The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which oversees municipal police department misconduct complaints, has released its annual report that includes complaint-related statistics for four south Island police departments in the 2023 to 2024 monitoring period.

In total, the Victoria Police Department saw a total of 68 complaints and five investigations, both down from last year; the Saanich Police Department saw 36 complaints and one ordered investigation, which is up from last year; the Oak Bay Police Department saw one complaint and no investigations, which is down from last year; and the Central Saanich Police Service saw five complaints, which is down from last year, and one ordered investigation.

Details of some of the offences, where the investigations were concluded between April 2023 and March 2024, were shared by the OPCC which includes stolen valour allegations, inappropriate conduct with prisoners, and anger issues.

In one case, a VicPD member was found to have committed misconduct after taking a video of themselves on duty with a prisoner in the background masturbating and later shared it with work colleagues in 2021.

"In respect of the prisoner video, [the judge appointed to review the case] found that the member clearly breached his duty of care owed to the subject of the recording and that the misconduct was done for the apparent amusement of the member," noted the report.

The judge also found that the member committed two acts of misconduct by way of deceit as they "intentionally and unequivocally made deceitful statements in interviews with the police act investigator, knowing they were misleading and untrue."

The member resigned from VicPD before the case was concluded, but their service record of discipline will reflect the punishment that would be imposed, which was dismissal.

Another VicPD member, who also resigned before the case concluded, was investigated for wearing military medals on their uniform in 2022, and told their supervisor that they had been awarded a Meritorious Service Medal, which was an apparent lie.

"It was reported that the member had worn several military medal ribbons on his VicPD uniform, and that the memberB次元官网网址檚 supervisor was suspicious of the memberB次元官网网址檚 account of how he had earned one of those medals," according to the report.

One member of the Saanich Police Department was given a written reprimand after violating the respectful workplace policy by having verbal outbursts of anger, overreacting to situations, and displaying "excessive emotion" at inappropriate times between 2021 and 2022.

A member of the Central Saanich Police Department was given four days of suspension without pay for being in a conflict of interest in "liaising with a person who was under investigation" for a criminal offence in 2018.

In total, B.C. municipal police forces, which excludes the RCMP, saw 1,488 files opened, down from 1,518 the previous year; and received 685 police complaints, which is down from 706.