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Old 07-11-2016, 11:55 PM   #255
MBates
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin View Post
Wait, aren't you a Calgary lawyer? These two posts seem pretty damning. Are you saying it isn't uncommon for police recordings to go "missing" or not work when they are accused of inappropriate behavior?

I mean I thanked 4X4's post that you quoted because I literally thought of corny TV dramas when someone mentioned video and recordings "going missing" could actually be a thing in Calgary.
It is not easy to produce a list of written decisions establishing the frequency with which recorded evidence goes missing because, as I said, cases often get pulled before any such decision gets published (once the fact of the missing evidence gets discovered). As a result, the proof of what happened often never becomes public record.

I may be able to post some additional filed material from cases I have handled but that might take a while. This one, however, is a good example where my client referred to how he learned that the arresting officer he accused of assault during a traffic stop had admitted during a disciplinary investigation to having deliberately deleted the recording my client made of the incident:

http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc...14abqb211.html

It is a common enough occurrence that on files where my client says he or she was assaulted by police, I take extraordinary steps as defence counsel to secure the recording before it can suffer from an 'accident'.
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