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Pivot Legal Society provided legal support
to the Chenary family during the coroner's inquest into the
death of Gerald Chenary. The jury recommended that junior
police officers not be paired together and that emphasis be
placed on less-lethal use of force training for officers.
Photo: Pivot Legal Society.
Pivot's policing achievements continued:
Accountability
Due to concerns raised by Pivot Legal Society
about the practices of the Vancouver Police Board in meeting
secretly in "in camera" sessions not accessible
to the public, the VPD has changed its policies and will now
be publishing its in camera agendas online, together with
the reasons under the Police Act for discussing each
item in private.
Pivot also achieved greater accountability through
freedom of information requests that revealed the VPD was
not tracking access to its B.C. PRIME database.
Now, thanks to Pivot's efforts, all officers
who conduct searches of personal information contained in
B.C. PRIME have their computer ID and the date and time of
the access recorded, to help ensure that access to the database
is only made for crime-prevention or investigation purposes.
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Spotlight on DTES policing
By providing legal support to the Chenery family
during the coroner’s inquest into the death of Gerald
Chenery, Pivot helped to shine a spotlight on the VPD practice
of sending its most junior officers into Vancouver's most
difficult policing area.
Two officers, with a combined two months' experience,
shot and killed Gerald Chenery during a confrontation in a
back alley near the corner of Main and Hastings Street in
December 2004.
The first recommendation of the jury was that
junior officers not be paired together and that increased
emphasis be placed on less-lethal use of force training for
officers.
The VPD has yet to respond to the jury's recommendations.
Reform of the complaints process
As a result of the 50 complaints regarding police
misconduct brought forward by the Pivot Legal Society on behalf
of residents of Vancouver's DTES, an inquiry into the police
complaint process was undertaken by retired judge Joe Wood.
The inquiry examined the failings of the
current Police Act and the police complaints system
in ensuring proper oversight of Vancouver’s police,
and made recommendations for reform of the process.
Continued...
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