Complaints against Calgary police officers resolved quicker thanks to body-worn cameras

The Calgary Police Service (CPS) says they’ve made major improvements when it comes to resolving complaints against police officers.

Unlike previous years, the police service says around 70 per cent of complaints made against police officers are resolved within a year. Only a small percentage — less than two per cent — were because the officer escaped through a loop hole by retiring ore resigning

A big part of that, according to CPS, is because of body worn cameras, which have been credited for speeding things up.

“We use body worn camera to resolve more than half of our external complaints and we know that it takes significantly less time to resolve a complaint that has body worn camera as compared to those that don’t by a three month difference and that’s really because it’s evidence we can rely on, it’s neutral,” Katherine Murphy with CPS explained.

CPS has also introduced a member liasion to help officers through the complaint process while also taking steps to make it less stressful for those who have filed a complaint.

“Work [is] ongoing now into multiple different languages to make it accessible to folks,” said Chief Mark Neufeld. “I think there is opportunities there if someone is having a difficult time navigating the process, there’s even opportunities to be able to plug into the police commission here.”

Of the serious complaints that led to a hearing, the most common penalty was for officers to give up overtime hours.

During the meeting commissioner Heather Campbell, questioned why only four per cent of officers convicted of serious offences were fired from the service.

“I’m a licensed professional engineer, I hold a professional license in this province, and I don’t get to work at all with a criminal charge.

Murphy says it’s not that cut and dry.

“It is very difficult to terminate a police officer, and that’s justified in many circumstances. We put police officers in situations where, and I’m talking about situations where they’re lawfully placed to begin with. So, it’s a tough job, and while there needs to be accountability, there also needs to be scrutiny before we jump to conclusions,” she said.

Other penalties officers can receive include a reduction in rank, and suspension without pay.

There were 250 formal complaints made about CPS officers last year.