00:00:00.000We first told you in a True North exclusive about a criminal complaint of obstructing justice against senior members of the RCMP, both active and retired, that is being actively investigated by the OPP last August.
00:00:21.080Since then, much has happened behind the scenes.
00:00:24.640The OPP have actively engaged in interviews, trying to get to the bottom of the complaints alleged by two of the four members who were involved in the 2007 tasering death of Polish traveler Robert Zakansky at YVR Airport.
00:00:41.680The two, Corporal Monty Robinson, retired, and Constable Jerry Rundle, still on active duty, have sent nervous ripples through the rigid force.
00:00:52.820The details of all of this have been dealt with elsewhere on this site.
00:00:57.980Two things happened this week to take note of in all of this.
00:01:02.160One of the subjects of the investigation, Brenda Butterworth Carr, who retired as the commanding officer of E Division, BC, and took an appointment as the director of police services for the provincial government.
00:01:17.580She resigned her position, discussed recently in this space.
00:01:21.920This week, the government announced her replacement would be Wayne Rideout, another retired senior ranking Mountie from BC.
00:01:29.360That decision is surprising and demonstrative of how little the government does in terms of background checks.
00:01:36.540Rideout is a central figure in the YVR incident and one of the subjects of the OPP investigation.
00:01:44.080At the time, Rideout was the officer in charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, IHIT.
00:01:50.880Shortly after the incident, RCMP spokesperson, Pierre Lemaître, held a press conference at YVR and inadvertently gave out inaccurate information to the media.
00:02:03.040When it became clear the information was not correct, Lemaître wanted to correct the record.
00:02:10.600He would have said, quote, I apologize for the information I gave you, it was based on preliminary information, further investigation has revealed, etc., etc., unquote.
00:02:23.480And that would have been the end of the matter.
00:02:27.260But Rideout, inexplicably, told him not to correct the record.
00:02:31.780Lemaître was then replaced as the spokesman on the file and was replaced by Corporal Dale Carr, who also never corrected the record, but rather had to play defense on why the RCMP misled the media, who screamed cover-up.
00:02:49.360Carr was put in an untenable position simply because Rideout made a stunningly bad decision.
00:02:55.820Lemaître was then transferred to a traffic enforcement division and couldn't escape the feeding frenzy of the media, who smelled a cover-up.
00:03:05.680He felt like he was being blamed for lying to the media and was never able to correct the record.
00:03:11.480He ultimately took his own life in 2013, never having made the error that initiated everything that followed, including the Braidwood Commission of Inquiry,
00:03:21.540which ultimately resulted in a special prosecutor who charged the YVR-4 with perjury.
00:03:29.220Two of the four were convicted and spent time in jail, despite doing absolutely nothing wrong,
00:03:35.880and now Rideout will be in charge of police programs province-wide.
00:03:41.480One of the two who were convicted and jailed was Quasi Millington.
00:03:45.420He wielded the taser on that fateful night.
00:03:48.000At least three separate reviews determined that he and the others acted appropriately,
00:03:53.580and according to their training in how they handled Zekansky.
00:03:57.820Yet he was convicted and went to jail, including at least two months in solitary confinement in a Kingston pen.
00:04:05.900This week, Millington settled his lawsuit with the Mounties.
00:04:09.300Most details of the settlement were not disclosed,
00:04:11.940but we learned that one of the settlement conditions was for the RCMP to provide a letter,
00:04:19.060essentially supporting Millington in obtaining a pardon from the parole board.
00:04:24.540That letter essentially admits the Mounties have been wrong throughout this process.
00:04:30.900When Millington got out of prison, I met with him and his wife Cindy for lunch in downtown Toronto.
00:04:36.540He recounted the details of his ordeal, and frankly, for what the RCMP has put him through,
00:04:42.040I hope the settlement was substantial.