Whitby: Durham police undergo organizational review under new chief after years of scandal
Published August 16, 2023 at 2:56 pm
The new chief of Durham Regional Police has launched an organizational overhaul in an effort to enhance community trust, build on the service’s relationship with local partners and modernize the service.
Chief Peter Moreira was sworn into his new role back in March following a 32-year career in Toronto police. He was hired on to replace retiring Interim Chief Todd Rollauer who had served in the role since the last permanent chief, Paul Martin, resigned amid an ethics investigation in 2020.
In the months since Moreira took over the top job, he said he’s “been impressed and proud of the amazing work” being done throughout the service. “The quantity and quality of work, as well as the dedication of our members, has been outstanding.”
However, Moreira said he wanted to re-adjust the service to focus on community-based policing. To meet this goal he announced the organizational review DRPS: Forward. Together. Ultimately the plan is to make changes in the service to support this new focus.
“We want to ensure that our processes and investments are supporting community-centric policing and ensuring as a service we are focused on doing the work that only police can deliver,” Moreira said, “While at the same time, we will work closely with our partners on those complex issues where public health and public safety may overlap.”
The reforms will begin on the service’s uniformed front line as it’s their most visible and largest element. While the service announced several priorities, such as strengthening their individual divisions, the actual concrete actions they will remain vague.
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The review comes following several years of scandal within DRPS, including one where Moreira himself was involved before he came to Durham Region.
By the time of Martin’s resignation investigators were about a year into an investigation into “corruption, criminality and serious misconduct” within the service including the upper ranks at the time. Per the CBC, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC) investigators alleged the “senior administration allowed, tolerated, encouraged, participated in, and/or was wilfully blind to workplace harassment of all kinds, intimidation of subordinates, retaliatory discipline, and potential alleged criminal conduct and/or misconduct under the [Police Services Act].”
Prior to his resignation the Ontario government removed many of his powers and gave them to an appointed administrator in an unprecedented move in Ontario.
The Martin years were also marked by Toronto police officer Micheal Theriault’s savage beating of Dafonte Miller in Whitby. Theriault was visiting his parents for Christmas when the assault happened on Dec 28, 2016. Both men gave different accounts of how they came to conflict, but the in end Theraiult beat Miller with a metal pipe so badly that the then-19-year-old lost an eye and had his arm, jaw, and multiple ribs broken.
Theriault was off-duty at the time which led Toronto police, including Moreira personally, and Durham Police, not to notify the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) about the assault.
Later investigations found this decision flawed as Theriault testified in court he was trying to arrest Miller, claiming the man was stealing from cars and that Miller had attacked him and was acting in self-defence. The SIU did not learn of the beating until Miller’s lawyer Julian Falconer, informed them six months after the fact.
Several investigations were then launched into Durham police’s mismanagement of the Theriault case, including one that found four Durham officers had shown a “pro-police bias” during the case. Det. Cst Craig Willis, who spearheaded the investigation, was found guilty of misconduct and dereliction of duty. Willis pled guilty to the charges and has been forced to work 60 hours unpaid in the six months after the decision.
Three more officers who had been first-responders to the scene were collectively later found guilty of discreditable conduct: Cst. Andrew Chmelowsky, Cst. Justine Gendron, and Cst. Barbara Zabdyr. Gendron also faced an additional neglect of duty charge.
Theriault was ultimately convicted of assault and sentenced to a nine month prison sentence.
Finally, an unrelated scandal emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic after Cst. Erin Howard released a video declaring her support for the Ottawa Convoy. Howard released the video while in uniform and in her cruiser in which she said “Right now, it feels like we’re a little bit at war and those rights and freedom are at stake.”
She was set to speak at the convoy until the video appeared. It was later learned Howard previously attended a anti-vax rally during which she made “disparaging comments” about her fellow officers and the service leadership. She was later temporarily demoted for her “deplorable” behaviour.
Additonally, Howard’s husband and fellow officer Cst. Clay Harnum, directed Howard supporters to email Rollauer to complain about the service reprimanding her. He was reprimanded and docked 60 hours pay.
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