ASIRT to investigate allegations against former Calgary police chief Rick Hanson

[RedHot25]

http://www.calgarysun.com/2015/06/26...f--rick-hanson

CTV Calgary reported Thursday former Calgary police chief Rick Hanson, in his final hours as the city’s top cop, reassigned 22 officers to 5 District in the city’s northeast.

The next day, Hanson was declared the Alberta Progressive Conservative candidate for the riding of Calgary-Cross — contained entirely within 5 District.

In a March 13 e-mail obtained by CTV through a Freedom of Information request, Hanson explained the redeployment was due to upcoming district boundary changes. Hanson’s e-mail was followed up the next day by one to the police finance department regarding the redeployment — the same day he announced his candidacy in May’s provincial election

[llwhiteoutll]

This just seems like its one final dig at a PC candidate who lost. He still had the authority to assign officers to duties and the stats would seem to support the requirement for additional manpower. Further, comments by the CPS would seem to support that district reorganizations had already taken place prior to this and 5 grew in size as a result

[RedHot25]

Yeah, I'm not so sure about this one.

From a CBC article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...nson-1.3130065

When questioned about Hanson's directive at a press conference Thursday, Supt. Kevan Stuart defended the deployment.

"District 5 is the second busiest district in the city and has been for many years," said Stuart, "I know the CPS needed officers in that area."

Despite its high crime rate, Stuart says district five is fourth in its number of officers.

"Chief Hanson has been in this organization for 40 years," said Stuart, "he has served this community for 40 years and he has served it very admirably with ethics and integrity and I'm not going to question that."

[Johnny199r]

This thread, just like this "controversy" is silly.

[btimbit]

I love how the reporter is trying so hard to make a scandal out of nothing.

Shortest investigation ever

[RougeUnderoos]

Okay, so it's silly, it's a final dig at a PC candidate, and it's a reporter making a scandal out of nothing.

This is the second paragraph:

In a statement released Friday via the Solicitor General’s office, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) confirmed they’d been called in by interim chief Paul Cook to investigate “a recent serious and sensitive allegation.”

So the silly interim chief is taking a shot at a former PC candidate. Could be, I guess. Seems kind of weird to me, but whatever. I would be fascinated to see how this Sun reporter convinced him to call in ASIRT though. That's some top notch reporting!

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Okay, so it's silly, it's a final dig at a PC candidate, and it's a reporter making a scandal out of nothing.

This is the second paragraph:

In a statement released Friday via the Solicitor General’s office, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) confirmed they’d been called in by interim chief Paul Cook to investigate “a recent serious and sensitive allegation.”

So the silly interim chief is taking a shot at a former PC candidate. Could be, I guess. Seems kind of weird to me, but whatever. I would be fascinated to see how this Sun reporter convinced him to call in ASIRT though. That's some top notch reporting!

The story and allegations did not originate with Cook (who has publicly supported the assignments) or the CPS and ASIRT was not called in before the story was printed. Also, it was CTV and some Edmonton lawyer that started this, not The Sun.

ASIRT was asked to look into it after a CTV reporter and an Edmonton lawyer decided that trying to dig up dirt, smear Hanson and lay a scandal at the feet of the CPS was the best use of their time.

Right from the article

Internal documents show the Calgary Police had been looking to adjust their district boundaries for several months.

Police adjusted the boundaries of all eight police districts to better even out the workload. District Five was the only district that took on new territory without losing any. There was internal consensus that the district needed more officers, but it was the only geographic unit to receive any.

So in order for this to be a move motivated by the upcoming campaign, Hanson would have needed to manipulate the internal process of-redesignating district boundaries, created a shortage of officers in that area by manipulating manpower levels in all other districts and then manipulated the District 5 response times so they showed consistently lower for all call types. Of course, this would be predicated on him being willing to put Calgarians in District 5 at risk by performing these manipulations for personal gain.

[c.t.ner]

Yeah. It seems like a non story. This tweet from DCU (who's on the police commission) in my mind puts it to rest.

‏@BigRedyyc 18h18 hours ago
Ridiculous & nefarious accusations against our former Chief Hanson. The Commission was fully aware of all deployment decisions for months.

Not that DCU is be all and end of the conversation, but for someone on the committee to say it's ridiculous is probably a strong indication that this was on the books for a while.

[WhiteTiger]

I do like how a certain newspaper is trying to make it seem like it's some "no big deal, fly by night, instantly done" thing to re-assign even one officer, much less 22.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

So in order for this to be a move motivated by the upcoming campaign, Hanson would have needed to manipulate the internal process of-redesignating district boundaries, created a shortage of officers in that area by manipulating manpower levels in all other districts and then manipulated the District 5 response times so they showed consistently lower for all call types. Of course, this would be predicated on him being willing to put Calgarians in District 5 at risk by performing these manipulations for personal gain.
[/SIZE]

I was commenting on the immediate reaction that this is motivated by corruption on the part of someone in the government. Or that it's a reporter making it up, or that it's silly and therefore should not be investigated.

I don't think the guy is guilty either. Trying to garner some niggling political advantage from this little manpower move, and not trying publicly to take credit for it, seems pretty stupid, and he doesn't seem stupid.

[corporatejay]

CPS is just making sure it doesn't look like they are covering something up so it gets referred to ASIRT.