A fatal crash involving a semi-truck tractor unit and a pedestrian on Langley Bypass last Wednesday morning raises far more questions than the answers provided thus far.
And it also begs the question — why do police continue to have the power to investigate the actions of someone who is working for them, when we have an Independent Investigations Office (IIO) which is supposed to remove the blatant conflicts of interest?
This particular incident involved a civilian contractor who does regular work for police agencies. He was working for Surrey RCMP, investigating the circumstances of a fatal crash in November, 2012 involving a truck and a police cruiser driven by Surrey RCMP Const. Adrian Oliver.
Just a few hours before the pedestrian fatality, the contractor was using the semi-truck as part of the police investigation. Just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 7, the truck was heading eastbound when it struck a 37-year-old Langley man in the 19500 block of Langley Bypass.
The driver did not stop. Police put out a public plea for information, and a short time later, the truck was located. Soon afterwards, it was traced to the contractor.
Surrey RCMP deserve credit for quickly letting the public know that the prime suspect is a contractor who was working for them, and was working on a case involving the death of an RCMP officer. This type of transparency has not always been on display from police agencies.
Surrey RCMP also stated that, because the man was a contractor who worked for them, the investigation would be observed by another police agency. While that is a step toward making this an arm’s length investigation, it is far too tentative.
We have seen from the Robert Dziekanski case, and numerous others, that police simply cannot investigate incidents involving fellow officers and remain 100 per cent objective. That isn’t a criticism. It’s human nature.
These cases led to establishment of the IIO. The legislation setting up the IIO did not make allowances for the agency to investigate civilian police employees or contractors doing work for police agencies. Yet it seems logical that the same conflicts of interest which have caused so much public concern would be present when Surrey RCMP are tasked with investigating a fatal traffic crash involving someone working for them.
