Police chief furious over web attack
Suzanne Wilton
Oct. 30, 2004
Calgary police Chief Jack Beaton is moving to quash a possible mutiny after a website was set up targeting him as a “rotten apple to be tossed out of the barrel.”
The embattled chief, already under fire for his department’s handling of complaints against officers, is sending in a legal team to combat the site that popped up on the Internet this week.
“I have assured our members that on their behalf, the service intends to take every measure necessary to discover who is responsible and hold them fully accountable for their actions,” an angry Beaton said Friday.
“We have instructed our legal counsel to pursue all available remedies,” added Beaton, who would not elaborate on what those remedies might be.
The site claims to represent officers and civilian members of the department who “find themselves challenged by the relentless tyranny and malicious disregard of its current management.”
Besides criticizing Beaton, the site also relates a number of alleged incidents of misconduct within the department.
It’s not known who is behind the site. In an e-mail to the Herald, the creator refused to identify himself, saying whistle-blowing is a firing offence.
“Simply put, we will all lose our jobs,” said the e-mail reply, signed as the Standfirm Team.
As senior brass learned of the site, the web address was blocked from department computers and a memo went out to all members discrediting it. It defames honourable police officers, said senior brass.
“The website is mean-spirited and in poor taste,” said Beaton, who is renegotiating a new contract. “Clearly the authors have no regard whatsoever for our members who wear the uniform with pride.”
The site’s creators said in an e-mail interview with the Herald that the goal of the site “is to present evidence of the toxicity and lack of management that is rampant in the organization.
“It is to stress the importance of having a non-biased third party investigate the cases that Beaton and the current police commission have buried,” the e-mail said.
This is the latest in a series of attacks on the chief and the civilian body charged with overseeing the service.
It also follows a spate of incidents involving officers and alleged misconduct.
In recent months, two constables have separately complained about discrimination and racism within the service; a senior officer has been charged in connection with a multimillion-dollar fraud; and several citizens have alleged incidents of police brutality.
Also recently, two former officers bypassed the police commission with their complaints and took them to Alberta’s solicitor general.
One complaint alleges that an officer arrived impaired to the scene of a fatal accident and other officers were ordered by senior brass not to act.
Another letter, sent this week, demands an outside agency investigate the chief of police for not ordering an investigation into an alleged fraud involving Employment Insurance.
Police commission chairwoman Sandy Durrant recently faced calls for her resignation for not acting on the complaint about the alleged drunk-driving incident. That complaint is now the subject of an investigation by the RCMP.
The commission is accused of being a puppet of the department, and critics — including the website’s authors — say it isn’t properly doing its job.
“We are aware of too many members that have ‘been there, done that’ only to be shut down by the police commission in conjunction with the chief of police and/or direct subordinates,” the Standfirm Team said.
“There is no integrity in the process. In theory (the complaint process) should work, in practice it fails horribly.”
Durrant could not be reached for comment Friday.
An outside observer and former police officer who has been following the internal struggle within the Calgary Police Service called the site’s creation “remarkable.”
Leo Knight, senior vice-president of Paladin Security and online columnist at Prime Time Crime, said he’s never seen such an overt effort to topple a chief.
The website, he said, is the latest indication of serious problems within the department.
“There’s almost an internal mutiny going on,” Knight, who recently highlighted the Calgary Police Service’s problems in a column, said in an interview from Vancouver.
“The policing world tends to be very secretive and very much about not airing your dirty laundry in public. To be that overt and public about it signals a bit of desperation.”
Knight said he has received information from Calgary police officers about internal problems.
He said Beaton should be working toward addressing those issues rather than starting a witch hunt.
“The chief has allowed this situation to fester,” said Knight. “Despite all of the warning signs and red flags being brought up along the way, it has continued."
“It seems to me, at some level, that department is out of control.”
A spokesman for the union representing Calgary’s rank-and-file cops — which is also targeted by the site’s authors — said it neither endorses nor supports the website.
© Calgary Herald 2004