Police shouldn't investigate themselves: senior Mountie

A senior B.C. Mountie says police in the province should not investigate themselves anymore because the public no longer believes they are doing a good job.

"We are not perceived publicly to be able to investigate ourselves. The perception and the reporting that occurs is unwinnable,"RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout toldthe Braidwood Inquiry, which resumed Tuesday itsprobe intothe 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport.

Rideout was the officer in charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which investigated Dziekanski's demise. ThePolish immigrantdied after four RCMP officers deployed a Taser stun gun on him five times and then left him handcuffed on the floorof the airport's arrivals lounge.

'We're simply losing the perception that we're doing a good job' RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, amulti-jurisdictional unit made up of officers from several municipal police forces and RCMP fromB.C.'s Lower Mainland, eventually recommended the four RCMP officers involved in the death should not face any charges.

As Rideout's testimony drew to a close Tuesday in Vancouver, a sometimes impatient commissioner Thomas Braidwood took interest intheofficer'sfinal comments about police investigating themselves in the Dziekanski affair.

Rideout said he did not believe the public trusts police to investigate themselves, but said that opinion was his own and not the RCMP's.

"I believe strongly that the investigations we conduct are sound, but we're simply losing the perception that we're doing a good job, and it's not workable. And as I think I've said in this statement, it's going to get worse," Rideout said.

Separate investigative body recommended

Rideout said he favoured models like the one in Ontario, where a separate civilian entity exists to investigate police incidents.

"I think that for the benefit of the police and those tasked with these investigations, my preference would be that homicide investigators conduct homicide investigations and that a separate body conducts investigations of police incidents," he said.

Earlier this month, B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed introduced changes to the police complaints processdesigned to make it easier to complain about police and for the policecomplaints commissioner to oversee any probes.

However, Heed noted more than 70 per cent of B.C. residents are under the jurisdiction of the RCMP, whichis contracted to provide community policing in much of the province,andit is vital for Ottawa to adopt similarlytransparent regulations to cover the Mounties.

Rideout was also the subject of a controversial email that suggested he had told another senior officer that the four Mounties involved in the Vancouver airport incident had discussed usinga Taser while heading to the airport to confront Dziekanski. That would contradict earlier inquiry testimony that the four officers did not discuss Taser use before they met Dziekanski.

Rideout told the Braidwood inquiry Tuesday that he was misquoted in that email and there was no evidence to suggest the four Mounties had planned to use the weapon before arriving at the airport.

The superintendent is scheduled to be one of the last witnesses at the Braidwood Inquiry, which is scheduled to wrap up this week.