Report raises concerns about B.C. agency that investigates police

VANCOUVER – A newly released report raises questions about how an independent agency investigated what happened when the RCMP shot and killed a man during a standoff in northern B.C.

Lawyer Mark Jette was appointed to investigate how the Independent Investigations Office handled the death of Greg Matters, a former soldier who was killed in September 2012.

Jette's report says two supervisors within the agency were not legally authorized to be investigators, because one had recently been an RCMP officer in B.C. and the other was still receiving paycheques after leaving a job with the RCMP in Alberta.

The report says this undermined the agency's ability to independently investigate and could damage its credibility with the public.

However, Jette says he did not find any evidence of pro- or anti-police bias that undermined the integrity of the investigation.

The agency investigated and later cleared the officers involved in Matters' death of criminal wrongdoing, but Jette was appointed earlier this year after a former investigator filed a complaint.