Here is Randall Denley, a rather prominent figure in Ottawa who has been one of the go to writers for the Ottawa Citizen for eons, and here is what he wrote in today's paper:
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Ottawa is in an uproar over the way police treated the now famous [sic] Stacy Bonds, and rightly so. Just don't expect much to come of it. The "justice" system is already showing that it places protecting its own above protecting the public.
The provincial attorney general is the one who should be doing something about the way the system handled the forceful strip search of the diminutive Ottawa woman, but that would mean admitting the Crown got this wrong.
A spokesman for Attorney General Chris Bentley says the Bonds case has been reviewed by the province's chief prosecutor, who has determined that it was reasonable to take it to court. That despite Judge Richard Lajoie's ruling that the arrest of Bonds was unlawful, her detention violated Charter rights and the case was a "travesty."
Rather than create an independent review of the Crown's actions, Bentley turned to the subordinate in charge of prosecution and asked him if he thought his people acted properly. What a surprise that he would say yes.
The province's Special Investigations Unit is investigating, but the Bonds matter actually falls outside the organization's mandate, which allows it to look at matters involving death, sexual assault or serious injury. There was no serious injury in the Bonds case and it would probably be pushing it to describe what occurred as a sexual assault.
The SIU is likely to conclude that there is nothing it can do.
The matter will then be placed back in the hands of police Chief Vern White, who is likely to call in another force to investigate.
Given the Crown's stance up to now, it will be difficult to recommend charges against the officers involved, even if a police investigation suggests they are warranted. The Crown saw the same videotape that everyone else has now seen and determined that it was Bonds who should be charged, not the police officers.
The images of four male police officers forcing Bonds to the floor before the officer in charge cut her clothes off might seem outrageous to the public and the judge who tossed out the charge against Bonds, but the Crown has never identified a problem with what took place. The conduct of individual police officers in this case fell well below the standard that we should expect, but the Crown's failure to perceive it is the most shocking element of this whole sorry situation.
A reasonable person, let alone an experienced Crown attorney, should have expressed concern to Chief White about the officers' conduct. Nothing was said, even though Bonds' defence lawyer raised concerns with the actions caught on tape. Two years after the event, the Crown was still arguing in front of a judge that the police officers were, in effect, the victims.
If the Crown were to take the opposite view now and charge the officers, it would mean admitting the Crown attorney's office had been negligent in the first place. That's an unlikely course, especially now that their boss Bentley has backed them up. This has now become a political matter.
Despite his attorney general's support for the Crown prosecutors, Premier Dalton McGuinty on Friday made a wishy-washy statement about maybe reviewing the Bonds affair to see if something could be learned from it. That's not nearly good enough. The point was further amplified by the news Friday that two more cases have been thrown out because of similar police behaviour.
In effect, the attorney general is saying it's OK to arrest a woman on the flimsiest of pretexts, manhandle her, strip search her in disregard of guidelines established by the Supreme Court, toss her in a cell half-naked, then charge her with assaulting police. It's an outrageous position.
The system simply isn't working. The Crown attorneys are the ones who are supposed to determine whether charges are in the public interest and if there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. They are meant to offer sober second thought and to prevent people being hauled into court simply on the say-so of the police. They haven't done their job properly. Neither has the attorney general.
At this point, Dalton McGuinty is the only person who can restore some sanity to the system. The last thing the embattled premier needs is another controversy, but it's time for an independent investigation and maybe even a new attorney general.
The people give enormous powers to the police and the Crown with the trust that they will use those powers wisely. The Bonds incident has called that trust into question. Restoring the public's faith is essential. This isn't a situation where the people in charge can shrug and drive on.
Contact Randall Denley at rdenley@ottawacitizen.com or 613-596-3756.
We aren't hearing anything from anywhere really are we? And when they f*ck with Miss Bonds rights they f*ck with yours.
WFDS
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