Toronto Police Unethically Exposes Private Mental Health And Non-Conviction Info

One of the major disasters of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair’s tenure is the discrimination and absurdity surrounding the release of private information about citizens of Toronto who have had some level of contact with the Toronto Police Service in one way or another.

The Toronto Police received nearly 110,000 requests for background checks last year and according to the Toronto Star, there has been a 92 percent increase for these police requests in the last five years alone. This mad rush for background checks is becoming a circus with no clear leadership from anyone – but all this absurdity comes back to the Toronto Police who still refuse to do anything about the problem.

The mad rush for background checks, according to the Toronto Star, began around 2001 when the provincial government decreed all teachers and other school employees undergo police checks. But this soon opened the floodgates and all sorts of employers in the private sector, volunteer agencies, sport teams, recreation clubs, and retirement homes started asking for these checks too.

In fact, the Toronto District School Board recently announced that it would like parents who have children attending classes in the school to undergo background checks if they wish to volunteer on field trips.

These checks don’t do much in safeguarding anyone from potential crime as it has gotten to the point of paranoia. Safety is wonderful but this is overkill – so much so that these excessive background checks have created a long trail of victims as opposed to saving lives and protecting property.

To really illustrate the absurdity of these Toronto Police background checks you have to understand the damage they have created and what gets included in the records. In recent months the Toronto Star has been reporting extensively on this issue and has spoken with many people who have been victimized by disclosures of private information.

The Toronto Police Service literally puts everything it comes into contact with on a database and releases this information to organizations that ask for it without question. Much of this information is extremely trivial, baseless and groundless. They also keep your fingerprints, record of arrests, and any charges – even if you were not convicted of anything or if those charges were eventually thrown out of court.

And perhaps more incendiary, they keep mental health contacts on file too and release this information to employers. If you attempted suicide or were depressed and the police were in any way involved then this gets included in the background checks. It’s downright awful.

The Toronto Star reported there were more than 420,000 people in CPIC (the national police database) who were not convicted of a crime as of 2005 including nearly 2,500 with a notation for “attempt suicide” and another 2,200 noted for “mental instability.” Last year in Ontario, 43 percent of adult criminal cases resulted in stayed or withdrawn charges, according to the John Howard Society of Ontario. All these people have records in police computer databases.

So who are these Canadians who have had their lives ruined and upended by this nonsense? Here are just a small sampling:

1) There is a 27 year Caledon man named Chris who worked as a construction worker but got a dream job working part-time as a firefighter. He trained for months and worked hard. He was later asked to submit a routine “vulnerable sector” check. What came back shocked him. He had no criminal record, was never charged with anything, and he never even spoke to police before. But he was included on a police record because he was guilty by association. He had a friend who used to sell drugs and an undercover police officer noted that he used to hang out with him. This ended his career aspirations as a firefighter because he was rejected for having a “non-clean” background check.

2) There is a British Columbia woman named Stacey who was denied a dog-walking position in 2010 because a background check showed that she made four 911 calls starting in 2005 because of family disputes with her mother and sister. She was never convicted of anything.

3) There is a young woman named Catherine who was studying nursing in Ontario. She was on the Dean’s list, a record that she is undoubtedly proud of but it is another record that has wrecked havoc on her life. As part of the program she is enrolled in, she has to go through annual background checks. This was no problem until in 2012 when the police check showed an incident dating back to 2009. The incident involved a breakup with her boyfriend which resulted in mental health problems for her. The police were involved and they listed her as “violent and aggressive”. She was never given a chance to defend herself of this and feels it is completely one-sided. Whatever the police say is seen as factual without any trial or hashing out of evidence.

4) There is a 27 year old Ottawa resident named Ali who was never charged or convicted of a crime. He had to quit his job with Air Canada because the airport security clearance turned up that he had a history with police. The record is extremely old from his childhood days growing up in a social housing community. The police spotted him around people they claim are drug dealers and gangsters. His name was noted in this.

5) There is Nancy Lucas, a 60 year old Whitby resident. In 1994 she had a charge withdrawn after she agreed to a peace bond. Her charge was “uttering threats” against her then husband who brought his girlfriend to their home while she was in hospital. This 20 year old family dispute prevented her from getting a volunteer position recently. This is a woman who has never had even a parking ticket and yet she still has to pay the price for a family dispute from long ago.

6) There is 21 year old Toby King who had a summer job placement with the City of Toronto rescinded because a background check showed that he broke a window at a party when he was 19. He was able to secure a withdrawal of that charge, he paid $200 to charity and volunteered for 28 hours in a lunch program for underprivileged Torontonians. Even so, he still couldn’t get a job he desperately wanted because of a minor incident from his teenage years. C’mon! Give the guy a break!

7) There is a woman named Simuoko (Sim) Frayne who recently filed a lawsuit against Toronto Police because a background check showed unproven accusations against her which is preventing her from gaining custody of her niece. She escalated this to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) which took extremely long to process her complaint due to administrative issues and then it took over 5 months to investigate the complaint. She grew sick while waiting on the OIPRD. She eventually sued the police for $75,000 in damages. I completely understand her frustrations with the OPIRD – been there and done that.

The stories go on and on. These people are not career criminals. Some of them have had minor indiscretions, some of them are guilty by loose association, some of them have had family disputes (who hasn’t), and some of them have been victims of false accusations. And some of the examples I have been reading say that the Toronto Police exacerbates stuff in these records. If a police officer feels you were being “aggressive” then I guess that means you were “aggressive”. Right? Wrong.

There are also many stories of humiliation. People who want to perhaps visit family members, attend funerals, or attend weddings in the United States but are instead questioned and turned away because they “attempted suicide” in the past. These are people who want to turn their lives around and want to live freely but are being prevented form doing so. These are people who had a terrible past and yet this is being used against them, instead of sympathizing with them. There is something so disgraceful and fundamentally wrong about this.

It has angered so many people including the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Ann Cavoukian. She has launched a lawsuit against the Toronto Police Service for “indiscriminately” releasing attempted suicide information to the country’s national police database. She says that her office has never initiated a lawsuit like this before. It’s unprecedented.

She argues that exposing private medical information about citizens is in breach of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) and its provincial equivalent. She is absolutely floored by the attitude of the Toronto Police because they simply ignored her requests to stop releasing information. She says that she gets compliance 99% of the time when her office tells organizations they are in breach of the law but the Toronto Police is a very rare exception.

Toronto Police argues that maintaining and releasing this private medical information helps them in their work and that they can’t do anything about problems with border agents because this is federal jurisdiction of the RCMP. Ann Cavoukian doesn’t buy this explanation and says that at the very least people should know beforehand that police have this information about them on record before they attempt to enter the United States:

“I think at least they should be notified so that they know they could be stopped and asked about their attempted suicide. It breaks my heart when people go to the length of attempting suicide. It means there is a real serious issue that needs to be addressed. These individuals are already having to deal with very difficult issues in their lives. The last thing you want to do to compound that is to add to the load they’re carrying.”

Louise Bradley, President of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, agrees:

“This is not a criminal matter. This is a health matter. This can impede recovery, when they are looking to volunteer, get a job or travel outside the country. It can also impede people with mental health problems and illnesses or their families seeking help when they are crisis because of fear of getting a ‘record.’”

This has even alarmed over 200 students at the prestigious University of Toronto medical school who signed a petition calling on the Toronto Police to stop releasing information about mental health to employers or with the Americans. They rightly argue that this prevents people from accessing services and calling for help in the future because it stigmatizes mental health. People are afraid that it will ruin them, if they so choose to want to continue on with their lives.

Lawyers, victims, advocates, heads of independent government agencies, and medical students have all been calling on the Toronto Police to stop this absurdity and discrimination. They simply do not care and are narrow-minded enough to continue with the status quo.

It’s not all utter disappointment though – there appears to be a ray of hope. Last month, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) announced what many are calling a “huge” milestone. The third incarnation of the new Guideline released by the OACP states that Ontario’s 57 police services must stop releasing private information of citizens. This Guideline has been years in the making and was helped developed by the John Howard Society of Ontario and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association who worked for two years to get the guideline to this stage.

Police contacts of all sorts that have not resulted in convictions will not be released in the future. This includes mental health arrests, hospital transports, police visits, and allegations that have not been proven in court. The only time when information should be released, according to this Guideline, is very extreme rare cases when somebody faces multiple allegations of abuse of the elderly and children. The OACP says that this should only happen a “handful” of times.

Many police service in Ontario have already followed suit: Durham Regional Police, Waterloo Regional Police, Peel Regional Police, York Regional Police, Hamilton Police, St. Thomas Police, and Sudbury Police.

Of course, Toronto Police is conspicuously missing from this list. They choose instead to fight with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and more or less tell her to get lost. In contrast Durham police spokesperson Dave Selby said: “We’ve been one of the leaders in Ontario in calling for changes in this area.”

It’s gotten to the point now where people are so fed up that they are calling on the province and the political leaders to intervene by putting in legislation to stop this from happening. Right now there is a confusing patchwork of local policies across Ontario, we need a uniform system and compliance. Even the OACP admitted from the get-go that legislation would most likely be needed to ensure compliance. The Toronto Police will never do it themselves unless you sue or get the province involved. It’s absolutely disgusting and so embarrassing!

Storing in databases every shred of contact with police, even subjective and opinionated side-notes by individual investigating officers is asinine. One in three innocent Canadians is victimized by this – that could be more than 11 million of us and counting! The release of this private information has ended careers, prevented university placements, sabotaged volunteer positions and caused havoc trying to cross borders.

Why is that so many police service in Ontario, and even around Canada, have taken a leadership role to finally end this but the Toronto Police Service feels the rules don’t apply to them? This disgusting police service needs serious overhaul. It’s ruining lives. These innocent people are not statistics, they’re not “bad guys”, they’re not toys you can do what you want with. These innocent people are human beings who have lives they want to live with fulfillment and dignity. The Toronto Police Service is preventing this from happening and seems to have contempt for the public there are there to serve!

Instead of releasing every shred of information like zombie idiots and instead of collecting trivial information of otherwise no consequence, the Toronto Police would be best advised to engage in responsible and intelligent policing. Employers will keep asking for background checks because nobody wants to be blamed in the rare chance something does happen. People are scared. The Toronto Police ought to have taken a leadership role in this by keeping internal information hidden or destroyed completely and by reassuring the public they are indeed safe.

All we get is more of the same and fear-mongering. This needs to stop.

Articles:

“Ontario police chiefs call for secrecy around non-conviction records” – CTV News (click here)

“Police chiefs push to limit release of non-offenders’ private info” – CBC News (click here)

“Cause for hope in the war on invasive police record checks” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Police chiefs call for presumed innocence in background checks” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Sharing police data should be fair, standardized, Kathleen Wynne says” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Toronto police to keep sharing non-conviction records” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Queen’s Park should limit police disclosure of private information…” – Toronto Star (click here)

“U of T med students petition cops to stop release of suicide attempt records” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Break a window, and pay for life” – Toronto Star (click here)

“Canadians stunned to learn they have police records….” – Inside Halton (click here)

“How Police Record Checks Can Harm the Innocent: Michael’s essay” – CBC News (click here)

I Felt As Though I Lost The Lottery…

If you read through the Office of the Independent Police Review Director’s (OIPRD) explanation and reasoning for “disposing” of my complaint it really ought to make you cringe (click here). Reading through the entirety of my complaint and having a genuine knowledge of the issues involved, it is difficult to wrap one’s head around how the OIPRD could have not found fault in the arresting officer.

They did acknowledge that what I went through was “extremely traumatic”. It caused huge emotional injuries and has wrecked havoc on my life. I had many sleepless nights, nightmares, loss of appetite, I constantly thought about the case which was hugely draining, I had to drop out of school, I’ve been out of work, I’ve had physical health issues develop, and I’ve been dealing with continuous thuggish behaviour from Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) employees. It’s been horrific.

The OIPRD acknowledges that the Toronto Police Service botched (they rather use “far from optimal”) the investigation of my complaint. It was not adequately addressed at all. There were missing parts, it took an excruciatingly long time in excess of the 120 day limit and it merely touched the surface. Using the word “investigation” is too strong in this case. Merely receiving statements from different people involved and being forced to accept an essential audio recording from me, and then providing an “analysis” is not an investigation. It’s an abomination.

The OIPRD then replicated the Toronto Police Service by also taking an excruciatingly long time to produce a review decision of what the Toronto Police did. Their two-page letter explaining their decision doesn’t hold water and would not be respected by a court judge. They refused to carry out a re-investigation, which is obscene. 5 months to review a decision makes no sense to me. What’s worse is that their letter indicates that they really did not understand the issues involved in the case and evidently suffer from reading comprehension issues. They blame everything on the TTC but there is no blame for Constable Mitchell Till.

How does one defend the indefensible? Obviously, the only way to do this is by using arguments that are laughable or do not hold water.

Toronto Police Detective Nancy Van Veghel protected her guy, Mitchell Till, by claiming in the investigative report that he acted “professionally” and that my holding of a train door to report a crime was an “extremely dangerous act”. This hyperbolic nonsense is a slap in the face to me and an insult to the intelligence of any self-respecting judge. Counselling a person to commit suicide is a crime under the Criminal Code of Canada section 241(a). My action that night I was arrested was reasonable and justified.

The OIPRD believes that Constable Mitchell Till is to be treated like a zombie type figure that has no ability to form educated assessments. They believe he has to be 100% impressionable, gullible, and easily influenced.

Evidence shows that I was articulate, calm, non-suicidal, not a harm to others, and cooperative. And common sense further indicates that the officer should have seriously taken my claims that night – or at the very least he should have left me alone without making an arrest. His arrest was unlawful.

And for the OIPRD to claim that the police are ignorant of previous arrests made under the Mental Health Act is downright cringe-worthy. This is utter stupidity. I can’t believe they wrote that! Remember, the OIPRD operates a cloak-and-dagger act. They have this “Panel” which is otherwise nameless and faceless. They never tell you who exactly is on this mysterious “Panel” and you will never meet them.

As a result, nothing in your case is ever going to be fleshed out or hashed out. I had to completely rely on two different submissions: the initial one where it was really touch-and-go type of thing, and the request for review submission. That’s all. That’s the only time you’re allowed to make your case – so it BETTER BE GOOD!

But how good your submissions are is pointless because my Request for Review submission was regarded as “thoughtful” and “careful” by the OIPRD themselves – and they still rejected my complaint. In all honesty, having the OIPRD side with you is like winning the lottery.

That’s exactly how I felt when I received the decision letter from them, I felt as if I just lost the lottery. I didn’t feel like I went through a thorough examination and a trail. It felt extremely hallow.

Perhaps if the OIPRD actually sat down with me we could have ironed out the details, we could have recorded an interview, and we could have had a meaningful discussion. I could have explained things over further to clear any confusion. This was never the case. The end result was an ignorant decision letter. That’s exactly how I would term it: ignorant.

When the OIPRD writes:

“As such, the medical records which you have provided to demonstrate that you have previously never been treated at any mental health facility, would have been unknown to the officer at the time”

This quote shows stupidity, yes, but it’s also downright offensive.

What difference does it make anyhow if the officer knew? Let’s just pretend that I previously was at a mental health facility to be treated for a mental illness, how does that in any way justify the decision of the officer to arrest me under the Mental Health Act?

If someone has a preexisting condition and a police officer takes actions against them for it – that is what I call discrimination. A person’s mental health background doesn’t matter nor does what hospital they have been to before. What is more important to consider is whether that mental illness has presented itself in whatever situation that’s being investigated.

Again, this would be a perfect time to remind you of the mandate of the Toronto Police Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (click here).

I remember calling up Brenda Osman, the woman from the OIPRD who was assigned to my file, immediately after I received the decision letter from the OIPRD informing me that they disposed my complaint. I wanted to address the issues in the letter and for her to explain the decision-making for disposing of my complaint.

She was, simply put, useless. She had no idea what to do. She told me that the mysterious Panel made their decision and it’s final. She cannot explain further because she doesn’t have the knowledge to defend the letter. She advised me that if I want to take issue with the OIPRD, I should proceed with contacting the Attorney General’s Office.

So that’s it. I lost the lottery. Period.

To Be Continued…

Request For Review Decision Letter From The OIPRD

The above is the scanned letter I received from the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) on 29 April, 2014. The letter informs me that the OIPRD completed their Review of the decision made by the Toronto Police Service.

First of all, let me say that I do not accept their apologies for the delay in sending me the letter. It took them 5 months to produce a Review decision and this is reprehensible. It is especially egregious considering the fact that I made it absolutely clear to them how appalled I was with the Toronto Police Service taking 8 months to produce an investigative report when it should have taken them no more than 120 days.

This office should have been better than that but they ended up doing the exact same thing as the Police did. Where is the proper oversight and where is the leadership in all this? It does not need to take 5 months to review a decision – they haven’t even investigated anything.

Anyway, let’s go through the letter:

It reads that they received the extensive package that I sent them two days after I received the investigative report from the Toronto Police Service. I was incredibly swift in doing this. I poured over the contents of the investigative report and was able to formulate my arguments quickly. The OIPRD considered my review package submissions as the most important component acknowledging that the submissions were “careful” and “thoughtful”.

As I wrote in my other post, I had to spoon-feed them everything. I diligently, all on my own and without a lawyer argued my case. And yet this was no good as they decided to confirm the Police’s decision. I have a strong feeling that these people at the OIPRD do not really understand the Mental Health Act and most importantly, they do not understand what the Toronto Police Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) actually do.

Okay, let’s keep reading…

Right off the bat, they want to assure me that what I went through was indeed an “extremely traumatic experience”. It most certainly was. A Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) train operator counselled me to commit suicide; I was then immediately taken to a mental health facility against my will for reporting what the train operator said to me. I then had to fight for my life in the custody of this facility to clear my name and to be released.

The next paragraph in their letter mentions that they acknowledge my concerns about Detective Nancy Van Veghel. I wrote that she completely “botched” the investigation in my letter to the OIPRD but they say that her investigation was “far from optimal”. Okay… irrespective of the semantics in how her investigation is described, this to me should still mean that we both agree 100% – correct?

Nope. They actually go on to write that even though she botched the investigation, it did not meet a threshold to trigger a completely new investigation, according to the OIPRD. Her investigation was terrible but it was not SO terrible that it would render the whole thing useless. Is that making sense so far to you?

They go on to explain that although the police detective did not address at all the part of my complaint about Constable Mitchell Till erasing key evidence from my recording device that night at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) – the OIPRD claims that it really shouldn’t matter to me as I framed this as merely a “suspicion”.

This is 100% bullshit. No, it was not a suspicion that a file on my recording device was erased that night. It can only be one of two things: it was erased or it was not. Obviously I was recording something that night on the TTC platform and security office. The TTC employees even confirm that I was recording something and you can hear in the audio recording that I was able to recover that I say I wanted to keep my device to “preserve the evidence”.

But after my recording device was confiscated at CAMH I never saw it again until I was allowed to leave the mental health facility. When I looked at it again I saw that a recoding file was indeed erased. This means that the file is still on my device but it’s been corrupted. The file is at zero bytes now when before it had information still loaded on it. Somebody at CAMH erased it. Now, who else would have the motive and the technological ability to erase a recording file from my device? Please note that you cannot delete files from my particular device by simply pressing a button – you’ll need to plug it in on a computer using a USB. It is not beyond the police to have the ability to do this and Constable Mitchell Till had every motive to do it.

This is exactly why I wanted a thorough investigation completed but the police detective failed to even contact any witnesses or speak to any staff at CAMH. The detective completely ignored, believe it or not, my trip to CAMH. It makes no sense. And now these people at the OIPRD are writing nonsense about it just being a suspicion. Ridiculous!

Moreover, in my letter to the OIPRD I let them know that the detective failed to acknowledge a part of my complaint indicating that the police officer might have been in contact with my employer at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Granted that this can fairly be classified as merely a suspicion, however, the reason why I included it in my initial statement of facts is because I was under the impression these people will do a thorough and meticulous investigation. I thought they would not want to leave any stone unturned. There was talk about my place of employment in the audio recording and I just wanted to make sure that he didn’t do anything worse to me that night considering all the other disgusting stuff he’s already done to me.

In hindsight, I would not even include this at all if there is no concrete evidence. Instead, leave this sort of information for a private detective or a lawyer to probe. But I really do not see why a person as to hold back information! All tips are good tips and one never really knows where it might lead. Why not just investigate it? It would have taken a simple phone call to confirm, at the very least. The OIPRD will throw everything at you to prevent investigations and when they do investigate it’s botched or they will touch only the surface.

Anyhow, they go on to write that they acknowledged all the problems I raised about the TTC in my Request for Review package. The TTC employees in their statements lied about me and they gave inconsistent evidence. I had official paperwork that proved them wrong too. The OIPRD says they were concerned about them calling the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team and the way they handled the whole situation.

But, and there is a big BUT – the OIPRD claims that they have no jurisdiction over the TTC. I find this line amusing because nobody is claiming that the OIPRD should take legal action against the TTC because, rightly so, they have no jurisdiction. This doesn’t mean you ignore probing the TTC because any good investigator would investigate anything the police officer had in contact with as it gives the investigation comprehensive oversight.

Now here is the best part!!!!

Anyway – even though they say they acknowledge all these concerns about the TTC, they say that they have to be “mindful of the information that was available to Constable Till at the time”.

Oh…my….God…What does that mean!? Let’s keep reading!

The OIPRD writes:

“As such, the medical records which you have provided to demonstrate that you have previously never been treated at any mental health facility would have been unknown to the officer at the time. He acted on the information that was available at the time, which came from the TTC employees…”

Do you hear that? It’s crickets chirping!

When I first read this I was blown away by the level of stupidity! This line is complete evidence that they did not understand the issues involved in this case (how could they, the investigation was botched!). They completely misread and misunderstood the investigative report.

Here’s what they mean by the quote:

In the investigative report, one the TTC officials gives an asinine statement claiming that he heard from the TTC Transit Enforcement Officers that I was previously taken to a mental health facility by the Toronto Police Service under the Mental Health Act because there was a past incident where I complained about a health hazard on a subway train. This incident happened in August 2012.

The incident this TTC official was referring to did in fact happen, but I was never taken to a mental health facility nor was I ever arrested. There was a health hazard on the train and I brought it to the attention of a TTC employee. The train was subsequently put out-of-service but this was only done after Transit Enforcement Officers arrived onto the scene. I was treated with contempt and rudeness. I ended up lodging a complaint with Toronto Public Health (I will post this later on my blog).

The Transit Enforcement Officers knew me from this prior incident. Again, I was never arrested, never taken to a mental health facility, and the Toronto Police Service was never involved. This TTC official had his facts wrong and lied about me.

This was easy to prove against because all I had to do was produce my health records showing that I have never been to a mental health facility and I provided the record from Toronto Public Health which I obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

The OIPRD read this as if the TTC official repeated this nonsense to Constable Mitchell Till the night he arrested me on 11 September, 2012. He did not! The statement he gave in the investigative report was only given in the investigative report! LOL

Regardless, even if the supervisor did say that I was previously arrested under the Mental Health Act it would have made no difference as the officer would have already known that I was arrested. The police have an internal computer system where these arrests are duly noted!!! LOL

There is no way in hell that the officer could have not known about any prior arrests under the Mental Health Act.

Please also note that my health was never discussed the night I was arrested. Nobody from the TTC told the police anything about my health as I was in the security room with them the whole time (and they wouldn’t know anything about my private health records anyhow). As I stated several times on my blog, the police arrived shortly after I was arrested by Transit Enforcement Officers and I taken away by police less than 20 minutes after their arrival.

The only information the police officer received from the TTC is that I held train doors and that I complained about a train operator counselling me to kill myself – this lead to my arrest because the police officer claimed I was “delusional” to think that a train operator would tell me to kill myself. What I described to him was 100% plausible – it’s not like I claimed I just saw an elephant with pink dots flying. And you must remember that the TTC receives thousands (not hundreds) of complaints from the general public every month (not yearly).

The officer was accompanied by a police nurse as part of the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) and he did in fact get assistance from this woman. I already described this police nurse, Ellen Marchildon, in a previous blog post. Click here.

This police nurse was 100% wrong. This is a woman who had decades long history as a nurse and was working with the police since the inception of the MCIT program in the year 2000. How on Earth can she describe me as “delusional” and suffering from “advanced hallucinations” when this was confirmed by a physician that same night as not true! Innocent mistake? I beg to differ.

And the mental health act states clearly that a person needs to be a threat to themselves or others. The arresting officer admits that I was not a threat to myself or others by writing: “it was unclear if the had thoughts of wanting to harm himself or others”.

And yet I was still arrested in violation of the Mental Health Act, in violation of the mandate and purpose of the MCIT, and in violation of common sense!

There was no “reasonableness” involved anywhere regarding the actions of the Police and the TTC.

What I received from the OIPRD is a botched investigation which took a combined one year and one month to be completed and an incongruous review letter.

Seriously!!!!!???

Request For Review Confirmation Letter

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) received my Request for Review on 15 November, 2013. I received their decision letter on 29 April, 2014 – after much delay.

I called their office a few times near the date I finally received their decision. The investigator assigned to my Review file, Brenda Osman (obviously of no relation!), kept giving me different dates to expect that Review to be completed. It was very similar to the conduct of the Toronto Police Service in that they didn’t honour their own timelines.

It is important to let you know what the Review actually entails. After the Police Service completes their investigation and you are unsatisfied with their conclusions, you have the right to request a Review by the OIPRD. It is imperative that you submit this Review request within 30 days of receiving the investigative report from the police. However, if you were one of those rare people that had your complaint initially investigated by the OIPRD then you are not entitled to a Review.

After the OIPRD receives and approves a Review request it gets transferred to what the OIPRD calls their “Panel”. Their Panel consists of a lawyer and some other individuals within the agency. They basically go through the investigative report and determine if anything wrong happened. They will then determine if another investigation is necessary. If they do determine that another investigation is necessary, they will either carry out this investigation themselves or send it back to the police service (believe it or not – you will then be entitled to a second Review if it comes down to it again!).

Or they may decide to change the decision of the Police Service right then and there. For example, they might change the decision from “less serious” to “serious”, or even “unsubstantiated” to “substantiated”. Don’t get your hopes up on this ever happening, though.

Far too often what they will do is just confirm the Police decision. Once they do this then it’s over for you. Your file is closed – nothing more you can do with the OIPRD.

The bottom-line is that the Review request does not immediately mean another investigation at all.

The above scanned letter in this post is the confirmation letter I received from Ms. Brenda Osman after I submitted my Request for Review to their office at 655 Bay Street. It reads that the Police made their decision on 1 November, 2013, but they actually mailed it out to me on the 4 November, 2013.

I will post the decision letter from the OIPRD in the next post. Stay tuned.

You’d literally need to be the size of a grasshopper…

Detective Nancy Van Veghel of the Toronto Police Service deemed my complaint to be “less serious” and chose to classify it as “unsubstantiated”. Ignoring the fact that the arresting officer, Mitchell Till, is quoted as saying: “it was unclear if he had thoughts of wanting to harm himself or others”, the detective still argued that his actions were warranted and lawful.

It is important to remind you what the law is involving my case. Here again is the Mental Health Act section17:

Action by police officer

17.Where a police officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a person is acting or has acted in a disorderly manner and has reasonable cause to believe that the person,

(a) has threatened or attempted or is threatening or attempting to cause bodily harm to himself or herself;

(b) has behaved or is behaving violently towards another person or has caused or is causing another person to fear bodily harm from him or her; or

(c) has shown or is showing a lack of competence to care for himself or herself,

and in addition the police officer is of the opinion that the person is apparently suffering from mental disorder of a nature or quality that likely will result in,

(d) serious bodily harm to the person;

(e) serious bodily harm to another person; or

(f) serious physical impairment of the person,

and that it would be dangerous to proceed under section 16, the police officer may take the person in custody to an appropriate place for examination by a physician. 2000, c. 9, s. 5.

In the report, she only specifically cites part (c) of the Act, claiming that I showed a lack of competence to care for myself and that this would have caused serious bodily harm to myself. Detective Nancy Van Veghel wrote that I caused a 13 minute delay and that holding open a train door was an “extremely dangerous act” as I had “straddled the gap”.

First of all, let me say that the delay caused was not my fault and was completely out of my control. In fact, I would have loved it if authorities showed up much quicker and resolved the problem correctly. They failed to do these both.

After the train operator counselled me to kill myself, I basically held the train door and told him to summon appropriate authorities so that I can report him. When I did this he had not yet pressed the button to close the train doors and would have not immediately done so even if I stepped all the way in or out of the train.

There is a small gap…um…I can’t believe I have to explain this…anyway, there is a small gap between the platform and the train. This gap poses no threat to the public. Every train has a “Mind the Gap” sign on it but I have never seen anyone have issues with this gap in all the many years I have used the subway. The worst I’ve seen is somebody in a wheelchair get slightly stuck for a bit before having to wiggle their way out.

You’d literally need to be the size of a grasshopper to fall into this small gap. There is no way in hell it can pose a threat to you!

And the train doors are not strong enough to crush you even if the operator were to close the doors on you. In fact, it is mechanically impossible for the train to move at all if the doors are open, and the doors automatically revert to its pockets if pushed back for too long. Furthermore, if you’re a frequent user of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) then I don’t doubt that you have at least tried one time to run into the train once the door chimes have started. The train makes a sound to notify people that the doors are about to close. Torontonians, including myself in the past, run towards the train and push their way in even as the doors are closing.

This is normal, harmless, frequent and completely innocuous. There is no way in hell that it would be considered by a reasonable and independent person to be an “extremely dangerous act”! It was nothing but hyperbolic nonsense spewing from this police detective to protect her guy in the expense of reason and justice.

Nobody, anywhere in their statements has claimed I was acting erratically, deranged, violent, uncooperative, and everything else you would expect from somebody suffering a mental breakdown of some sort. On the contrary, I was completely calm, articulate, alert, attentive, and cooperative. The medical exam at CAMH confirmed this and the audio recording confirms it too as you can hear it for yourself how I was conducting myself.

All I did was report somebody told me to kill myself as this is an illegal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada and extremely disgusting. Reporting it was an act of taking care of myself and having self-respect. I wanted appropriate authorities to take reasonable action against it. So how on Earth can they classify this as behaving in a “disorderly manner”?

Apparently, this legal term “disorderly manner” is what they call a catch-all term. Meaning it can be interpreted however way the police want. It’s a term that means everything which therefore makes it mean nothing at all.

I can tell you one thing, instinctively, that the spirit of the act was never created to include what I did be classified as “disorderly”. I peacefully modified the expected movement of that train that night, but it was for a good reason! It’s shocking how this can be distorted to make it sound criminal as I was arrested under the Trespass to Property Act initially by the TTC Transit Enforcement Officers for engaging in a “prohibited activity”. The prohibited activity being calling for assistance!

This is a dangerous precedent to set! It discourages people from reporting being harassed, sexually assaulted, and abused in any other way while on the train! Let me tell you one thing, I’ll never ask a TTC operator for help again or press any device on the train to summon assistance as I have already experienced compounded abuse by doing this.

Please note that I was never fined/charged for this supposed transgression by the TTC even though the Toronto Police Service officer placed the option on the table for them to do so. The TTC is also inconsistent on when they choose to arrest people under this Trespass to Property Act.

In less than 20 minutes after the Toronto Police arrived onto the scene, I was escorted over to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) of the Toronto Police has a mandate to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. Only truly “self-evident” and seriously ill individuals are removed from the community, arrested and transported to a hospital. For them to have spent such a short time with me and took me to a hospital meant that my case was very serious.

But I already posted the justification the arresting officer used to make the arrest under the Mental Health Act. It makes no sense whatsoever and it is a stark contrast to the assessment conducted by a physician and medical student at CAMH. It’s not even close!

Obviously, upon receiving this investigative report, I poured through the contents of it and wrote up my arguments in support of a Review by the OIPRD. I submitted my Request for Review to the OIPRD two days after receiving the investigative report.

The package I sent them included a long letter, medical records, documents from different agencies and a copy of the audio recording. I tried to make it as clear as possible for them and went through everything diligently. I basically spoon-fed them.

I delivered this package in-person at their offices at 655 Bay Street. Here’s a fun fact: their office is about a 3 minute walk from the Toronto Police Headquarters ha-ha. Both figuratively and literally they are the same.

Unfortunately, just like the Toronto Police (like two peas in a pod!) they were late at getting back to me. 5 months later I received a decision from the OIPRD and a two-page letter explaining their decision. Wait until you read what this letter says!!

To Be Continued…

What Is The OIPRD?

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) opened and began receiving complaints from Ontarians on 19 October, 2009. It initially did not receive many complaints in its first fiscal year but the complaints have since then increased. There was also an uptick following the G20 fiasco in 2010 – which resulted in the OIPRD producing its first systemic report.

The office receives about 3,500 complaints per fiscal year. The OIPRD decides to screen out about half of those complaints every year, which is an enormous amount of complaints that don’t even get investigated at all.

Some of the reasons for screening out complaints include the following: “frivolous”, “no breach”, “over six months”, “vexatious”, “no jurisdiction”, “better dealt with under another act”, and “not in the public interest”.

Of the complaints the OIPRD actually accepts, it decides that 93% of those complaints are to be sent to the police service the complaint is about. The rest, the very tiny percentage, are retained by the OIPRD to investigate. The cases the OIPRD chooses to investigate themselves are arbitrarily chosen, although they do claim that it is often the more “complex” cases that are retained. They do not define what “complex” means exactly. They do say that these particular cases often times involve more serious allegations.

The OIPRD also notes that they retain cases for investigation “if there is a possibility of conflict of interest issues at the local level”. I find this line particularly comical because ALL complaints sent to the police to investigate have a possibility of conflict of interest! What purpose is there in having a so-called independent body investigate police complaints when the vast majority is sent back to the police to do the work? It’s highly misleading and undermines the legitimacy of the whole process. Hello! Newsflash!

But to ease our concerns the OIPRD has come up with a plan! Wait for it…

They claim that when an investigation is sent to the police, the OIPRD “manages and oversees the complaint”. They write in their 2012-2013 annual report (p.20):

“Case coordinators track the referred investigation as it progresses and coordinate with police service liaison officers as well as complainants to ensure that all directions, timelines and notice requirements are met. Case coordinators also receive and review interim investigative updates from the police service and work together with our Legal Services Unit and Director if issues arise”

This might read very well but it doesn’t actually translate to real results. Here’s the reality on ground and not just some lofty ideal that they often speak about. The reality is that they give the police a template of how an investigative report should look like and what it should contain. It must contain a statement from the complainant, a statement from the police officer, statements from witnesses, description of the actual investigation, what laws are applicable for the case, analysis, and conclusion. My investigative report, completed by the Toronto Police Service, ended up being a mere 10-page report (4 of those pages is a verbatim copy of my statement of facts).

The OIPRD also expects an update or progress report from the police 45 days into the investigation of a conduct complaint (60 days for policy and service complaints) – this update is also given to the complainant.

The OIPRD expects the investigation to be completed within 120 days because the Police Services Act specifies that a police officer needs to be given notice of the decision made by the OIPRD 6 months after an investigation is started – otherwise the officer cannot be subjected to a disciplinary hearing (which is basically a police court and the OIPRD is not involved in hearings).

If the police do not comply with these timelines, this can be escalated to the Director of the OIPRD, Gerry McNeilly.

Um…it never does.

And according to the Performance Measures Chart in their 2011-2012 and their 2012-2013 reports, the OIPRD makes it known that the police hardly ever achieve the expected targets. Majority of progress reports are not produced 45 days into an investigation (if at all), and only just over half achieve the target of having the investigative reports completed within 120 days.

For example, in my case, I never received a progress report at all. And my investigative report took 8 months to be completed!

The OIPRD claims to have a secure case management system that tracks all complaints from beginning to the end. Their computerized system is supposed to flag any noncompliance to the caseworker assigned to your file and notify the police immediately for noncompliance. Of course, this doesn’t happen. Their computer system is flawed. It never happened for me. It had to take me to actually call them up myself to flag the noncompliance.

So it actually turns out that they OIPRD does NOT oversee and manage the police in their investigations. Why even bother to “oversee” the police when you can ultimately do it yourself anyway? This is often the case with the OIPRD, it looks official and everything but it really isn’t. It’s a toothless paper tiger masquerading as a legitimate agency made up of ordinary people and is there for the public. They also have a tendency do sloppy work as I found some numbers don’t add up in their reports.

Anyway, if your complaint is “unsubstantiated” (the vast majority are) by the police, then the only other option left is to ask for a “Review” by the OIPRD. The OIPRD accepts all Reviews requested within 30 days of the complainant receiving the investigative report from the police. This is the last option you get.

Yet again, (it is very formulaic) the vast majority of Reviews by the OIPRD only result in confirming the police’s decision. It’s as if they have a quota system in place – as if the OIPRD received a directive from the Attorney General’s Office to limit the number they have to accept. It’s ludicrous how tiny the numbers are that work in the public’s favour. It’s like winning the lottery.

Once the OIPRD decides your fate – it’s over for you. There are no more options left for you, at least not with the OIPRD. The next thing to do (I think the best thing to do) is to sue in a court of law, where evidence is heard and tested. Though, this is a very expensive option. In addition, you may contact the Attorney General’s Office, because the OIPRD is, after all, a government agency to complain about the OIPRD. You may also feel free to get in contact with the Ontario Ombudsman (who’s actually an officer of the Legislature so he can claim independence with a lot more confidence!). However, please note that the Ontario Ombudsman cannot, by law, investigate the OIPRD at this time. It doesn’t hurt to try and register your complaint nevertheless.

In fact, people have already been contacting the Ontario Ombudsman. In a Toronto Star article, published in June 2012, it notes that the Ombudsman received 60 complaints about the OIPRD since its inception. The complaints capture exactly what I have gone through myself about a year after the article was published – so little as changed:

“These complaints generally raise allegations about flawed investigations, failure to respond or communicate with complainants, lack of transparency, customer-service issues and questions about how decisions on certain cases were made.”

Quite honestly, I would dismantle this government agency. They’re useless! In fact, I rather have the police investigate the police – this removes the façade we are currently dealing with. The public is being misled to think that they have a legitimate oversight body to adequately address complaints, this is not true!! Let it be known exactly for what it is and what it does.

In that same Toronto Star article Gerry McNeilly claims that it was the worst day of his life when he had to produce a report on the G20 debacle. Just further highlights how toothless he and his office are. This man has no passion for what he does, instead he has to be dragged kicking and screaming to produce lackluster results. Ridiculous!

Move aside, sir, and let somebody else complete the work properly with vigour and competency.

Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP) CAMH Form

The above is the scanned Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP) form provided by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), which was required of the officer to complete it.

As you can clearly see that the form provides the arresting officer, Mitchell Till, an extensive list of possibilities that he could have observed of me. These possibilities include the following:

– “Attempted to hurt or kill self”

– “Talked of hurting or killing self”

– “Sad expression”

– “Evidence of drug use”

– “Uncommunicative”

– “Physically threatened others”

– “Verbally threatened others”

– “Acted belligerent, hostile or argumentative”

– “Seemed unable to care for self”

– “Reports hearing voices”

– “Appears confused/disoriented”

– “Extremely rapid, slow or illogical speech”

None, I repeat, none of these observations were checked off by the officer. Evidently, he did not notice any of these apply to me.

Instead, this dumbass, checked off only that I “placed self in dangerous situations” and “overly suspicious and or paranoid”.

There is also another section on the same form that allows the officer to write further observations or provide further information. He writes claiming that I’m suffering from “paranoid delusions” and, get this, “advanced hallucinations”!

He also claims that I told him that I was in a crisis and that I apparently “touched upon” being suicidal (whatever that means).

Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to scan and post the officer’s full statement in the investigative report completed by the Toronto Police Detective at this time. I don’t want to be tangled in legal woes, so I will basically disclose to you the gist of it (it’s not that long of a statement).

This is what he wrote: “It was unclear if he had thoughts of wanting to harm himself or others”

He also wrote that he arrived on the scene with the police nurse, Ellen Marchildon, because he received a radio call that I was holding train doors. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) made the call after TTC Enforcement Officers arrested me under the Trespass to Property Act.

Upon arriving and meeting with me, the police officer claims that I presented as “paranoid” and “delusional”.

He claims that the TTC train operator telling me to kill myself did not “apparently happen”.

The police officer claims that I was unable to articulate myself. He claims that he asked me “basic” and “direct” questions and I couldn’t speak properly. He says that I appeared to be under “internal stimuli” – something that he never wrote down in the observations section of the EDP form. You’ll think that this would be pertinent information to disclose to the mental health facility!

He finishes by claiming that I presented as impulsive and unpredictable and that he was concerned for my safety. This lead to my arrest. He also states that he received information that I called the distress centre from the TTC.

To Be Continued(!)…

6 pages from this woman and it took her 8 months…

So on the 13^th of November, 2013 I finally received the investigative report from the Toronto Police. It was like pulling teeth because they took 8 months and exceeded two deadlines before mailing me the report.

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) is supposed to have a computerized system that flags all noncompliance. Evidently, their computer system is highly flawed because it had to take me to actually contact them in October 2013 to complain about not having received the report from the police that they finally took action against them. The OIPRD is a joke – plainly put.

In contrast, two days after receiving the investigative report from the Toronto Police, I submitted my Request for Review to the OIPRD. Of course, I’m also restricted by a 30 day deadline to request this review – I bet if I exceeded this deadline there would be severe consequences.

Anyhow, before I tell you more about the Review and what happened with the Review by the OIPRD – let me first fill you in on what exactly is in the investigative report completed by the Toronto Police.

There are a total of 10 pages in the investigative report but 4 of those pages are just verbatim copies of my initial written submission to the OIPRD via my legal agent at Osgoode Hall Law School. The rest is new stuff from Detective Nancy Van Veghel. She concludes the report by choosing not to “substantiate” my complaint. Isn’t this hilarious: 6 pages from this woman and it took her 8 months to complete it.

This is what she did. She took a written statement from the Toronto Police Constable, Mitchell Till, who I complained about. She also took statements from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) officers, a TTC official, and finally the TTC train operator who encouraged me to kill myself. The rest of the report consists of her limited analysis and conclusion. That’s it – six pages.

There is no statement from the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) nurse, Ellen Marchildon, because it states that she retired and is no longer affiliated with the Toronto Police Service (I don’t see how this is a justification for not having her statement as part of the report nonetheless). There is no surveillance tape evidence from TTC premises or at the mental health facility. There are no internal communications (both electronic and written) from the TTC or the police. And there are no witness statements from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In fact, she completely ignored my arrival to CAMH – I kid you not!

I complained that my MP3 player was tampered with at CAMH by the police officer and a recording file was erased from it. She totally ignored this. Nowhere in the report does this even come up – ever.

Obviously, if she completely ignored half of the story (my arrival to CAMH), it means that she was not in contact with the physician and medical student who saw me. She did not obtain my health record from CAMH, the same record I already obtained on my own. That health record proved that I was completely healthy as confirmed by the medical professionals.

The records from CAMH also included a document called an Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP) form. This form was required to be completed by the arresting officer, Mitchell Till, on the night of my arrest. It is an important piece of evidence, which obviously she willingly did not know about. It’s all very absurd!

It was a completely botched investigation by the police! I was at first taken aback by the lack of respect and attention paid to this investigation. But as I kept reading the report, I noticed that the statements made by the police officer and the TTC employees actually only works to further support me.

First of all, let me finally post the that EDP form that officer had to fill out the night he arrested me and took me to CAMH and I will post this in conjunction with the statement he gave in the investigative report. These two pieces of evidence describe his reasoning to arrest me that night.

Remember that the police have authority to arrest people and take them to a mental health facility under the Ontario Mental Health Act. Their arrest can only be justified through this act. My complaint to the OIPRD was that the officer’s arrest of me was unjustified and unlawful as it did not meet the standards set out by the Mental Health Act.

Now, why did the Constable Mitchell Till of the MCIT arrest me that night? I simply reported that a TTC train operator told me to kill myself and this lead to my arrest. You can hear in the audio recording I already posted on this blog , and you can see in the medical documents from CAMH I also posted on this blog that I was completely healthy.

So let’s finally see what the officer’s justification was in his own words. Stay tuned to the next blog post where it will be displayed!

To Be Continued…

OIPRD Extention Letter

The above is the scanned Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) extension letter. The Toronto Police Service, Detective Nancy Van Veghel of 52 Division, was required to produce a investigative report no later than July 17th, 2013.

It was only after I brought it to the attention of the OIPRD that they then contacted the police and asked them to comply with their 120 day time limit. This is something the OIPRD should have done on their own without me having to call them up – so much for oversight.

And, guess what, the police service exceeded even this new deadline! I received the investigative report in the mail on the 13th of November, 2013!

Read the post about this by clicking here

Detective Nancy Van Veghel Demanded I leave The Station At Once…

It took Detective Nancy Van Veghel of Toronto Police 52 Division 8 months to produce an investigative report when it should have taken no more than 120 days. Much of this time waiting on the report was probably the worst period of my life after the day of my arrest.

I became very isolated from my normal activities and lost my sense of self. For me, my education was something I took very seriously. Everything I had I worked very hard for – nothing is handed to you on a silver platter when you’re in my position in life. When you don’t come from much then education becomes your best way to move up in society and make something of yourself. My studies were what kept me busy and was something I was proud of, not necessarily by anyone’s definition but rather by my own standards.

So as you can imagine during those 8 months not doing anything but being enveloped in emotionally exhausting and bleak legal matters took its toll on me. I was now in massive student loan debt because I dropped out of school. I had no employment and was in bed a lot at home. It was a horrible period in my life. I don’t think anything I write can adequately express just how bad it was on me.

And not having answers and closure to my legal problems was keeping me very anxious. I constantly thought about everything that happened to me. The night of my arrest replayed in my mind over and over again. I was just really worried about everything and it ruined my life so I was hoping I can get complete justice to rectify my problems.

Of course, though, I was not naïve. I knew that since the police were investigating my complaint I wouldn’t see much come from it. I was correct. This police detective took forever (it seriously felt like FOREVER!) to complete her investigation. I was so desperate for answers!

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) assigned the investigation to the detective in March 2013. In late May 2013, there was finally an in-person interview scheduled with the detective. At this point, the detective only had my initial submission letter and nothing else.

I was accompanied by my legal agent (a law student from Osgoode Hall Law School) to meet with the detective at 52 Division. The meeting took about an hour and I basically went over what happened the day of my arrest. Detective Nancy Van Veghel asked me if I would agree to an “informal resolution”. An informal resolution is when a police officer and the victim meet face-to-face to discuss the issues together with a facilitator also in the room. Both parties have to agree to this. Of course, I did not want this and I refused.

By the way, it was at this meeting that the detective informed me that the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) nurse, Ellen Marchildon, had retired.

It was a pretty uninteresting meeting. Nothing substantial happened at all. I ended my interview with the detective and left the police premises immediately after. Nothing was exchanged between us. She didn’t ask me for any evidence or initiate another conversation between us again.

I was under the impression that a thorough, meticulous investigation was commencing. Nope, nothing like that at all. In fact, I was in the dark regarding this investigation for 99.9% of it. I never heard from her or my legal agent about anything. No more interviews, discussions, exchanges of paperwork or evidence. It was just silent. Absolutely silent.

By early July 2013, I contacted my legal agent and asked her about updates to my file and she was as clueless about it as me. The law student contacted the detective but the detective apparently failed to contact her back about anything, and the detective kept pushing back deadlines on when she would wrap-up the investigation.

Anyway, I parted ways with my legal agent by the end of July as their services to me came to an end. This resulted in me being completely on my own and I took on full responsibility in all future interactions with the detective. Any phones calls, emails, and letters would come directly to me.

If you haven’t already noticed, since it’s now July 2013 it means that the 120 day deadline to complete investigation, as required by OIPRD, had now passed! At the time, though, I was not made aware of this important fact. The law student also neglected to pursue this deadline.

Anyhow, by August 2013, I was instinctively fed-up with all the waiting and no contact with the detective whatsoever. The last time I heard from her was in that May interview. I had so much to give her and so much more to say. I was concerned about how the heck she could do a reasonable investigation when I’m almost completely taken out of the picture – and I’m the complainant! It made no sense.

So I called the detective up myself. This time, I didn’t wait around for her to initiate anything with me, as any good detective would, I instead insisted that I meet with her again in-person to at least hand over my audio recording at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). This is a crucial piece of evidence, I reiterated this fact.

Not long after my call, I made my way to 52 Division to give her the audio recording. When I got to the station, she invited me to a room. She looked like a drowned rat. Her appearance was not professional.

We spoke very briefly about the case some more. I then told her to “do your job” and get things done as I didn’t understand what was taking her so long. And the questions she was asking me at this meeting made me concerned about how much she already got done. The questions seemed like stuff she should already have known by now!

I wasn’t even being rude – believe you me, I could have been so much more spirited! But when I told her to “do your job”, she became irate with me and demanded I leave the police station at once. She also claimed that she was indeed doing her job.

I was blown away by her disgusting behaviour. She knew that she was dealing with a sensitive file and she was well aware that I was someone who suffered emotional trauma over everything that happened to me. Never have I received sensitively, compassion, or tactful interactions with this woman. She was always rude and inappropriate with me. And she treated me like I was a little kid that she can talk down to. Her kicking me out the station over nothing really summed up just how nasty she was to me.

By the way, I was 100% correct when I told her to “do your job” because she did exceed the 120 day time limit and, as you will later see, the OIPRD confirmed that her investigation was botched. And yet this BITCH (pardon my expression but it is suitable here!) had the audacity to kick me out!! The nerve of this woman!

Anyway, I had one more telephone conversation with her in September 2013 to inquire about when the investigation was going to be completed. She told me that she put my investigation on the “back-burner” and that she expects to be done by the end of the month.

October came by and there was still nothing from her! That was it! I never contacted her again!

For the first time, I contacted the OIPRD directly on October 7^th, 2013. As I used to delegate this to my legal agent, I now took it upon myself to research the OIPRD. It is at this time I finally found out that the investigation should have taken no more than 120 days and it was confirmed to me by Federico dela Torre, my caseworker at the OIPRD.

The caseworker confirmed that an investigative report should have been given to me no later than July 17^th, 2013. He then told me he was going to contact the police and he will get back to me. He never did get back to me – I had to call him up again.

When I did call him up again, I found out that the OIPRD granted the police an extension to complete the investigation. The new date was set for October 18^th, 2013.

Guess what!?! The police exceeded even this new deadline for the completion of the investigation! Seriously.

I periodically kept calling back the caseworker to find out what was happening with the investigation and then finally I was told on November 4^th, 2013 the police mailed the investigation report to me. They exceeded the new deadline by 17 days!

I received the investigative report in the mail on November 13^th, 2013. Surely, after all this hassle and time, this would mean that something big was going on behind the scenes – right!? Nope! Nothing was happening at all. I received a 6 page report consisting of statements from different people and her analysis. That’s it. There were also missing components. She concluded that my allegations are “unsubstantiated”.

8 months for that (and it gets worse!)??

For your information, this woman is the highest paid detective at the Toronto Police Service, collecting $167,140.69 from the public in the year 2013.

To Be Continued…