CHAT News File Photo

By Chris Brown

New database will track Alberta police misconduct

May 24, 2022 | 3:08 PM

A volunteer-led group pushing for accountability has launched an online directory that chronicles incidents of police misconduct spanning nearly 30 years.

The Alberta Police Misconduct Database Association says it includes over 400 incidents of police misconduct involving roughly 500 officers across the province. The group says it’s the first of its kind to be created in Canada.

The database went live Tuesday.

“We want this searchable portal to help further discussions about policing in Alberta, and across the country,” says Devyn Ens, an Edmonton paralegal and head of the Alberta Police Misconduct Database Association, in a release. “Volunteers have spent hundreds of hours and a lot of late nights reviewing cases, entering data, and building this database.”

Users can look up an officer’s name, a keyword, a year, or a police force, for incidents of police misconduct in the province since 1993.

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There is one incident in the database involving the Medicine Hat Police Service, from 2013.

Three officers were charged with aggravated assault following an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team into an arrest where a man required hospitalization and surgery for the injuries he received. The officers were found not guilty of aggravated assault in 2015, but one was found guilty of assault. The officer received a conditional discharge including probation for a year, complete an anger management program, and complete a report on the role and responsibilities of police officers.

Amy Matychuk is vice-president of the Alberta Police Misconduct Database Association and a Calgary-based lawyer at Prison and Police Law. She says the database is the result of a collaborative effort between lawyers, academics, students and other professionals, who’ve been keeping tabs on police misconduct for years.

“Compiling all of these cases in one place, publicly accessible to anyone with an internet connection, will aid efforts to hold police officers in Alberta accountable,” she says.

The group says the database was compiled using publicly available information, such as newspaper clippings, CanLII decisions, disciplinary hearings and documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests. All database entries are backed up by these primary sources and have been vetted by the Alberta Police Misconduct Database Association.