Police watchdog raps B.C. municipal cops caught behaving badly

VANCOUVER – Four British Columbia municipal police officers were fired last year for offences ranging from cocaine use to using the services of a prostitute.

A recent report by the province’s Police Complaints Commission says the office opened 1,091 files in 2013 and closed 845.

Of the 88 complaints investigated by the office that oversees municipal police forces in the province, 74 were substantiated, another four were mediated and 207 were resolved informally.

One officer of the New Westminster police force was fired for associating with a known drug trafficker, and another was fired for unauthorized searches of police databases for information he then shared with an unauthorized person.

An Abbotsford officer was fired for lying about an off-duty accident in an unmarked police vehicle.

And a member of the Vancouver Police Department was dismissed for unauthorized database searches, associating with criminals and using the services of a prostitute.