Five members of a task force set up by Waterloo Regional Police to address issues around sexual assault say their jobs are being made more difficult by how police have handled allegations of internal sexual misconduct.
The group has penned an open letter to Chief Bryan Larkin saying they are “deeply trouble” by the organization’s response to affidavits sworn to as part of a proposed class-action lawsuit against the region’s police board and the Waterloo Regional Police Association union.
“Our concern is that survivors are hearing the messaging that they’re hearing from police in terms of denying allegations of female officers’ experience of sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Sara Casselman, the executive director of the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region and one of the letter’s authors, said in an interview.
“It’s already so difficult for survivors to reach out and report when they’ve experienced sexual violence. When they hear the police denying allegations within their own force, that impacts that community.”
The proposed lawsuit alleges that a culture of sexual misconduct exists within Waterloo Regional Police. Current and former officers have claimed in affidavits that they were subject to sexual harassment and/or assault, and that attempts to use the internal complaint process caused negative repercussions to their careers. None of their allegations have been tested in court.
Police have responded to the accusations through their lawyer, James H. Bennett, who has said that the affidavits “contain untrue, exaggerated, misleading and/or defamatory allegations.”
Bennett declined to comment for this story, deferring a request from CTV News to Larkin and police board chair Coun. Tom Galloway.
A police spokesperson said Larkin was unavailable for comment Friday. For his part, Galloway said he understands why people might be upset with the lawyer’s response.
“There’s a lot of criticism – and some of it, I think, is warranted … in reaction to the lawyer’s statement,” he said Friday.
“Lawyers are lawyers. They’re trying to defend their client, and sometimes they’re subject to a little bit of overstatement, a little bit of hyperbole. The other side has been doing that as well, and I guess he felt the need to respond to that in kind.”
In addition to the lawyer’s response, the letter’s authors take issue with part of the response Larkin provided to the media after the allegations came to light.
The group says it is bothered by Larkin praising the work WRPS has done on increasing gender equity while not mentioning that gender bias remains an issue confronting all policing organizations.
The five authors of the letter are part of the WRPS sexual violence task force, which was set up last year in response to a report showing that 27 per cent of sexual assaults reported to Waterloo Regional Police are deemed unfounded – well above the 19 per cent national average.
Casselman says she believes in the work the task force is doing. While she wants to call attention to the police response and how it could affect the decision of sexual assault victims to report their attackers to police, she says she believes Larkin and other police officers involved in the task force are committed to its mission.
“We will continue to amplify the voices of survivors in our community,” she said.
Galloway says the police board has told Larkin to create something like a more permanent community advisory group to help the organization deal with internal issues around sexual misconduct. He says Casselman and the other authors of the letter are “very likely candidates” to be part of that group.
“I think we can turn this into a positive,” he said.
With reporting by Nicole Lampa
