YET ANOTHER INCIDENT IN A LONG HISTORY OF MISCONDUCT WITHIN THE WATERLOO REGIONAL POLICE SERVICE

Last Monday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following story titled "Waterloo officer charged with assault". The officer, Sgt. Paul Tranter, is a twenty year veteran of the WRPS. Oddly, this "incident" was not made public until more than three months after it occurred on March 5, 2020. A 44 year old man (no name given) was arrested in Kitchener on King St. East and taken to central division's detention unit in Kitchener. The Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU) issued a news release last Sunday June 14/20 which appears to be how the media finally learned of this incident. That in and of itself is concerning. My understanding is that there are supposed to be regular (daily or weekly) incident reports available for public consumption yet no mention publicly until after the SIU issued their news release.

The next huge problem is this: According to the SIU "The man was transported to hospital where he was diagnosed with serious injuries." So an arrested individual in the police station was assaulted by a police veteran to the extent that he was transported to hospital with serious injuries. Three months ago! What was the outcome of his injuries? What were the injuries? Was a weapon used? If we assume that the arrested man was non-compliant or belligerent then first of all was he in handcuffs at the time? If not why not? If he was in handcuffs then why couldn't two or three police officers simply have carried/transported him to a cell without assaulting him? The SIU only step in to investigate when police officers are involved in deaths, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. Will the SIU's assault charges be shown the same contempt and disrespect that their attempted murder and other charges laid against Sgt. Richard Dorling recently received. He was the WRPS officer who thought that it was just dandy to fire six bullets at a fleeing suspect's back, hitting him once.

Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz: Are you getting a little nervous? You once sat as a Trustee with the Waterloo Region District School Board and hid behind their shield while they both abused parents and allowed their employee (Ron Archer) to abuse children in their care. Now you are sitting, with the emphasis on sitting not doing, on the Police Services Board while Black Lives Matter supporters take on the WRPS. Why didn't you and the Police Services Board fix the behaviour of the WRPS a long time ago? Did you ignore Kelly Donovan and other female police officers when they approached the Police Services Board for help? Was this recent incident involving serious injuries while in police custody even brought to you and your regional colleagues? If not then why not? Are you Demanding answers from Chief Larkin or simply being quietly polite believing that he will voluntarily fix things just because you wish/hope that he will? Do you have even the foggiest notion as to what accountability means? How about transparency?