Were two young police officers acting out parts in a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry film or were they simply caught up in a split second life or death decision?
That’s the question posed in a Winnipeg Free Press article written by Bruce Owen as final arguments were made in the trial of Winnipeg Police Constables Darrel Selley & Kristopher Overwater.
Selley & Overwater stand accused of attempt murder, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, criminal negligence, fabricating evidence and more.
The case revolves around the July 2007 shooting of habitual offender Kristofer Fournier who led the officers on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle loaded with a stash of illicit drugs. The decision now sits in the hands of the jury.
Before we go any further you should know that I had no involvement in the investigation nor do I recall ever meeting either officer. What I know comes from media accounts just like everybody else. As such, I resist the temptation to come to any conclusion regarding the officers guilt or innocence.
What I do have is a degree of unique experience that may offer some insight into an organization that is less than transparent to people on the “outside”. Part of my job function as Homicide Unit Supervisor was to conduct detailed reviews and analysis of Police Officer Involved Shootings. These reviews included cases where suspects were shot at, shot & wounded and shot and killed.
Part of the review process included a requirement to analyze the case regarding the need to amend or adapt policy to address any gaps in training or procedure. As I reviewed the initial media accounts I was struck by a paragraph that spoke volumes to me. It was contained in a report by Mike McIntyre & Gabrielle Giroday written in 2009.
“The pair – both six-year members of the force - were arrested Thursday following an extensive internal investigation by the professional standards unit and consultation with Manitoba Justice officers and a private legal counsel.”
There it was, in black and white, one of the primary reasons these officers find themselves in the quandary they are in. In two words – inexperience and training.
Regardless of guilt or innocence, would either officer stand accused of these serious crimes if Police Service policies and procedures were designed to take officers safety, training and overall development into account?
I personally witnessed dramatic changes in the evolution of Policing over the last twenty-six (26) years of my career in law enforcement. Police Officer respect is at an all time low, offenders rights trump the rights of victims and the revolving doors of Justice continue to increasingly spin out of control. When I applied for the Police Service in 1987 I competed against over 1,200 applicants. Recruit class applicant numbers have steadily declined and now average in the mere hundreds.
Police Officer retention has become a major problem for the Winnipeg Police Service. Retirements and attrition have an undeniable effect on the Organization. Recruit class sizes have doubled and the training period has been dramatically condensed.
One of the integral parts of the training program is the Field Training Officer component. This training provides recruits their first exposure to the City of Winnipeg’s crime ridden streets. During this phase the recruit is partnered with a Field Training Officer to mentor and guide them. You would expect the Police Service to do everything in their power to attract top-notch, highly motivated, street smart officers to fill this role.
Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
The Field Training Officer is faced with excessive administrative work, tedious policy & procedures and significantly more responsibility for which they are provided very little in the way of meaningful compensation. As a result, the calibre and quality of the Field Training Officer is compromised.
The situation doesn’t improve once the recruit graduates from the Police Academy.
When I graduated from the Police Academy in 1987 I was assigned to walk the beat with one of my fellow classmates. After a few months we were assigned to work a cruiser car together in the seedy, crime ridden Main Street Hotel zone.
During the next three years we found ourselves in extremely dangerous, high risk situations that included high-speed chases and armed confrontations. Although we managed to survive it, I often question the wisdom of having junior, inexperienced officers work together in such a high risk, unforgiving profession.
Had Selley or Overwater been in that cruiser car with a seasoned veteran I highly doubt they’d be standing trial for attempt murder or anything else for that matter.
Nothing tempers adrenaline and youthful exuberance more than the influence of a grizzled, battle tested veteran.
Unfortunately, Police management has continually demonstrated a complete lack of value and respect for experienced Police Officers. I witnessed and experienced it myself. Experience is undoubtedly the most undervalued commodity in the Organization, a culture that needs to change.
Police management has been playing a game of Russian roulette with inexperienced Officers for more than two decades now and those chickens have finally come home to roost.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of these types of incidents.
The WPS Executive Management Team continues to struggle to retain experience on the front lines, a situation they recently tried to resolve with the implementation of an ineffective, easily manipulated transfer policy built on principles they rarely adhere to.
I’m not suggesting that Police Management should be on trial along side of these officers, but it doesn’t take much imagination to come to the conclusion they bear some responsibility in creating the conditions for this type of situation to occur.
What I do know is this; when Police Officer’s like Selley & Overwater strap on their boots to start their shift, they don’t envision themselves shooting innocent people or being criminally negligent in the execution of their duties. They come to the job with the best of intentions, to serve and protect and to make a difference in their community.
Inexperience, lack of proper training, tunnel vision and adrenaline overload have a way of having an impact on even the best of intentions.
I’ve been in those car chases, kicked in those doors and had my share of armed confrontations. A massive adrenaline rush is something that has to be experienced and can never be fully explained.
Common effects of an adrenaline rush include; time distortion, depth perception & visual distortion, tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, pain tolerance, speed and strength increase, fine motor movement decay, changes in blood flow & heart rate, changes in respiratory rate, unconscious muscle tension, mono-emotion & emotional detachment and loss of bladder/bowel control.
The effects of an adrenaline rush do not excuse post incident manipulation of the facts or the fabrication of evidence.
As an objective investigator I would advise people to look at the one thing they can trust, the physical evidence. They don’t have to believe Selley, Overwater or Fournier. Trust the evidence and put the pieces of the puzzle together.
In the end, if Selley & Overwater are guilty of the charges before the courts then it would be my hope that justice would be served and they’d be appropriately punished.
Guilty or not, was it bad cops or bad policy that got us here.
UPDATE:
Feb 8th 2013 – 5:30 pm
Jury just came back with verdict……both officers Not Guilty to all counts!!!
LINKS:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2013/02/08/jury-clears-cops-in-shooting-of-suspect
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Cops-not-guilty-of-all-charges-190514711.html
Good article James
In 2002 while an instructor at the Academy and in charge of the Field Training Officers Program I made the executive of the WPS aware that within 5 years the force was so junior that every officer with 5 years experience would have to be an FTO whether they wanted to or not. Obviously nothing was ever done to change this. I also met with the Executive and proposed incentives for veteran officers to become or stay as Field Trainers. At that time an FTO made the equivalent of $5.00 per 10 hour shift (after taxes). Nobody wanted the added responsibility or work for $5.00/day. I proposed that for every 10 hour shift an FTO trains a recruit he be granted 1 hour of extra duty leave. I also proposed that there be a point value added into the promotion competition for being an FTO. I also suggested a dinner held once a year for the FTO’s. A little recognition goes a long way. The City pays for a dinner once a years to honour bus drivers that have been identified as being good drivers. Why not honour Police officers that go beyond their normal responsibilities. The executive advised me that they thought all the proposals were excellent and would look to implement them the next recruit class. I left the Academy shortly after this and remained 3 1/2 more years with the WPS and none of these proposals were adopted while I was still there.
From the sounds of this the same apathy and problems still exist. I think you are absolutely right in your assessment that this incident would probably have never happened if a young officer had been working with a more seasoned officer. I know that when I started with the WPS I made a number of questionable decisions that my seasoned veteran quickly pointed out and straightened out.
It’s truly a shame that something like this had to occur. Hopefully the WPS will now recognize the value and importance of the Field Training Officers program.
Gerry;
Thanks for weighing in, your insight will definitely help readers grasp the issues behind attracting quality officers to the Field Training Officers program.
Appreciate your comments.
FIrst: This was very well written and thoughtful.
Second, It’s extremely interesting how so much of what you say above equally applies to the child-welfare and social work field, as we’re seeing through the Phoenix inquiry [setting aside, of course, the armed and dangerous aspects of policing — although social workers do walk into some pretty volatile situations at times].
One could easily make the analogy: Police experience and training = safer outcomes and front-line child-welfare experience = better clinical practice and outcomes for kids and families.
As you say of the police service, CFS appears to have major retention issues as well, and did around the time Phoenix was born in 2000, when roughly 50 percent of front-line workers in the most problematic city neighbourhoods had two years or fewer experience.
With the constant internal uncertainty, restructuring and political tinkering within the CFS system, experienced workers went in droves to more secure, lower-stress positions.
That was a major plank in the path leading to the sad outcome in Phoenix’s case. Others would include: lack of internal training, conflicting policy on standards, limited oversight by harried supervisors and a lack of supervision in intake units (general patrol?) where workers make the most critical risk-oriented decisions in the life of a child-protection case.
It’s unreasonable to expect good outcomes without proper organizational support for staff, be they police or social workers or other professionals.
James;
I very much appreciate your comments and the analogy your present.
Your reporting on Phoenix has been both touching & riveting.
Thank-you!
Officers with 6 years of experience are not rookies – by any definition of the word.
The wage scale for constables is based on years of service and level of experience. As part of collective bargaining the Association has always argued that officers with 4 years on the job are fully trained and capable of independent action.
I don’t think you will ever get the Association to agree to move the first class constable designation (and the accompanying wage increase) back to 5, 6 or 7 years. In the absence of that we have to take the situation at face value, in other words the Service and the Association agree first class constables are fully trained and capable of independent action once they become first class constables.
Blaming the actions of two veteran first class constables with 6 years of service on inexperience and lack of training does not hold water.
In terms of your suggestion that the WPS may need to change policy, I would go one step further.
If, as the jury decided, what these two officers did is not criminal, then department use of force policies not just in Winnipeg but across the country need to be amended. And further, if what these officers did does not amount to discharge a firearm with intent to wound, criminal negligence, attempt to obstruct justice or any of the other offences they were charged with, then those sections of the Criminal Code need to be amended as well as to formally give police the leeway granted by this jury.
Lastly, this was obviously another victory for your nominee for defence lawyer of the year ( or perhaps decade or even longer) Richard Wolson and to a lesser degree Hymie (‘I’m not qualified to carry Richard’s briefcase’) Weinstein. I’m assuming Richard (no one does it better) was at his best and Hymie rode Richard’s coattails to victory.
I don’t believe I ever suggested that officers with six years of experience were rookies.
However, I very much struggle with the idea that anyone could call them “veterans” as you suggest.
I’m also surprised that you would suggest that definitions used in collective bargaining could somehow translate to the reality experienced by people with boots on the ground.
You can call a police officer “fully trained and capable of independent action” all you want until he’s thrown into a cruiser car and experiences his first high speed chase with a stolen vehicle loaded with drugs. Thats when reality counts and all the other bullshit becomes meaningless.
Do you really reject the notion that a vastly different outcome would have occurred if a true veteran officer had been sitting beside one of the officers.
Having recently supervised a platoon of frontline officers (2012) I have no problem standing behind my assessment regarding the abilities of a police officer with six years experience.
I think you caught the point of my story, the Police Service is very junior, lack of experienced officers on the front lines is an issue and the Police Service has to do more to ensure that inexperienced officers have someone sitting beside them thats been around for more than a couple of months. I’m not even sure Chief Clunis would disagree with these sentiments.
I also think you understand my concern regarding the lack of value the Police Service seems to place on experience. If retaining experience meant anything to Police Management, you, me and a very long list of other hard working law enforcement officers would still be working at 151 Princess St.
If I’m reading you correctly, you seem to take issue with the verdict in the Selley & Overwater case. I hope you are arriving at your conclusion based on detailed and intimate knowledge of the facts and not media accounts.
Lastly, I very much admire and respect Hymie Weinstein. (???)
Always up for a debate, thanks for commenting.
Ok, where do I get a James Jewell action figure? Excellent. I now no longer think you and Menno are the same person. It’s “lace up boots”. “Strap on” is something else.
Good job again. Perhaps a “members only” section of the Police Museum would ensure that these lessons are not lost.
Keep posting. I have some topics I won’t submit here if you run dry.
Curious as to Menno’s argument here.
Citizen Zacharias, if you’re going to comment on something you appear to have intimate knowledge of, you can’t just leave a reply like that and end it.
Prove your points, please.