Serious incident response team targeted for 2017

A civilian-led team that could investigate police shootings and other serious incidents in Newfoundland and Labrador will hopefully be formed by 2017, Justice Minister Andrew Parsons says.

Parsons told reporters on Monday that the provincial government was working on creating a serious incident response team, and called it a "2017 initiative."

"Our department has taken a number of steps just to explore the policy being implemented, and the legislation in other provinces," Parsons said.

"We're getting down, now, to identifying which is the model that would be best approached here."

A serious incident response team was promised in March's throne speech, and Parsons says he has believed for a long time that it was needed in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Other models

Alberta and Nova Scotia both have their own agencies, which are called in for investigations of police forces.

Newfoundland and Labrador, however, doesn't have one andthere have been multiple cases where one police force, the RNC or RCMP, investigated alleged wrongdoing the other.

Document obtained by CBC News show the police forces were investigated a combined 42 times in 2015. In 16 of those cases, they investigated each other, and 12 times the investigation was conducted by an out-of-province police force.

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Parsons said in January that a similar systemof civilian-led agencies, would ensure public confidence in the criminal justice system.

"I stand by what I said, which is we need independent oversight," Parsons said Monday. "Just in the last year, we've gone to outside forces in more than one province to seek this."

Parsons said in September that the jumble of investigations and reviews into Dunphy's killing was further proof that a Newfoundland and Labrador agency was needed.

Parsons saidhis department is studying different approaches good and bad.

"We've had staff attend these types of conferences, and learning what are, maybe, some of the approaches that we don't want to take," he said.

Parsons said a significant amount of work has been done, legislation will be drafted, and he would"like to think that it's something we will see in 2017."