Manitobans filed 250 public complaints over the conduct of on-duty RCMP officers in the province during the last fiscal year, according to a report issued by The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP Friday.
The complaint commission said it received 241 of those complaints, and the other nine were made directly to the RCMP.
For various reasons, 65 were rejected as inappropriate.
(Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files)
In that same fiscal year, from April 2023 to the end of March this year, Mounties completed investigations into 185 complaints, related to 546 unspecified allegations, which is an increase over the past four fiscal years.
The commission noted not all investigations into complaints in a given fiscal year are completed the same year. No details of the specifics of the complaints were made public.
The allegations included incidents of neglect of duty and improprieties in attitude, use of force, searches and arrests.
A total of 32 of the 546 allegations were considered substantiated after RCMP probes, while an additional 67 were “informally” resolved by Mounties.
The balance were either found to be unsubstantiated, were withdrawn by the complainant or terminated by the Mounties after investigations.
After RCMP investigate such complaints, the force provides the complainant with a report. If the individual isn’t satisfied, the commission, an independent agency, will conduct a review.
Twenty-five complaints were forwarded to the commission in 2023-2024. When the commission isn’t satisfied with the RCMP’s handling of complaints, it forwards findings and recommendations to the RCMP commissioner and the federal public safety minister.
The commission made 13 recommendations to the RCMP in 2023-2024, three of which were for training or protocol reviews, two policy reviews and two report reviews. It also recommended the force make three apologies to complainants. The RCMP agreed with all recommendations.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca