Police oversight has hit "rock-bottom" in Ontario

Tue, 2008-09-30 14:51.

Lisa Naccarato

The province's Special Investigations Unit is failing Ontario. That conclusion today from the provincial ombudsman who issued a damning report on the civilian body which investigates police whenever they are involved in a death or injury.

Listen to Lisa Naccarato's report on the Ombudsman's SIU report

Marin concludes that the SIU has lost its way, that it approaches investigations with police bias. Andre Marin a former director of the SIU himself says the civilian body is seen as a toothless tiger...

Among the problems, Marin says the SIU's internal culture is overly influenced by the high number of former police officers who now make up its staff, that's it's become complacent, that it's reluctant to insist on police co-operation.

Marin says the SIU's motto of One law, that is holding police officers to the same law as everyone else is just empty rhetoric. Marin says so many mistakes were made in the cases his office reviewed that it's impossible to know if the SIU made the right decisions.