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When the police forget themselves – part 1.

A seminal study conducted 5 decades ago by social and political scientist James Q. Wilson still stands as the authoritative work on police departmental styles. He classified the approaches of police work into three categories:

  • Watchman

  • Legalistic

  • Service

Legalistic and service are more or less self-explanatory. The former concerns the enforcement of the letter of the law and the latter deals with police work that seeks to meet the needs of the community. The watchman style of police work is more nuanced and can therefore give rise to outcomes that are more unpredictable. It dates back to an era before the advent of street lights, to a time when crimes were facilitated under the cover of darkness. Unlike the other two styles, there is a considerable degree of discretion to the watchman approach, which can become corrupt if handled without due care and attention.


The watchman style is more prevalent in rural areas and small towns. It is also more common in non-professional, partisan political cultures. This can be attributed in part to the unconventional functions the police are sometimes expected to perform in relation to the limited availability of resources. Under the watchman style of police work, officers are conditioned to place high importance on maintaining overall public order and as a result they will gauge the seriousness of an offense based on its immediate consequences. Unfortunately, the discretionary nature of this approach can result in a selective application of punitive measures, which in the worst of cases can result in an officer using their authority outside the rule of law.


At its worst the watchman style has been embodied in popular culture by bumbling fictional characters like Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.


In real-life, however, it is no joking matter.


The incident on the subway escalator is a textbook case of the watchman style of policing gone awry because it includes the following elements:

  • use of differential treatment;

  • application of colour of law;

  • violation of charter rights;

  • use of excessive force;

  • destruction of evidence;

  • padding of official police reports.


The last two points will be examined in-depth in a separate blog entry since they constitute acts of malfeasance at the administrative level. While they are a matter of court record, it is worth stressing that the mandate of the presiding judge and the purpose of the court proceeding was not to assess any wrongdoing on the part of the police, but rather to determine if I was guilty of the charges against me. As a result, the police thus far have been spared any formal verdict of wrongdoing. The purpose of my challenge to the Supreme Court of Canada is to overturn a lower court finding that the police of Laval and the STM were not civilly liable for punitive damages for abuse of power.


When it comes to our judicial system, it is important to distinguish the division of roles and powers between the police, the prosecution and the judiciary:

  • the police is responsible for the prevention and investigation of crime, along with the maintenance of public order;

  • the prosecution decides what charges will be prosecuted in court based on the likelihood of a conviction and whether or not it is in the public interest;

  • the judiciary is bestowed with the power to interpret and apply the law in concordance with the constitution.

All too frequently we, as laypeople, attribute powers to the police that are simply not theirs to wield. The discretionary powers afforded police officers in the watchman style can lead to rash decisions based on little more than hypothetical suppositions and predilections for authoritarianism.


In addition to the police debacle in the metro, the city of Laval has also had to contend with several highly embarrassing incidents in recent years where the watchman approach turned unnecessarily fatal.


When an inexperienced Laval police officer was shot and killed through a door she was attempting to kick-in outside of any warrant, probable cause or emergency situation, both the province's commission on workplace health and safety and the coroner’s office declared the attempted forced entry to be not only inappropriate and dangerous, but also based on an inaccurate analysis of the situation.1 As a direct result of the tragedy some 500 officers were required to undergo in-service training on how to legally comport themselves – all at considerable cost to the taxpayer.2


Following the 2-day formation, it didn't take long before officers started relapsing into the more contentious aspects of the watchman departmental style. A post-training fatality would enventually serve to underscore the department's desultory failure to enforce operational procedures designed to ensure officers did not overstep their authority.


Tactical police body armour.

The case in question had to do with a police officer who was shot and killed during an early dawn raid on a private residence. The presiding judge ruled the operation was both abusive and illegal.3 In fact, the suspect was never charged with the infraction used to justify the raid in the first place.4 An investigation by the province’s occupational health and safety commission reached a similar conclusion, saying the police were negligent from start to finish in the execution of their duties.5


As if to undermine and overrule the authority of the judiciary in the court of public opinion, the Laval police had the temerity to issue a passive-aggressive rebuke to the media:

“Our police officers did their job professionally and rigorously that day. The gaps were at the organizational level and they were corrected.”6

It is important to note that the concept of law enforcement when applied to police officers is a bit of a misnomer; if they were truly the enforcers of the law, we would not need judges. In truth, a police officer cannot be said to have enforced a law until it has been validated in a court of law. Unfortunately, the direction of Laval’s police force has, on numerous occasions, publicly expressed highly dismissive and disrespectful views towards the various judicial and quasi-judicial bodies that have oversight into their affairs.


In recent years an arbitration tribunal was derided as being "sick" when a civilian employee within the police department had her right to a presumption of innocence upheld in the name of fundamental justice.7 Such is the problem with having authoritarians in positions of power – their discretionary use of power lends itself to excesses. Moreover, the abuse can cut both ways. When an administration is corrupt, the goal can also be to exclude those who do not align with their agenda. For example, the current mayor of Laval, a former police officer for the city, had his integrity called into doubt and his duties reassigned after he undertook to investigate the long-standing system of corruption and collusion in Laval. His successor, in a most telling development, was alleged to have received a threefold promotion after the investigation into municipal wrongdoings was conveniently abandoned.8


There is a grave danger things can go terribly wrong when police officers are inculcated to value group loyalty and the protection of the established power structure over their sworn duty to uphold the law. The potential for abuse increases whenever power, authority and discretion are left unchecked. Effective policing under these circumstances is like trying to hang a copy of the constitution on a wall with a nail and a wrecking ball.


When a Superior Court Judge declared two Laval police officers guilty of negligence in the handling of a death threat against a mother of three who was subsequently gunned-down in cold blood by her ex-spouse, one of the officers made light of the transgression by saying she would do it again and opined that if a fellow Laval officer did the same thing, "I wouldn't turn him in."9


Comment such as these can only serve to further diminish public confidence in the police.


It is not the job or prerogative of the police to put their interests ahead of those of society and to undermine the credibility of the courts. They are, after all, public servants – not praetorian guardsmen.

  1. Nathalie Villeneuve. "Rien de neuf dans le rapport du coroner". Médias Transcontinental https://www.courrierlaval.com/actualites/2011/3/24/rien-de-neuf-dans-le-rapport-du-coroner-2363762.html (accessed May 27, 2018)

  2. Rollande Parent. "Mort de Valérie Gignac: la police de Laval critiquée". La Presse Canadienne http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/200809/08/01-652481-mort-de-valerie-gignac-la-police-de-laval-critiquee.php (accessed May 27, 2018)

  3. Vincent Larouch. “‘Abusive’ et illegal”. Le Journal de Montréal http://fr.canoe.ca/cgi-bin/imprimer.cgi?id=371356 (accessed May 27, 2018)

  4. Paul Cherry. “Parasiris granted parole”. The Montreal Gazette https://www.pressreader.com/canada/montreal-gazette/20090703/281616711355848 (accessed May 27, 2018)

  5. Société Radio‑Canada. "Des risques mal calculés". Radio-Canada.ca https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/415284/tessier-csst-rapport (accessed May 27, 2018)

  6. Caroline Touzin. “La mort de l'agent tessier aurait pu être évitée” . La Presse, ltée. http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/200810/23/01-32054-la-mort-de-lagent-tessier-aurait-pu-etre-evitee.phpa (accessed May 27, 2018)

  7. Éric Thibault. "Un système 'malade', dit l’ex-chef de police". Le Journal de Montréal. http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2016/08/03/un-systeme-malade-dit-lex-chef-de-police (accessed May 27, 2018)

  8. Les Perreaux. "As scandal-plagued Laval’s new mayor, an ex-cop gets ready for cleanup work". The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/as-scandal-plagued-lavals-new-mayor-an-ex-cop-gets-ready-for-cleanup-work/article15306468/ (accessed May 27, 2018)

  9. CTV News Montreal. "Laval cop tells court why she did not stop threat-making Mountie". CTVMontreal.ca. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/laval-cop-tells-court-why-she-did-not-stop-threat-making-mountie-1.435308 (accessed May 27, 2018)

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