring mistakes made by the Toronto Police Service could have been avoided.

With regard to the Public Works Protection Act, colloquially known as the “secret fence law,” the report points out that Blair requested legislation be changed to give police extra powers without consulting the board beforehand.

Blair made a passing remark about the act to the board, but even after hearing this information, it failed to probe the matter further and didn’t even obtain a copy of the act.

In addition, when Blair misinterpreted the act as being five metres outside the fence, he notified his officers but not the public. The board also failed by not informing the public of that mistake, the report said.

Morden found police training was lacking and should have included a more detailed discussion relating the exercise of police powers with Charter rights.

Also, much of the language describing protesters was “unbalanced” and included representations of violent protests and anarchists, leaving the impression that all protesters would engage in destructive activity.

Morden recommended the board and Toronto police work together when drafting training manuals in the future.

The planning for the Prisoner Processing Centre was flawed and failed to offer proper guidelines to those who would operate the temporary jail. Considering the centre was without precedent in Ontario, the report found that members of its planning team had no particular experience designing such a facility. They did not consult with available experts, such as those from the Corrections ministry, who could have relayed knowledge on prisoner care and mass detention.

The board had virtually no role in the planning of the temporary jail, said the report, which also called for further investigation into a high incidence of invasive strip searches.

Toronto police had a “preoccupation” with the area around the security fence that created a security vacuum in the rest of the city, the report concluded. As a result, there were delays in deploying officers to areas where black-clad vandals were smashing windows and torching police cars.

“This allocation of resources left the Toronto Police Service unable to manage effectively the violence and property damage that unfolded in the city,” said the report.

What resulted was a “heavy-handed response” in dealing with protesters over the rest of the weekend, which saw more than 1,100 arrests.

Although the Police Services Act dictates the board is responsible for setting objectives and priorities, this did not occur in advance of the summit, the report found. Had the board and Blair consulted, the board may have recommended making the downtown area, not the fence, the priority, it said.

When it came to understanding the command and control structures of multi-jurisdictional policing — which included the RCMP, OPP and multiple local police forces — the board also didn’t seek out detailed information.

Throughout the summit weekend there was confusion over just who was in charge, the report concluded.

Instead, when it came to operational matters, the board deferred to the chief. According to Councillor Frank Di Giorgio, a board member at the time who was quoted in the report, it was “appropriate” for the board to play a secondary role.

“What would be the board’s role during the summit . . . the chief would have made it clear that the board’s role was not to meddle . . . during the summit. I just didn’t see it as our role,” he said.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/1219033--g20-aftermath-civilian-police-board-barely-asked-any-questions-in-leadup-to-summit