No sanctions for Mountie who sent ‘crude and vulgar’ texts to bylaw officer

A Mountie who sent “crude and vulgar” messages to a bylaw officer he worked with has been cleared of any wrongdoing.

The RCMP Conduct Authority ruled that messages Const. Digant Chaudhry sent to the bylaw officer were jokes and workplace banter and could not be seen as discreditable conduct.

“I do not believe that the public has a legitimate expectation that police officers, when conversing privately with friends, cannot engage in casual, friendly banter that also includes joking, flirting and, at times, sexual undertones, even when these exchanges occur while on duty,” the Conduct Authority said in a recently published March 20 decision.

“To rule this consensual exchange of text messages between two adults, albeit containing messages with sexual undertones and, at times, sexually explicit banter, to be discreditable, would, in my view, impose a ‘standard of perfection’ on (RCMP) members.”

The decision said Const. Chaudhry was working in an undisclosed part of Alberta when, in 2021, they matched on Tinder.

The two never met, but over the months sent numerous messages to each other, which often were flirtatious and contained sexual banter. One message said she’d have sex with the RCMP officer if he bought her McDonald’s.

They stopped messaging, and two years later, the woman got a job as a bylaw officer.

The allegations against Const. Chaudhry stems from messages sent while they were at work.

The RCMP Conduct Authority alleged the messages crossed the line and that the constable was acting in a “discreditable manner.” It said the text messages and in-person conversations contained sexual innuendo and sexual references that were unwelcome, offensive, demeaning, humiliating and undermining of the bylaw officer’s dignity.

Outside of the text messages and comments, the bylaw officer alleged Const. Chaudhry once took two and a half hours to respond to a call for assistance and then said that was because it came from her.

The bylaw officer also accused him of making offensive sexual comments after she told him she’d been sexually assaulted two years before. Another comment about her being “gang banged” was alleged to be “humiliating, offensive and vulgar.”

However, the Conduct Authority found that the reason the officer had taken so long to respond to her call for assistance was because he was at a higher priority call. It also found that the comments he made after she told him about the sexual assault had been misconstrued.

The bylaw officer said the “gang bang” comment was “the drop that made the bucket overflow,” and the reason she reported Const. Chaudhry.

However, the Conduct Authority found the comment had been made two months before she said it had, and found parts of her testimony inconsistent and unreliable.

“At its core, I find that the matter before me is private text messages and in-person conversations, banter, between two consenting adults that needs to be assessed as such,” the decision reads. 

Const. Chaudhry considered the bylaw officer a friend, and the conversations they had bolstered that belief.

“The tone of the text messages was casual and friendly,” the Conduct Authority said, adding that the bylaw officer was an active participant, texting back with emojis.

The constable admitted his choice of words was crude.

“I find that the choice of words reflected and was carried on from the tone of the casual banter they engaged in via text,” the Conduct Authority said.

Ultimately, the Conduct Authority dismissed all the allegations against Const. Chaudhry and ruled that while RCMP members are held to a higher standard than the general public, that standard is “not perfection.”