Three Halifax police officers arrested in less than a month is three too many for Chief Dan Kinsella.
“One officer arrested or charged is one too many,” Kinsella said in a news conference at department headquarters Thursday.
“Police officers are expected to be above reproach at all times. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Kinsella, who took over in July as chief of the force that employs more than 530 sworn officers, said he couldn’t address details of the three recent cases that are still under investigation, but he confirmed that criminal charges are being pursued in all three.
A Halifax police officer was arrested Monday in relation to a threats complaint in Eastern Passage. The RCMP said the incident involved a man, later identified as an off-duty Halifax police officer, and a woman known to him.
The two previous incidents happened days apart last month. On Sept. 14, an officer was arrested on suspicion of stealing from a Halifax business.
On Sept. 19, the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) laid charges against Det. Const. Joseph Farrow, 51 and off duty at the time, for allegedly breaking into a Tantallon-area home the day before and sexually assaulting a woman, reportedly a fellow police officer that he knew.
Farrow and the officer involved in the alleged stealing case, identified by sources as 42-year-old Const. Jennifer McPhee, a 17-year member of the force, have both been suspended with pay while the officer arrested Monday will likely soon face the same fate. SIRT is investigating the allegation against Farrow, a 23-year member of the force, and the Eastern Passage threats case, along with a July incident of a Halifax police officer who has been accused of sexually assaulting, in a police cruiser, a woman he had arrested.
“I cannot guarantee today that there won’t be another incident this year but what I will promise is that people will be held accountable for their actions.”
- Halifax police chief Dan Kinsella
The theft accusation is being handled internally, Kinsella said.
“This is very disappointing,” Kinsella said of the rash of officer arrests. “I cannot guarantee today that there won’t be another incident this year but what I will promise is that people will be held accountable for their actions.”
Kinsella said there have been 15 incidents in the last five years of Halifax police officers being arrested. He said charges have been laid in the vast majority of those cases, some of which have gone through the court system and some of which are pending.
Over a five-year period from April 2012 to March 2017, SIRT reports that it investigated 49 cases involving Halifax police officers, 13 of which resulted in charges being laid. There were six domestic violence charges, two sexual assault cases, three breaches of conditions, an assault charge and one breach of trust.
Const. Lawrence Gary Basso was found guilty in June of assault causing bodily harm in the Feb. 25, 2018, assault of a 54-year-old homeless man who sustained facial injuries, including a broken nose.
In January, Const. George Farmer was found guilty of voyeurism, trespassing at night and breach of trust for sneaking looks through room windows at the Esquire Motel in Bedford.
A year ago, former Halifax police officer Anthony George Sparks pled guilty to stealing $425 from taxi driver Houssen Milad, who he had stopped for speeding on Highway 111 on Aug. 12, 2018. Sparks stole the money while Milad left his vehicle, with the officer’s permission, to say morning prayers.
In handing Sparks a conditional nine-month sentence, provincial court Judge Alana Murphy said the theft was an “an egregious breach of trust by a police officer against a member of the public he was sworn to serve and protect.”
“It brings the administration of criminal justice into disrepute. It can erode trust that people should be able to have in law enforcement officers,” Murphy said. “It has the potential to tarnish unfairly other police officers who go about their duties honestly but now have to deal with the taint of what was done by a colleague who acted dishonestly.”
Kinsella said Wednesday that three incidents in a month is alarming to the public.
“Trust takes a lifetime to build and it can be lost in an instant,” Kinsella said.
“One of my concerns as chief of police is that these three incidents this year may overshadow the professionalism and dedication that our police display every day,” Kinsella said. “But I also emphasize that our officers’ conduct is critical to building and maintaining public trust and there can be no compromises on that. The message that I’m delivering today to both the public and the Halifax Regional Police employees is that this type of behaviour is unacceptable and there will be consequences.”
"Having three incidents in one month is alarming."
- Halifax deputy mayor Tony Mancini
The police chief said there are support systems available within the department for officers who are having difficulties and he dismissed any notion of a culture of lawlessness among the department’s officers.
“Policing is a high-impact, high-intensity, heavy-accountability job,” he said. “Police are held to a higher standard and we expect to be.
“We need to be cognizant of our supervision methods, our training methods, our recruiting methods.”
Tony Mancini, deputy mayor of Halifax Regional Municipality who sits on the seven-member Halifax police commission that provides civilian oversight of policing in the city, attended the news conference.
“I am pleased the chief has taken ownership of this,” Mancini said. “Having three incidents in one month is alarming. Are there things that we can do as a municipality and as a police force to prevent any of these things? Do we have the right systems in place?”
Mancini maintained it’s premature to talk about an internal investigation of the department but said with new recruits being sworn in this week, it’s time to ask serious questions.
“Do they have the training and ability to speak up if they are having problems, are they trained to look out for each other. Do we have the systems to support that? I don’t know the answer to that but those are the questions we’d like to ask.”
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