CPC Completes Probe of RCMP Shooting Death of Gregory Matters
Prince George, B.C.- The Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP has completed its investigation into the RCMP shooting death of Greg Matters, but the final report is still several weeks away.
Matters was shot to death in September of 2012, at a rural property in Pineview, on the east side of Prince George.
The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is now finalizing its report which will be submitted to the Chair for review. That doesn’t mean the report will be public anytime soon.
The Chair is expected to begin his review by mid September and make decisions on what, if any, recommendations will be made with respect to the RCMP’s actions in the death of Greg Matters.
The report will then be provided to the RCMP Commissioner for his response. There is no telling how long it might take for the RCMP Commissioner to submit a response.
The final report from the CPC will only be released after the RCMP Commissioner has submitted his formal reply to the report, outlining which findings the RCMP do or don’t agree with, and which recommendations will be , or may already have been, implemented. If there are recommendations that will not be implemented, the report from the RCMP Commissioner will explain why.
This response from the RCMP will be part of the final report when it is released to the public.
The case has been under a great deal of scrutiny, especially since it was learned Matters suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a direct result of his service in the Canadian Armed Forces.
The Independent Investigations Office investigated the shooting and concluded there were no grounds for criminal charges against the officers involved.
But there was testimony at the Coroner’s Inquest into Matters’ death that conflicted with the IIO’s report. According to the IIO, Matters had been shot in the chest, while testimony at the inquest made it very clear he had been shot in the back.
The IIO reviewed its handling of the incident and came back saying the discrepancy was due to “unclear language”. Four days later, the IIO would call for an independent administrative review of how it handled the investigation. The results of that review have not yet been released.
Comments
The hardest part of all this is that no matter who you believe is responsible whether there was justification or not in the shooting and whether or not it could be handled differently is the fact that somebody died right or wrong it happened its how its dealt with in the future is what is at stake.
I don’t think the family will ever be happy with a result unless it hangs every police officer alive, and somehow I doubt that will suffice either..
It is regretable Greg died..
Seems like a big cover up. What really happened, we will never know the truth. They run a pretty tight group, Thus they can do pretty much what they need to do.
Talk about splitting up a family. I guess, this something where a couple of generations down, children wonder why we don’t talk to the other siblings.
The whole situation is regrettable, but let’s remember that Mr. Matters was no angel. He was well known to make threats to the RCMP.
What’s sad is people using Greg Matters death to cop bash.
Kind of like all the cop bashing from tasering to death that poor guy who held up the stapler in a threatening manner hey JB? Too bad the RCMP aren’t forced to wear google cams so we would know what really happened. But we do know from the Robert Dziekański case that the police look after each and some will lie on the stand to do so.
So did Greg have an axe when he was shot in the back. Or he might of had one? Will we ever know the truth!
Cameras might be a good idea. Then people can really see what kinds of people cops have to deal with on a day to day basis. You might really lose your faith in humanity then.
He Spoke how can it be a cover up….
people wanted, asked for and got an independant organization investigating the police, and now they got it in the form of the Independent Investigations Office, and The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, those same people now don’t want to accept their findings… WHY?
What do they want … a police linch party organization?
Have their been bad apples in the RCMP.. yes
Are there still some there … I think so…
Will there be more… probably…
what labor group hasn’t had bad apples….
But not having a police force is worse than having one…
I had had periodic dealigs withe h police from time to time over the years… can’t think of once I was treated badly, or detained for a lengthy period of time, not once did I give them a reason too either…they are doing a tough and it seems for the most part thankless job, work with them and people will be a lot happier….
You bet JB but don’t forget those cameras expose both sides of the story. But I guess they would probably tamper with the footage anyway when they screwed up again. Faith in humanity is sketchy already JB.
Yes, NoWay, people will subscribe to conspiracy theories no matter what. Conspiracy theories are exciting, the truth is quite often more mundane.
NoWay, you can’t possibly think using non-lethal force is worse or the same as lethal force with a gun. He was throwing around computer monitors in the waiting room, perfectly sane people do that you know. Police used a non lethal tool at their disposal to end a conflict quickly which they were trained to do. 99.9 percent of all people get up and walk away in handcuffs, for some reason this time turned out different.
Like the girl spraying bear mace around, the teen stabbing his case worker, these are just normal happenings in your world.
Shooting him for running at them holding a stapler is criminal. Or shooting a lone kid in a bus with a knife. And all those are dealt with accordingly. Shooting someone advancing with a hatchet? Not my call, I wasn’t there to see the situation, and neither were you.
5 against one! Multiple taser jolts. Oh the big scary stapler! And they lied! Did Greg have a hatchet? We will never know!
You wanted them to go one on one in a boxing match? The rest could form a circle around the two duking it out
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