For the second time in recent years, a joke by Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham that fell flat has landed him in hot water. And this time, his purported witticism has prompted a disciplinary finding of “discreditable conduct” against him by the Victoria Police Board.
Chief Graham’s quip that an undercover police officer was driving a busload of anti-Olympic protesters to a demonstration in 2009 was no laughing matter, according to the board.
Though the chief claimed later that he was just kidding, the real undercover people, charged with providing security at the 2010 Winter Olympics, were upset.
An officer with the RCMP-led Integrated Security Unit for the Games, whose identity was blacked out in the investigative report, said the ISU was concerned by Chief Graham’s observation, worrying that it could have had “dire impacts … [on the] security/safety of personnel.”
The incident follows an earlier attempted foray into humour by Chief Graham that also backfired.
In 2006, when head of the Vancouver Police Department, Chief Graham left a bullet-riddled shooting target on the desk of then-city-manager Judy Rogers, with a handwritten note that read: “A bad day at the range is better than the best day at work.”
Ms. Rogers reported the incident to Sam Sullivan, mayor at the time, who passed the issue on to the Police Complaints Commission.
The matter was subsequently closed after the Vancouver Police Board accepted an apology from Chief Graham, who said he left the target, a silhouetted form of a human head, on Ms. Rogers’s desk as a joke.
The cop-on-a-bus joke was made by Chief Graham at an international security conference, just after anti-Olympic protesters, including many from Vancouver, briefly disrupted the first day of the Olympic torch relay in Victoria.
The chief mocked the protesters during his speech: “They were not that organized on the ferry over. They all came over on a [rented] bus. … And there was a cop drivin’ the bus.”
After reading about Chief Graham’s remarks, photographer Bruce Dean filed an official complaint, arguing that he had “disclosed the identity of an undercover officer to the general public.”
The first investigation, by RCMP Chief Superintendent Don Harrison, appeared to concentrate more on Mr. Dean’s background and possible motivation than Chief Graham’s behaviour. The complaint was dismissed.
However, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association then intervened and petitioned successfully for a second, external police probe into the incident.
This time, RCMP Chief Superintendent Rick Taylor concluded that it was inappropriate for police to comment publicly on investigative techniques, despite Chief Graham’s assertion that he had no idea whether an undercover police officer was driving the bus.
“[My] comments were intended to be humorous, to poke fun at the organizational efforts by certain protest groups. … It got laughter in the audience,” Chief Graham explained, according to Supt. Taylor’s report.
“It is the conclusion of this investigator that Chief Graham made spontaneous, unscripted, off-the-cuff remarks … without considering their impact and weight,” wrote Supt. Taylor. “The comments were highly inappropriate ... and a very poor attempt at humour on Chief Graham’s part at the expense of members of a protest group.”
The Victoria Police Board has proposed handing out a written reprimand to the chief. All parties will have a chance to respond before the board makes its final decision.
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