B.C. names 1st civilian police watchdog

B.C. has named its first civilianwatchdog over police conduct.

Premier Christy Clark announced Wednesday Richard Rosenthal will head up the Independent Investigations Office, which will review cases in which people are killed or seriously injured by police officers.

"The men and women of our police services work hard every day to keep our communities safe and it's important that police earn and maintain the public's confidence," Clark said.

"The Independent Investigations Office will help ensure those high standards are being upheld and allow for the investigations to be conducted in an open and transparent way."

Rosenthalresigned asthe independent monitor for the city and county of Denver,investigating officer-involvedshootings and in-custodydeaths, to take the job in B.C.

Media coverage of his resignation suggests police were happy to see him go, and Rosenthal acknowledges his time in Denver was controversial.

"My expectation is that officers will tell the truth and in Denver, I pushed and I reformed the disciplinary process so that [for] officers who lied to internal affairs,there would be presumptive termination," he said.

"So that was a change in the culture of the Denver Police Department and it was fairly controversial."

Rosenthal created civilian investigation bodies in both Denver and Portland, and has also worked as a District Attorney in Los Angeles.

Theappointment follows long-running complaints from groups like the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that police should not investigate themselves in such cases.

The creation of the office comes after several high-profile incidents in which police officers killed civilians, including the shooting death of Ian Bush during a struggle with a Mountie in the RCMP detachment in Houston in 2005.

The Independent Investigations Office is expected to be up and running by mid-2012.