Prince George, B.C.- Richard Rosenthal, the  Civilian Director of the new Independent Investigations Office of B.C.  (IIO) says  he is optimistic he will have his office  staffed and ready to  take on its first investigation by this summer.

Speaking  on the Meisner program this morning on CFISFM,  Rosenthal says  having the office ready for work this simmer is an ambitious timeline “What I’m really going to have to do is  as we get closer and closer, I’m going to have to evaluate where we are, and make sure  the date that we’re set to start is  one that is  practical and is one where we can do the job right. Because the reality is, if  we start  30 days later than people anticipate, then yes, people will be concerned,  but the reality is, in five years, what they’re going to remember is  not  whether we started in July 1^st or  August 1^st, or September 1^st, what they’re going to remember is whether or not we did a good job.”

His office will be responsible for police incidents which result in “serious harm or death”.  Rosenthal says the term “serious harm” is a little vague, but is focused on physical injury  “It is  a bit of a difficult definition, but it is one we’re going to have to  really focus on to figure out   what cases we will be taking on and  what cases we won’t be able to take.”   He says he wants to be sure police are not “under notifying” his office about such incidents “If it is within our jurisdiction we need to know about it  and we need to go out and do our investigation.”

Rosenthal says the Provincial Government was wise to give the  IIO a two year period  after which it will be reviewed “I think at that point  we are really going to know what is our workload, what  are  our resources and can we expand  the jurisdiction to include more than  these  ( serious harm and death) types of incidents?    There has been a call for us to investigate sexual assault cases  and  cases involving psychological harm.  One of the things I have  an issue with is,  if an officer intentionally shoots at a person and misses,  we don’t have jurisdiction, and yet,  the intent is the  same, the use of force is the same, the only  difference is luck and marksmanship .”    He says at some point  his office should be allowed to investigate what he calls “ no hit shootings” because  "they are very significant uses of lethal force". 

“We really want to start off focused.  We can’t afford to make mistakes in our initial investigations, we have to do them well, so it’s better to start off with this focus and then over time, we can expand our jurisdiction as we improve ourselves.”

The search for qualified investigators  is  underway  “We have  finished the posting for  the position of Director of Investigations which is our most senior  investigative spot and we’re in the process of interviewing the  finalist candidates for that position.”  The requirements for any “investigative” applicants to  work  with the IIO is that  the candidate must not have served  as a police officer in B.C.  for at least  the past 5 years.   In all,  the IIO is  looking for 24 qualified personnel.  He envisions an office that will have about 60 people which will include 5 investigative teams.  While for the short term, there will be  ex-police  investigating police, over time, as  the civilians gain the necessary experience, they will be promoted  to  positions which will eventually lead to a pure, civilian  investigations agency.

Although he has not yet had an opportunity to visit  the Special Investigative Unit in Ontario, he has  spoken with the head of that unit which has been  in place for  two decades.  There is much to be learned  from the SIU says Rosenthal, as mistakes  that unit has made,  provide valuable lessons that  should help his own team  avoid some of the growing pains .  He says the key lesson  is to  ensure  there are enough resources to do the job.  “They were horribly under-resourced, they were incapable of doing the  job they were given with the budget and staff  provided and  the number one thing we’re  looking out for is to  make sure we have the staff,  the training and the capability to do the job right.”

One of the  major challenges  Rosenthal  sees in British Columbia, is the geography.  “It’s even a greater challenge than even Ontario or Alberta, its  one of the areas where we’re going to have to  be making compromises in the sense that it would be impossible, with 30 investigators, to get  to every place in  the province within hours of an incident.  There  will be incidents in the winter, or in remote areas  or where it’s difficult to get to, where it could take us  many hours if not a day or two to get to the location” As a result, he says the IIO will have to work with the RCMP  to create protocols to ensure that the scenes are appropriately secured, or that evidence is appropriately obtained.

He says  in a year or two, once there is more  data on their workload, he  would like to  take a look at the  feasibility of creating a satellite office that would be in a place where  it could assist the IIO in getting  resources  to  those difficult to reach locations  sooner.

Rosenthal  wants an open and transparent  process, however,  he says B.C. has privacy laws which may limit  the extent to which he can publicly report  on instances where  charges are not laid.  “I believe  providing the public with as much information as possible on those cases is the best public policy, so that’s my intent,  to provide as much transparency as possible, however there are laws relating to privacy within the Province and Federally, which I am going to have to comply with, so right now  I can’t say what these  reports will look like, but I can say I have every intent  and desire to provide as much transparency  in the process as is permitted by law.”

Since  his  appointment  was announced, Rosenthal  says the welcome  to the job and to the Province has been warm,  but  he knows  that  will likely  change “ The honey moon will end as soon  as I make my first decision.  The reality is, these are  very controversial cases and incidents and what I do,  is I try to go  where the facts lead us and make a decision that is as fair as possible .  I’m hoping that 90% of the people, as they look at the decisions we make, will agree they are well founded, well reasoned and then there will always  be a percentage on either side that will be critical.”

He says he developed a mantra of sorts during his time in Los Angeles “You are going to be criticized no matter what you do, so you might as well be criticized for doing the right thing.”