Edmonton Sun
A senior Edmonton police officer will face a new disciplinary charge of deceit over a press release issued during the Overtime affair, a provincial board has ruled.
In a decision today, the Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) directed Chief Mike Boyd to hold a hearing into allegations Insp. Bryan Boulanger was deceitful by “wilfully or negligently making or signing a false, misleading statement or entry” on Nov. 21, 2004.
In a news release Boulanger issued that day, police said they had received a tip that a “drunken patron” was going to leave a downtown restaurant in his car and that during their investigation of the case “officers noted a second intoxicated man whom they recognized as a high-profile member of the community.”
The pair were apparently Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte and then-police commission chairman Martin Ignasiak, whom police were accused of improperly targeting in a drunk-driving stakeout on Nov 18, 2004, outside the Overtime bar downtown.
Police initially chose not to lay a deceit charge against Boulanger, a decision the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association appealed to the LERB. The association argued there was no evidence either Diotte or Ignasiak planned to drink and drive and that the press release was an attempt to divert attention from the sting operation against two critics of city police.
Unless Boulanger tries to appeal the decision in court, today’s LERB ruling means he will once again come before a disciplinary hearing over his actions in the affair.
He’s already been through the process before when he faced a separate charge of discreditable conduct. In 2005, an RCMP superintendent cleared Boulanger in that case, a move the LERB upheld today.
The board, citing the upcoming disciplinary hearing, omitted its reasons for the decision to order the deceit charge.
Entries (RSS)