Toronto police tried to dodge bullet of public inquiry, report suggests

Wednesday, November 22, 2006 | 6:00 AM ET

CBC News

Senior managers in Toronto's police force hoped to avert a full-blown public inquiry into corruption charges by launching their own internal probe, a CBC News investigation has found.

A 2001 internal affairs report obtained by CBC identifies widespread problems involving several drug squads and outlines recommendations for dealing with the mess of police troubles.

Criminal defence lawyer Edward Sapiano called the report a "shocking" document that acts as "a blueprint for how to conceal from the public the malfeasance and the corruption that had been going on in the [Toronto police service]."

Among the problems identified are officers facing criminal and misconduct charges and a sea of lawsuits accusing several drug teams of robbing huge amounts of cash from drug suspects.

Shortly after the report was finished, then police chief Julian Fantino did indeed launch a special task force vowing to leave no stone unturned in his search for the truth.

'Potential for a massive lack of trust': report

Written by Insp. Tony Corrie, the 10-page document advised that the facts need to be "brought to the forefront" and suggested a team of 20 officers perform an internal investigation.

However, Corrie also recommended a quick investigation in a bid to avert an inquiry, minimize damage in hopes of narrowing the focus to just one team of officers and "be seen to be getting to the bottom of the issues."

Corrie wrote to commanders that "it is feared that the inevitable public outcry may lead to a full Public Enquiry."

The report concluded that "if many more cases are revealed there is the potential for a massive lack of trust" of police officer testimony and the obtaining of search warrants.

It said "sample audits must take place of other units to attempt to provide some assurance that it was just one team."

An exercise in avoiding public scrutiny: lawyer

"This whole memorandum is really an exercise in trying to develop a strategy to avoid public scrutiny of the allegations of wrongdoing … and the misconduct and to avert a public inquiry," said Toronto lawyer Peter Biro.

Biro, who has represented clients claiming they were robbed by drug squad officers and repeatedly called for a public inquiry, says the internal affairs report says nothing about actually cleaning up the alleged corruption.

"They have identified a desired outcome without even having looked into the facts," said Biro. "The desired outcome is 'We have to confine and contain this.'"

The fact that they were looking for some assurance it was one team caused Sapiano to question whether hand-picked officers working for the task force were misled.

"The outcome of their investigation was already determined," he believed. "It was going to be restricted to what police brass can describe as a few bad apples and anything else they unearthed was to be buried."

Additional cases unearthed, but not resolved

Fantino, then-police chief and now head of the Ontario Provincial Police, was insistent when allegations surfaced that the problems were isolated.

However, in May, Jim Cassells, an officer who worked on the 25-member task force set up by Fantino, went to the media with accusations that police supervisors never followed up on a long list of additional cases the task force unearthed.

Early this week, another member of the task force, Neal Ward, came forward in support Cassells's statements. Police Chief Bill Blair responded to his statements by agreeing to meet with Cassells to discuss the unresolved cases.

Sources have told the CBC that the list of 14 cases includes that officers in one team were suspected of running a drug ring, another downtown drug team allegedly stole $2.5 million from suspects' safety deposit boxes and a supervisor of drug investigations was not removed from his job after allegedly admitting to a decade-long cocaine addiction.