RCMP Caught Mocking Assault Complaint Victim

This story hits to close to home for me, on many levels. First off being the survivor of such a relationship. Second, this story happened in a community I once resided in...and I feel sickened. I had my own share of dealings with the local RCMP there, and to me it's pure karma to see them caught in the act.

A Nova Scotia woman has lodged a complaint with the federal RCMP watchdog after listening to an inadvertent voicemail message in which several "Neanderthal" officers could be heard cursing and making light of a domestic assault she had reported. The woman fears for her safety and the safety of her children because of a previous relationship. CBC News has agreed to protect her identity.

The woman's problems began last week when she was hosting a family gathering at her house in Cumberland County. She said her partner became angry and he stormed out of the house with her cellphone. Staff Sgt. Concerned that he would start harassing her friends and family whose names were stored in the phone, she set off to retrieve it from her boyfriend's house approximately 35 kilometres away. While driving there, she swerved to avoid a deer on the road and ended up plunging her car down an embankment, she said. Wet and cold, she said she walked for about an hour before a passing motorist picked her up and delivered her to her boyfriend's house . Her boyfriend was still angry and refused to hand over her phone, she said. "He had already called the police — his friends, as he says — that I was there assaulting him," she told CBC News on Monday. She said he started assaulting her. "He had me around the neck," she said. "He threw my coat and my shoes out." She said he was dragging her by the hair and trying to throw her out the door when RCMP arrived. Some officers drove her home. When they questioned her about her car accident, she told them her boyfriend had assaulted her. 'So did she deserve to get hit?'

On Wednesday morning, with a blizzard closing in on Nova Scotia, RCMP investigators from the Oxford detachment told her to report to the Parrsboro detachment so officers could photograph a facial injury she suffered in the alleged assault. While she was at the Parrsboro detachment, an Oxford RCMP member called her home phone. He didn't leave a message — but he also failed to properly end the phone call, so the woman's voicemail continued to record as members in the Oxford detachment discussed her case.

Here is where the story gets interesting...at the link you can watch the video, and at the bottom of the article, you can listen to the conversation by two RCMP officers, caught on her answering machine. PRICELESS.
*** Warning, profanity in voicemail message.
LINK

So what say you, members of ATS? Your thoughts on this incident?

Sounds like her story is full of holes and she is ticked off about it. The police in the recording don't seem to be saying anything all that inflammatory to me, and are discussing the case and whether or not her injury happened from the alleged assault or the vehicle accident. When the one officer asks "So did she deserve to get hit?" he is clearly asking a rhetorical question, and the other officer responds with "well, no". Personally I don't see the big deal. It's their job to make sure she is telling the truth, and to me it doesn't sound like she is (based on what I know from the article and the recording).

Police should treat domestic violence seriously, but they also shouldn't rush to judgement just because someone points a finger. They need to make the right decision since some people use such accusations as a weapon, and sometimes people who are innocent end up being charged for a crime they didn't commit.

The "poor" woman showed very poor judgement going to the locality of her boyfriend in the first place.......
These scenarios take two to act out and I find that the female of the two gets more preferential treatment than the male when it comes to police calls....in fact I know of many instances when the wrong person was charged ....

I can't make out most of it, so it would be unfair of me to comment other than I'm glad it came to the attention of the public and would expect the upper echelon to act on it, although I somehow doubt they will other than a tap on the wrist. The damage done to their image though continues to add up.

There are people like this in every type of job, and law enforcement is no exception.

Many people are just plain mean, have warped views of the world, warped thoughts that sometimes escape their brains verbally, or weird ways of joking or venting with their friends and coworkers. They express their thoughts out loud around people they think they can trust or when they think no one can hear them because they can.

I think many people have been guilty of this type of behavior to one degree or another. Most just never get caught. And some maybe shouldn't be in the professions that they are in if they are feeling this way and cannot control their impulses. No excuse for it, but that seems to be the world is.

I liked the answer that Staff Sgt. Gary Fournier, the head of the RCMP for northern Nova Scotia, gave,but then what else could he say?

reply to post by DeadSeraph


I have no information on the background of this story. Clearly there was more going on in this relationship that led to this domestic incident. I don't want to place blame on her,or her accused. My issue is that whether caught or not,these officers proved themselves unprofessional. Not to mention there are sky high rates of domestic violence here,and the actions of these officers may deter a woman from calling for help.

reply to post by ~Lucidity

It's is a sad but true fact that this is the way of the world now. I suppose some far gone part of me still has a level of expectation that others should be treated with dignity and respect. *sigh

AccessDenied
reply to post by DeadSeraph

 

I have no information on the background of this story. Clearly there was more going on in this relationship that led to this domestic incident. I don't want to place blame on her,or her accused. My issue is that whether caught or not,these officers proved themselves unprofessional. Not to mention there are sky high rates of domestic violence here,and the actions of these officers may deter a woman from calling for help.

My mother spent years working at a shelter for battered women, so I know it is a very real issue, and I have heard some horrible stories. But I've also read about the flip side of the issue, where a woman accuses a man of domestic violence when he hasn't laid a finger on her and gets hauled out of his own house and off to jail on her word alone. That sort of thing can change lives and ruin careers, so the police need to make sure they are making the right call.

I don't think they were being unprofessional at all. These sorts of conversations go on every day between police, and in this case it was behind closed doors. If they are guilty of anything, it's being dumb enough to have what should have been a confidential conversation while accidently recording themselves.

reply to post by AccessDenied

It's very sad, and I believe people should get called out on it. But most people just nod and let it go, for a vast variety of reasons, I suppose, not limited to but including the possibility of getting slapped or shot or further ridiculed.

Maybe along with or as part of respect and civility, we should just all keep reminding ourselves that just because we think something doesn't mean we have to say it. It's such a free and open world now where we say things because we have the right to and it's so easy to. No restraints and less and less thought to the consequences until something like this happens. (We could speculate and hypothesize for hours on why this is happening seemingly more and more.)

And when that overflows into the work environment, particularly in a case like this, where the woman asked for help and got ridiculed for it, it's just unnecessarily hurtful and a prime example of the phoniness and hypocrisy of so many people. I can imagine how ashamed she feels and can only hope the bozos who did this learned something from it.

DeadSeraph
... and are discussing the case and whether or not her injury happened from the alleged assault or the vehicle accident. When the one officer asks "So did she deserve to get hit?" he is clearly asking a rhetorical question, and the other officer responds with "well, no". Personally I don't see the big deal. It's their job to make sure she is telling the truth, and to me it doesn't sound like she is (based on what I know from the article and the recording).

Police should treat domestic violence seriously, but they also shouldn't rush to judgement just because someone points a finger. They need to make the right decision since some people use such accusations as a weapon, and sometimes people who are innocent end up being charged for a crime they didn't commit.

Yes the second officer does say "No" but the 'rhetorical question' context is in play, it's the difference between chalk and cheese, the context in which the first officer said that is a bit ambiguous, it could mean she deserved to be hit for being stupid, just in the same way you say she was stupid for being there, which is debatable. It could mean that the first officer was implying that the injury was obtained in the crash, and thereby making up an assault. More importantly, they are basically bull#ting because there is no mention of the car or any forensics, or the state of the woman...sod all in fact. that's not so good. The thing is, every detail the woman has given could be totally true.
So the same applies about rushing to judgement. The recording tells nothing about any truths.

smurfy

DeadSeraph
... and are discussing the case and whether or not her injury happened from the alleged assault or the vehicle accident. When the one officer asks "So did she deserve to get hit?" he is clearly asking a rhetorical question, and the other officer responds with "well, no". Personally I don't see the big deal. It's their job to make sure she is telling the truth, and to me it doesn't sound like she is (based on what I know from the article and the recording).

Police should treat domestic violence seriously, but they also shouldn't rush to judgement just because someone points a finger. They need to make the right decision since some people use such accusations as a weapon, and sometimes people who are innocent end up being charged for a crime they didn't commit.

Yes the second officer does say "No" but the 'rhetorical question' context is in play, it's the difference between chalk and cheese, the context in which the first officer said that is a bit ambiguous, it could mean she deserved to be hit for being stupid, just in the same way you say she was stupid for being there, which is debatable. It could mean that the first officer was implying that the injury was obtained in the crash, and thereby making up an assault. More importantly, they are basically bull#ting because there is no mention of the car or any forensics, or the state of the woman...sod all in fact. that's not so good. The thing is, every detail the woman has given could be totally true.
So the same applies about rushing to judgement. The recording tells nothing about any truths.

edit on 1-4-2014 by smurfy because: Text.

I never said anything of the sort, and never would.

Link To Story

The RCMP is apologizing to an alleged victim of domestic violence after her voice mail system recorded an officer joking about the case.

On Tuesday afternoon, the commanding officer for RCMP in Nova Scotia held a press conference to apologize to the alleged victim, who lives in Parrsboro, and to all women who have been victims of domestic violence. “The comments were unprofessional, unacceptable and insensitive,” said Chief Superintendent Brian Brennan in an phone interview later Tuesday. “As a commanding officer I was extremely disappointed. My first thought was to how this would affect the victim, and then my thoughts went to all victims of domestic violence.

One of the officers can be heard in the recording calling her report of her injuries “f...ing foolish” and questioning whether she received them as a result of an alleged assault by her partner, as she claims, or from the car accident.

No matter what exactly happened between her and her boyfriend, even the mere speculation of events deserved to be handled in a professional manner. The discussion between the two officers was anything but, and it seems to cast blame on the woman and accuse her of making a false statement. I don't believe the RCMP are in a position to judge that. I have to wonder how their obvious bias played out in their official reports, and how now this woman is supposed to go on living in this extremely small community.

This is the most difficult area in law enforcement and no one has the perfect system-there are horror storing both ways.

For instance 13% of all child rape allegations are false. The main reason is being improperly coached by an adult.

!7% of all rape allegations are false. The main reason being revenge.

When you put these numbers into society in general you see hundreds if not thousands of cases without merit. You try to balance that with the numbers that are true allegations, and women are in constant danger, as you can see it is difficult.

One of the main problems is the lack of sexual/physical abuse detectives, that need to interview the victim and begin a criminal case. Often you have patrol officers playing detective and that is not what they are trained for. State law here no longer affords the victim the right not to press charges or drop the case. I don't have the numbers in front of me however around 30% of victims refuse to prosecute the case are attacked again within six months. The arresting officer becomes the victim as the one who saw the abuse taking them off the street for which they are trained.

Being a sexual/physical abuse detective is a thankless position since they more often or not they get the blame one way or the other by the victim or the accused.

The FBI offers flex training for detectives however that fails to confront the main issue of helplessness in so many cases that detectives feel the system is set up against them.

No one professes to have the answer as male/female or partner/partner issues ofter become intertwined in a mass of cultural objections that are just not predictable.

Sexual/physical abuse detectives often become the defendant in lawsuits by former victims for prosecuting the case against their wishes.

AS one can see-there are no clear cut answers. There are now 12 fully staffed abuse shelters that offer victims many services and the taxpayers can feel proud of the fact that this is not ignored or swept under the rug-at least something is being done.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


No, it doesn't. Been through similar. Though i bossed the police, and was a witness against some of the bad guy friends, and told every police officer who showed up, who they worked for, the people, and what their correct procedures would be to take down this black operation bad guy groups and serve and protect, and then told them, ok, why don't you go on a coffee break, real women are on the job!!! I watched police make an undilating cobra move, and slither off the steps. I phone up my friend and said, they're not human! She said she knows. I call them snake men. And also, they seem to feel guilty about not serving people, because you can hit home with them and sound like their grandmother raised up from the grave telling them what a real man is and what a real is not, because I did that for police and some of the UN gang druggies to boot, and they have guilt!

Whole system is corrupt. Amongst others domestic disputes, they don't think you should protect your property. The bad guys work for them often, ie. they stick up for thugs, "she should have just let him take battery". Well you should donate all your household things and big screen tv to them then too, eh! Also, they often haul away the woman, who is being abused!

Phone in on the drug groups, and they say to phone landlord, they don't stop the "runners", it appears the runners work for them, and the landlord doesn't care. In fact, the guy who was selling to kids, they picked him, drove him around the block, then he told our aquaintance, he works for them now!!

This is the real world, and some of us get its face some of the time, because we believe in SERVE AND PROTECT!!!! And they need a good dose of "you're not even men, or you'd be striving to be hero's!"

DeadSeraph


I never said anything of the sort, and never would.

No, you got me wrong, I was talking in the third party, it's a local colloquial ! In England the expression would be, "Just as ONE would say" here in Nor'n Ireland "one" is replaced by "You"