Internal Affairs' Efforts Were Inadequate, at Best T

Summary

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While East St. Paul focused on the witnesses to the collision, the PSU set out to interview more than two dozen off-duty cops who attended a shift-end party at Branigan's restaurant on Leila Avenue the night before [Crystal Taman] died and the restaurant staff. For more than six hours, [David Paciocco] grilled Insp. Jim Poole and Det. Sgt. Roger Girard on the details of their investigation. In almost all regards, it appears the PSU's effort was inadequate. Paciocco was relentless as he listed for the two officers all the things a good investigator would have done in a case like this.

Throughout Paciocco's questioning of the two former PSU members, one issue kept coming up time and time again. Both Poole and Girard insisted the PSU operates with the belief anything a police officer tells them is the truth, unless they can uncover compelling evidence to the contrary. Of course, they were forced to grudgingly admit they didn't put much effort into finding that evidence. Paciocco's intense examination suggested the PSU -- despite folklore that might suggest internal affairs units are driven to nail bad cops -- had neither the inclination nor the skill set to conduct an impartial criminal investigation of one of its own.

In the end, the PSU didn't find any evidence [Derek Harvey-Zenk] was impaired when he killed Taman. Of course, it seems quite clear the PSU didn't look all that hard to find it.

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Internal Affairs' Efforts Were Inadequate, at Best T

Dan Lett

There was always something vaguely unsettling about the involvement of the Winnipeg Police Service's internal affairs unit in the criminal investigation of Derek Harvey-Zenk, the Winnipeg cop who killed Cr...

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