Rhino’s Ramblings - Another Firing On The Force
By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary
The top news of the past week is the secretive firing of Superintendent Taylor Mickleborough by the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS).
Yet another body blow has been dealt to the MJPS that - whether they admit to it or not - is desperately trying to improve their flagging image in the community.
They are a force trying to add some shine or a little bit of new paint to some areas of rusted out fender wells on a more or less mechanically sound jalopy.
Now I will be the first to point out that in many ways the MJPS or rather the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners - the de facto employer of all MJPS personnel - have their hands tied due to legal and privacy reasons.
Although they aren’t stating it publicly the silence from the MJPS points to a firing which may very well likely be heading to legal action.
What we learnt from the Constable Alan Murdock affair of a few years back is firing a cop is no easy task.
There are a lot of legal hoops which have to be jumped through. Hoops which lead to suspension and discipline - usually over years - before finally a pattern or reason is found sufficient enough to pull the trigger on an officer’s career.
In the case of Superintendent Mickleborough there does not seem to be a public trail like Constable Murdock had over a period of years and succession of police chiefs.
Superintendent Mickleborough was nothing short of the golden boy of the MJPS’s administration. He was front row center on numerous local issues, many of them controversial, for the MJPS.
He was the public face or one of three of the triumvirate when it came to navigating the Force’s public image to the community.
It’s one of the big reasons why Superintendent Mickleborough’s termination deserves a much larger, if not full, disclosure to the community.
Sitting in the weeds in silence is not going to make the entire issue go away but rather it allows the pot of public mistrust in the MJPS to continue to boil.
For myself personally coming clean may be tough to do but if the MJPS or rather the elected officials who sit on the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners - Mayor Clive Tolley and Councillors Doug Blanc and Crystal Froese - want to avoid hard core questioning and calls of non-accountability during the presently ongoing civic election campaign it’s time to come clean.
The termination of former Superintendent Mickleborough leaves many - myself included - asking if the number three in the MJPS has allegedly done something so wrong to be fired just how deep does the rot run.
How many bad apples are there in the barrel especially when the Constable Murdock affair was suppose to only be one simple case of a man rotten to the core?
Could it be that there are more bad apples in the barrel? And if so, then who? These are questions people in the community are asking me.
Incredibly they are also questions being asked of me by people ready to pull the pin and enter the civic election campaign.
One potential candidate even told me he was considering entering the race in hopes of once elected, being appointed to the Moose Jaw Police Board of Commissioners, and then with Chief Rick Bourassa leaving cleaning house.
I don’t know how much a single Police Commissioner or even the Police Commission could do but as the MJPS’s employer the results would be interesting.
Who knows but perhaps we could even see a public inquiry into the MJPS’s problems. Something more than a few serving and former dissident members of the MJPS have told me needs to be done.
The dissidents within the MJPS are not a small group but a growing number who have a history of fighting the chief and MJPS administration through votes of non-confidence and other actions going back decades.
If you don’t believe me take a read of the Regina Leader Post articles from the 1980s and sooner on the subject.
With that said there are some facts I can shed on the firing of Superintendent Mickleborough.
Facts such as Chief Bourassa did not simply fire Superintendent Mickleborough but there had been a suspension and then the termination following.
Additionally word of the suspension was in some circles well known in the community with people asking me what was going on weeks ago.
What I can tell you though is that the suspension of Superintendent coincided with the suspension of three other MJPS staff members during the same time period.
What the other three MJPS personnel were suspended for I’m sorry I don’t know and if it all ties to each other.
That’s really as far as I am taking it with the impending permanent shuttering of MJ Independent and I hopefully permanently fade into obscurity.
Quite truthfully I’m not too keen in having the Regina Police Service investigate me at Chief Rick Bourassa’s behest or being stopped close to two dozen times by patrol officers over a few days duration.
Simply because I took a look into the MJPS and published their secrets in this column.
A letter to the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) confirmed my being investigated at the Chief’s behest and a complaint to SGI about misuse of their equipment to track me stopped it all. As I said journalism is not a crime.
What I can also tell you is when the Constable Murdock affair came up members of the MJPS told me they hoped for a wider inquiry.
Something that did not happen.
It came up a second time when I was fed the inside information about the shooting in the MJPS cells. The hope of a much larger inquiry.
Something that did not happen.
With the sudden termination of Superintendent Mickleborough the hopes are there but in my opinion unlikely to happen.
The MJPS will continue to limp along wounded for a time with more than a few questioning what is going on.
A public inquiry could clean things up once and for all.
But it’s likely something that won’t happen.
UPDATE - Following writing this column MJ Independent sent over a list of questions to Councillor Crystal Froese chair of the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commission asking questions about recent events within the MJPS
We will get back to you with any response we receive.
