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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Canadian police found guilty of misconduct to homeless

December 08 2010
Decision shows that all citizens have rights, says the plaintiff‘s lawyer


Two Canadian police officers who rounded up local homeless people and drove them around in a hot van for over an hour have been found guilty of misconduct, according to local paper The Edmonton Journal.

The two officers, of Edmonton in Canada, were charged with one count of discreditable conduct and two of insubordination in a police disciplinary hearing.

They were found to have broken with police policy by transporting a higher than acceptable number of homeless people, failing to take notes, and not leaving the passengers at a residence or with a responsible person.

"There was no justification for these actions, either in law or in police policy," said Calgary Police Inspector Paul Manuel, who presided over the hearing.

The Edmonton Journal reported that during the disciplinary hearing, the two officers testified that they had picked up a group of around six people with opened and unopened bottles of alcohol.

Manuel said that moving homeless people into downtown shelters on busy weekend nights was routine police practice. But he said the officers collected more people than their van could properly hold.

"Nine people were placed in the patrol wagon that has a reasonable capacity for six," he told The Edmonton Journal. "[This] would create uncomfortable conditions in the van."

Erika Norheim, a lawyer representing several of those involved in a civil lawsuit, said the decision demonstrated that all citizens had rights that protected them from this kind of mistreatment.

"These are highly vulnerable people that can be easily taken advantage of in a way that many other members of society could not be," she told the Journal.

"It was clearly wrong... These individuals were not properly dealt with, so there is a victory in the sense that that was recognised by the decision."

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