Police Officers: Fellow Police Officers

Special Investigations Unit Dept: The charge was laid not by fellow police officers, but by Ontario's special investigations unit. It's an independent organization staffed entirely by civilians. Although some of the investigators are former police officers, most are drawn from various branches of government, including workplace health and safety, national security and intelligence, immigration, corrections and the legal profession, according to Winnipeg Free Press. The SIU was created to bolster confidence that investigations into police-involved homicides and serious assaults were being handled with integrity and professionalism. It was a measure to help retain trust in the police themselves, because when that's lost, policing becomes much more difficult and a Toronto police officer has been charged with second-degree murder after a man was shot in the back during an investigation. Murder charges against police are extremely rare, and no officer has ever been convicted of such an offence committed in the course of his or her duties. The SIU has learned that it doesn't need serving police officers to find the smoking gun or the suspect, because the case is not about who fired the shot; it's about context and circumstance. It's not a whodunit, but a whatwasit -- justifiable homicide, accident, negligence or murder. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.