Two officers with a Vancouver Island police department have been charged with the sexual assault of a “vulnerable” woman, authorities announced Tuesday.
The investigation into the members of the Central Saanich Police Service began on Oct. 28 after “a person came forward with information about two officers who allegedly had unlawful sexual contact with an adult woman they met while on duty,” the Vancouver Police Department, which led the investigation, said in a statement.
Sgt. Matthew Ball, 43, has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of breach of trust.
Const. Ryan Johnston, 40, has been charged with one count of sexual assault.
Because I happen to live on the small island where this happened, and live with my feet firmly planted in reality and not on the internet. I don’t hate cops for the sake of it. If I hate them, which I largely do, it’s for legitimate reasons, not because “they’re in a gang”. I have real experiences with cops, where they did real things that were bad, to me and people I know. My issue with them is their actions. Not some perceived gang. Our police have problems, but they aren’t plagued with the same problems at the same scale that American police are. American police are actually a gang. Ours aren’t, or are at least, to much, much lesser extent.
If you’re American, commenting on our police, arguing with someone who lives within the same jurisdiction as said police, stay in your lane. If you are Canadian, and happen to live in the same area, I’d love to hear why you think they are a gang, so feel free to let me know.
I’m Canadian and have had run ins with cops. I also know others who’ve had worse run ins than I did, like starlight tours in the late 70s, and being strip searched in the middle of major thoroughfare in Saskatoon.
The cops I’ve had interactions with have shown me they’re part of a gang, making up stories about people so they’d be arrested and charged, only to have the charges dropped 8 months later after they’d lost their job and housing.
While you have your own experiences with them, so do I and so do others.
If nothing else they should be defunded, if not completely disbanded.
If your point is that cops are corrupt, I agree. I also agree that resources given to cops would be better allocated to specialists to deal with certain situations, like a mental health crisis worker sent to a distressed member of the public, instead of police.
I don’t know about disbanding the police. For all their faults and flaws, they do also do work that I’m sure most people wouldn’t want to be involved in. I’m sure those occurrences are far and few between, but still.
The George Floyd reference seemed somewhat off topic, but I appreciate your level headed response nonetheless.