Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 Source: Montreal Gazette (Canada) Copyright: 1999 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Contact: http://www.montrealgazette.com/ Forum: http://forums.canada.com/~montreal Author: Monique Beaudin CONTROL FOR SQ URGED Lawbreaking force needs civilian overseer: report The provincial government has to set up a civilian body to overhaul the Surete du Quebec, a backward and disorganized police force that routinely breaks the law during criminal investigations, is engaged in turf wars with other police forces and lacks professionalism in the way it does police work, a public inquiry has concluded. The Poitras commission's 1,700-page report, made public yesterday, calls for a sweeping reform of the 3,900-member police force, including the appointment of a seven-member civilian body to oversee the SQ's activities. "A crisis of values has shaken the Surete du Quebec from the beginning of this decade," the report says. "The concepts of loyalty, integrity and equality are poorly understood. Any criticism of the organization or its practices made by a member seems suspect." Under the commission's recommendations, the government would appoint members of the civilian body, choosing four people from the fields of law, administration, social sciences and labour relations, as well as a representative of Quebec's police and fire chiefs. No police officers should be appointed, the commission says. The three-member public inquiry headed by Lawrence Poitras, former chief justice of Quebec Superior Court, cost Quebecers $20 million and spent more than two years looking into the SQ's investigative practices and the after-effects of a botched drug investigation that has come to be known as the Matticks Affair. The drug-smuggling case was thrown out of court in 1995 after a judge ruled SQ officers had planted evidence used at the trial of brothers Gerald and Richard Matticks and five other men who were arrested after police seized 26.5 tonnes of hashish in containers at the Port of Montreal. Public Security Minister Serge Menard, who released the report at a press conference in Montreal yesterday, called it "the most exhaustive in Quebec history" and said he has set up a committee within his department to study it. Menard said he wants to act quickly on the report's 175 recommendations, which include having the SQ adopt a mission statement and preventing it from conducting internal investigations of its own officers. "I remain convinced that the men and women in the SQ are ready to accept these reforms," Menard said. The minister said he met with SQ management yesterday to reinforce the force's main priorities - to respect the charter of rights and other laws while conducting investigations, to bring offenders to court and to ensure the security of the public. "The officers of the Surete du Quebec, like all other police officers, must respect the law in all circumstances." Menard said he knows many police officers - not just those in the SQ - feel the charter and other laws handicap them in carrying out their duties. The Poitras report lists complaints about SQ officers uttering threats to potential witnesses. One investigator is quoted as saying to a witness: "I'll tell you something about how it works at the Surete du Quebec. Drugs get planted in your car, the police are called and you're screwed." It also discusses how police officers are pressured into lying in court - a phenomenon that in the U.S. has been referred to as "testilying" - so as not to lose a case, because investigators are judged on cases that are won in court. Menard said that as a criminal lawyer, he suspected those practices existed. "But I think what I like best about the report is that it didn't tell me so much what existed, but it contained reflections on what measures we can take to prevent it," he said. The Poitras inquiry recommends that the Police Act be amended to "ban those activities that are incompatible with the duties" of an SQ officer, and that a 24-hour legal-counseling service be set up to assist police officers. Menard said the report's recommendations would make it harder for police officers to ignore the law. "There's a strange conviction (among SQ officers) that to apply law and justice you must sometimes go around the law," he said. But even while admitting there are serious problems that need to be fixed, Menard defended the SQ, saying officers were not accused of having broken the law for personal gain. Menard said he has confidence in the SQ's current chief, Florent Gagne, a former deputy minister in the Public Security Department and the second civilian to head the troubled force. The report paints a picture of a police force that is reluctant to use new investigative procedures, abuses its powers of arrest and detention to interrogate people who have not been arrested, relies too much on informers and does not check out information that informers give investigators. "In the eyes of many, with the Matticks Affair, the Surete du Quebec set an unenviable record" and became "infamous through scandals of corruption and abuse," the commission says. "It is obvious to the commission that the Surete du Quebec neither recognizes nor acknowledges its own deviance." Furthermore, the SQ, which routinely investigates incidents like police shootings involving other police forces, is unable to conduct criminal investigations of its own officers or other police forces because of a "law of silence similar to that found in organized crime," it says. The report recommends that by 2007, the SQ require its criminal investigators to have university degrees. It also recommends that the pay scale be amended to promote additional training. As for the bungled drug investigation that sparked the Poitras inquiry, the commission singles out ex-chief Serge Barbeau, who stepped down when the inquiry began. The report says Barbeau, now vice-chairman of the Quebec parole board, should have acted earlier to compel SQ officers to co-operate with the internal investigation. "(Barbeau) cannot be excused for not having taken the necessary authoritative actions as early as the fall of 1995 to show leadership and deal ruthlessly with those of his officers who had openly defied and challenged his authority." The report also criticizes deputy chief Andre Dupre and Inspector Michel Arcand, who at a Quebec City party put pressure on Hilaire Isabelle, one of three officers conducting the internal investigation. The report calls Arcand's attitude "contemptuous," and criticizes Barbeau for later appointing him to head the Wolverine anti-biker squad, saying that sent the wrong message. The investigation of the Matticks Affair was stymied by things like a refusal by officers to participate, a union order to the investigators not to "badger" officers, and a practice within the SQ that subordinates could not interrogate superior officers, the report says. It praises the internal investigators, saying Isabelle, Bernard Arsenault and Louis Boudreault acted in an exemplary manner "under most trying circumstances and in a clearly hostile work environment." Four other people - deputy chiefs Louise Page and Gilles St. Antoine, internal-affairs investigator Jean Bosse, and Chief Inspector Jacques Letendre, the SQ's commissioner of professional ethics - are singled out along with the three investigators as having co-operated with the commission in an "exemplary" fashion. Poitras recommends that a committee be appointed to follow up on the report, and that any complaints or reprisals against those seven people be reported to that committee. As for the people blamed in the Poitras report, Menard said a copy of the report has been forwarded to the Justice Department, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to lay criminal charges. He left it up to SQ chief Gagne to decide whether disciplinary action would be taken against any of those people by the SQ. The Poitras report also says the SQ's unwillingness to share information with other police forces - particularly Montreal Urban Community police - has hurt criminal investigations. It says the situation was made worse in 1996 when the SQ's criminal-investigations squad was moved to Montreal. "This did nothing to promote teamwork. A virtual police war was being waged at a time when j organized crime expanded outside city limits." Last January, the SQ submitted a report on the war against crime gangs that the commission says was partially plagiarized from a similar report written by the MUC police four months earlier. Worse, the commission says, the SQ made critical statements about the other police forces in the Wolverine anti-gang squad in order to make its own contribution seem more significant. Poitras says that's part of the reason the MUC police pulled out of the Wolverine squad last year. Jacques Dupuis, the Liberal public-security critic, called for quick action on the report. "We've been investigating police officers in this province for five years," said Dupuis, a former prosecutor. "Now it's time to act." Sean Gordon of the gazette contributed to this report - - For the complete text of the Poitras commission's recommendations, visit The Gazette's Web site: www.montrealgazette.com - --- MAP posted-by: Joel W. Johnson