Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Crooked Cop becomes Victoria Police Chief


"They can't be serious," wrote a blogger when it was rumored that the Victoria Police Board was about to appoint former Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham as Victoria's Police Chief.

They were serious.

On Monday, the Victoria Police Board announced that former Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham had been appointed Victoria’s new Police Chief. (In the above photo, Graham toasts his victory, with his wife Gail to his left.)

Graham was appointed despite the fact that earlier this year, he was found to have engaged in “discreditable conduct” as Vancouver’s Chief by Police Complaints Commissioner Dirk Ryneveld. Pivot has announced it will seek a "disciplinary hearing" into Graham now that he is once again under the Police Act. Graham had retired as Vancouver’s chief before the “discreditable conduct” finding, so he was never disciplined.

There is also documented evidence that Graham knowingly allowed his officers on the Vancouver police force to get away with evidence-fabrication, Soviet-style political psychiatry, illicit accessing of female medical records when no evidence could be found, and extortion.

Graham said after his appointment yesterday, "I believe in integrity and in doing the right thing." A former Downtown Eastside resident who became the target of persistent evidence-fabrication doesn't believe Graham: "When he had a choice between his cops committing crimes and doing the right thing, he chose crime."