Commission’s integrity questioned over whitewash of pro-life reporters’ arrest
TORONTO, Oct. 16 (LSN.ca) – The Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services has rejected the formal complaints of LifeSite Director Stephen Jalsevac and author Gordon Truscott against the officers who arrested them Oct. 15, 1999 while they were covering a Linda Gibbon’s protest. The charges against Jalsevac and Truscott and the third defendant, freelance reporter Sue Careless, were eventually all dropped by the Crown because of “no reasonable possibility of conviction.”
Both Jalsevac and Truscott originally filed formal complaints against the arresting officers in Oct. 1999. Jalsevac stated “my complaint concerns false arrest, illegal detention, illegal confiscation of private property (film) and improper procedure in the manner in which the arrests of the journalists took place”. All three reporters had to suffer the indignity of being finger-printed and having mug shots taken. Regarding the complaint, a response was received the following February from 51 Division Superintendent Donald Mantle who stated “I find that there was no misconduct on the part of the subject officers.. .and …It is my decision that no further action be taken in this matter.”
Both Jalsevac and Truscott appealed Mantle’s decision to the Civilian Commission and received their responses only last week, almost a year after the original incident. Jalsevac had stated in his appeal that he was “dumbfounded that such an obvious abuse of law and due process could be so completely ignored”. He also called into question the credibility of the complaint process itself which required officer Christine Long, in the offending Division, to conduct the investigation of fellow officers with whom she works every day.
The Civilian Commission stated in its Oct. 10, 2000 letter “that there are not sufficient grounds or reasons to change the decision of Superintendent Mantle…” Steve Jalsevac told LifeSite that the evidence is so substantial against the officers that this decision sadly calls into the question the integrity of the both the Toronto Police Review process and the Civilian Commission. “Respect for law and order has been undermined with this whitewash” says Jalsevac.
See Photos, video footage and other articles on this saga at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/interim/2000/aug/oct15arrestpictures.html