Cornwall Ontario – The Standard Freeholder ran a puff piece spinning a higher amount of complaints about the CCPS.
Oddly enough there were less reported crimes in Cornwall in 2016 even though they still are raising their budgets.
The police service is a cash cow. It comes down to money and power. If you’re not popular, as yours truly appears to be, you get falsely arrested, and even worse, those that break the law against you don’t appear to get charged.
That’s not policing anymore, but being a private security service.
Likewise, the police blotter should include all those charged. The CCPS should also be more public about complaints against officers.
Personally, speaking for myself, I have very little faith in the current process which is why I’ve never made a formal complaint for my experience that stemmed from Cst Casey McGregor charging me for making threatening phone calls without verifying that I actually made them.
Sgt Chad Maxwell signed off on the charge and Chief Dan Parkinson himself was involved in the process.
A production order clearly showed that I never made a single call as per the crown disclosure. The CCPS refused to charge Michael Bedard (Roys Pools, Platinum Pools) for making a clearly false claim.
That Chief Parkinson was up for a new contract, and it was election time with yours truly running against Police Services board member Mayor Bob Kilger, and police services board chair Pat Finucan was Mayor Kilger’s campaign manager the optics weren’t pretty.
I can list the officers that I’ve brought clear charges to against others like the Traci Trottier, incidences where she not once, but twice, made clear false allegations against myself that both times CCPS officers refused to charge her over. I doubt I’d have had the same charitable sentiment from the CCPS if I’d made false allegations.
Would any reasonable person expect police officers to police police officers?
At the very least many incidents are massaged. An officer clearly has to cross the line to be sanctioned. Many have privately shared with me that the union makes true action and investigation difficult. Likewise it’s hard to get info to cover or report on such as the case in Alexandria involving two OPP officers. Would you expect criminals to police criminals?
According to the Freeholder story:
Complaints against police officers in the city rose slightly in 2016 from the previous year
The number of public complaints against police in 2016 for conduct is two more than 2015 going up from seven to nine.
Internal complaints, those made by Parkinson doubled in 2016, going up from three in 2015 to six.
Of those 16 complaints, Parkinson said two were unsubstantiated; four were screened out by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director; one was withdrawn by the complainant, three resulted in informal discipline, two resulted in disciplinary hearings, one involved a criminal charge laid against an officer and two were customer service resolutions.
With charges going down, at least reported ones, complaints going up should be a big cause for concern as these are essentially filtered complaints.
Of course numbers can be played with. Likewise, just because a complaint is “found” to be unsubstantiated doesn’t mean that it really was. For example former Mayor Bob Kilger endured claims of sexual assault while managing the local St. Hubert BBQ many years ago. While he was never formally charged; it certainly doesn’t hurt in a small town when your Brother in law is a high level officer, and you have many hockey buddies on the force that his son would eventually join as well. The optics of the process at the time still have people talking. That Mr. Kilger allegedly had to be bailed out by Jean Chretien while serving as Parliamentary Whip for similar issues doesn’t help that perspective.
Many people don’t file a complaint with the police because they fear the police. I myself had a very frightening experience with an officer this past Summer. While the officer didn’t do or say anything wrong the circumstances were highly suspect.
Likewise I’ve had officers threaten me with charges if I didn’t remove content from CFN.
Fraud being one of the biggest areas of crime and one of the most time intensive to investigate leads to the question as to why Cornwall only had/has one officer fulfilling that role? And the officer in charge of the Latour and Caskenette cases was allegedly bullied into asking for a transfer before those cases finished begging a further question of how much fraud has been investigated and how in depth?
Adding in that Chief Parkinson himself appeared on behalf of a convicted fraud felon to appeal for his parole the question again is how hard does Cornwall treat fraud?
It’s time for a full investigation of the CCPS, but more important as an election comes it’s time to ask if it makes any sense for taxpayers to pay nearly 50% more for police services than the United Counties of SD&G pay the OPP?
With nearly 50% more population and a much wider area to cover how does the OPP have a budget for SD&G that is about 50% less than the City of Cornwall spends? Does that make any sense? Are we getting some extra special value?
Add to that the Chief himself, lives in South Glengarry on Yacht Blvd clearly not complaining about OPP services.
Wearing the badge should be one of the most respected careers. You literally are putting your life on the line every time you put the uniform on.
Police deserve to be respected for what they do and what they represent, but for that respect to truly be there police have to live up to those badges. Right now the CCPS has not and needs a draining of the swamp because many see that extra 50% residents are paying going to management and top heavy older officers that seem to focus more on politics than policing.
And it’s time for a police board to not have more than one rep on it from its elected officials or council.
Everyone should feel safe in their homes with the knowledge that if they are in trouble the police are there to protect and serve them. They should feel that if someone has broken the law against them that the police will enforce it fairly. Sadly this isn’t the case for many in Cornwall. This has to change if we ever are to grow into a progressive and inclusive community, especially for what we pay for police services.
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Jamie the OPP would be a better solution for Cornwall and the thing is all this favoritism has to be thrown out the window (the clique) along with everything else. It reminds me of “the heat of the night” and such shows of backward Alabama or Mississippi and such places. I couldn’t live in Cornwall ever again not even for the millions of dollars. I had to leave and come back for more civilizati
Jamie Cornwall is so mighty small and already they have two fire stations. Now they want to put one to the north side. What are they going to do with the one near the cop station? If that station is not used for something then it would be a great loss of money. I am sitting here laughing at all the money being thrown around and council is so confused like a dog chasing its tail round and round
IMO, we have no choice whatsoever ! Our bumbling Police Service Boards, have rubber stamped the budgets for years & now, we as taxpayers can no longer afford our beloved Force. Our inept Council, just keeps voting for these unacceptable increases ! We (CITY) should immediately request a “costing” from the OPP
Freeze CPS pay now!!
For years Cornwall police threatened to jump ship to the OPP in order to squeeze “Retention Bonuses” out of us. Gutless city councillors and mayors let them away with it and renamed the extortion payments as “Service Bonuses”.
The savings to us would pay for hiring more officers. If current officers don’t like it they can quit… We dump Parkinson and contract the OPP.
The entire town of Cornwall from the top position down to the lowliest level has to “DRAIN THE SWAMP” and kick all local cops who are from Cornwall out the door and hire OPP and not local OPP but way way way far as can be expected maybe from the furthest part closest to the North Pole to look after Cornwall and area. All jobs from the top management down to the lowliest position must be kicked ou
Jamie can you picture hubby living down in Cornwall and all he would get are stares from the people. We lived down there and we know the mentality of a small town. Jamie you are a good man and I mean those words. Cornwall has never accepted someone from another town let alone another country. We had Germans and Dutch in Cornwall along with a few Lebanese and Jews and the Jews were from Europe.
Jules there are more visible minorities in Cornwall and racism exists everywhere. There are probably more plusses to your family living in Cornwall now than in Ottawa and that includes your daughter. Sometimes you do come home.