Police force insists it made ‘reasonable efforts’ to find women in Pickton case

VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Police Department insists it made “reasonable efforts” to find women whose remains were later found on Robert Pickton’s farm, despite the force’s own repeated public apologies for not catching the serial killer sooner.

The City of Vancouver has filed statements of defence on behalf of its police force in a series of lawsuits related to the Pickton case.

The children of nine women whose remains or DNA were found on Pickton’s property in Port Coquitlam filed lawsuits earlier this year against the Vancouver police, the RCMP, several individual officers, and Pickton himself.

The city has filed statements of defence insisting it acted reasonably when it received reports of sex workers disappearing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The statements also argue there is no evidence any of the women named in the lawsuits actually disappeared from Vancouver or died as result of activity that happened in the city.

The force has publicly apologized for failing to catch Pickton as he murdered Downtown Eastside sex workers and it released a report in 2010 that identified a series of deficiencies in the force’s response.