[stop-polabuse] Police chief suspends five, admits response bungled
seah...@odyssee.net
Police chief suspends five, admits response bungled
Fri, Feb 18, 2000
By Kim Guttormson
Police Reporter
A GRIM Jack Ewatski suspended five of his staff yesterday and admitted
police made mistakes handling 911 calls this week from a Manitoba Avenue
home where two sisters were found stabbed to death early Wednesday.
After listening to an emergency call placed by one of the women before she
was killed, and being briefed on four other calls that night from the same
home, the police chief decided the lack of police response had violated
department policy.
"Our existing policy pertaining to domestic incidents does not appear to
have been adhered to," he said.
For a second day, Ewatski refused to provide details of the five calls,
why a decision was made not to send a cruiser, or what happened in the
final desperate hours of the lives of Doreen Leclair and Corrine McKeowen.
McKeowen had a history of domestic abuse. According to court records
obtained by the Free Press, she was assaulted July 28, 1999, and death
threats were uttered against her. There was a court order restraining an
ex-boyfriend from contacting her.
In at least one of the 911 calls to police the night the women were
killed, reference was made to a man on the scene contrary to a court order,
said police spokesman Const. Bob Johnson.
According to police policy, any threat of domestic violence requires
immediate police attention.
Mayor Glen Murray supported Ewatski's actions yesterday, but said he is
also reviewing the incident and will announce today what he feels civic
politicians can do to address the problem. He doesn't think his parallel
investigation will interfere with the police probe.
Four of the suspended police department staff are civilian communication
centre employees and one is a senior police officer who was the duty
inspector for the night. While he wouldn't have been directly involved in
911 call decisions, he is in charge of everyone on that shift. They are all
on indefinite paid leave.
Ewatski once again had to face the question of whether the police should
be investigating themselves. Insp. Bob Hall, his hand-picked head of the
professional standards unit, stood at the back of the room.
"I have the fullest confidence in the professional standards unit," the
chief said, adding: "I want to reiterate the citizens of Winnipeg should be
assured when they phone the police 911, or the regular contact line, their
calls will be responded to appropriately."
But Debby Anderson, president of the Manitoba Association of Women's
Shelters, said she simply could not understand the failure of police to
follow up on that first 911 call Wednesday.
"No wonder they (police) are in hot water. We will never know, if they had
responded to the first call, whether it would have saved their lives, but
unfortunately, two women are dead.
"To know that . . . there was no response is mind-boggling. That is like
(it was) back in the '80s, before zero tolerance. When something like this
happens, all of us in the industry are amazed and saddened. It's like all
our efforts over the years haven't worked." Anderson said.
At the same time, even the strictest safety protocols for 911 responses
can't counter human frailty, she added.
"Unfortunately, police are human and sometimes they have their own biases,
particularly in domestic violence situations, where they may have been
called to the same family before. They can be a little lax," Anderson said.
Workers at abuse shelters in Winnipeg were inundated with telephone calls
from concerned women after hearing the news.
"The women in our community were just stunned when they heard this," said
Chriss Tetlock, director of the North End Women's Centre.
"It's pretty scary to think that if you have to call 911, the police won't
come."
Tetlock was not reassured by Ewatski's comments yesterday.
"That was the policy for years and the police weren't following it,"
Tetlock said. "Now, just because the chief says so, we're expected to
believe the policy will be followed . . . not at all."
Ewatski revealed yesterday that the police communication centre received
five calls from 849 Manitoba Ave. between 9 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m.
Wednesday, one on a general police line and four through 911.
Police had initially said there were two calls -- one at 2:51 a.m., to
which no car was dispatched, and a second at 4:59 a.m., to which police
responded within five minutes, finding the bodies of Leclair, 51, and
McKeowen, 52.
William John Dunlop, 30, has been charged with second-degree murder in
their deaths. Police took him from a friend's apartment at 810 Beverley St.
without incident after a five-and-a-half-hour standoff that ended early
yesterday.
A beleaguered Ewatski read a brief prepared statement yesterday, then
fielded questions from the media. He often said "it wouldn't be
appropriate" to talk about details while the investigation is under way,
both into the mishandling of the calls and the homicides. When reporters
tried to clarify what the department's policy on responding to domestic
calls is, police spokesman Johnson stepped in to say that his boss couldn't
answer that question.
Sherry Hobson, manager of the communication centre, said earlier that in
general, domestic calls are given Priority 1 status.
While she couldn't speak in depth about the calls taken Wednesday, she did
say the one received at 2:51 a.m. received a high priority, but was not
tagged Priority 1. She also said that call ended unnaturally, so the
operator stayed on the line and someone else then picked up the phone.
Hobson couldn't elaborate on what was said.
At the press briefing, Ewatski said that during that 2:51 a.m. call, which
would have been the fourth of the night, both women in the home were spoken
to. A man wasn't, he said.
Hobson said five people were working during the overnight shift taking
police calls, and all had more than 2.5 years experience. She said the
woman who took the 2:51 a.m. call has more than 10 years experience and was
working her shift again last night.
"She's an experienced operator. She's very good at her job. She's handling
it as well as can be expected," Hobson said, before the suspensions were
announced.
Carl Shier, president of the Winnipeg Police Association, which represents
all five of the suspended employees,said he is
meeting with the chief today.
____________________________________________
'Why, why, why?'
Victims' family asks whether 911 delay race-related
Fri, Feb 18, 2000
By Gordon Sinclair
Free Press Columnist
IT WAS almost nine last night when I knocked at Arlene Meadows' door.
She had been running from the media all afternoon, but she wasn't hard to
find.
Arlene lives just five doors away from the Manitoba Avenue house where her
only two sisters -- Doreen and Corrine -- were slain early Wednesday morning.
Her husband answered my knock.
At first Hank Meadows -- a former rassler who still has the build and the
dyed blond hair -- said his wife was too distraught to talk.
But eventually he let me as far as the porch, where he spoke for both of
them.
He was confused and he was angry.
He wanted to know why police had first said they had received two 911
calls from the two Metis sisters, and now -- the next day -- it was five
calls.
Then. . .
"Why, why, why, why? Why didn't they answer those calls?" That's what we
want to find out. Why?"
There was no one to answer his question, so he asked me.
"Why do you think they didn't take those calls?"
I just stared at him and shook my head.
"See, you don't have no more answer than what I do," Hank said. "Now the
chief does not know why?"
His wife appeared. She had a more pointed question.
"Why didn't they go? Is it because we live in the north end? Did they
think they were just a couple of drunken Indians fighting? Is that what
they thought? Oh, well, Is that what they figured?
"It does cross your mind, doesn't it?"
Hank said he hadn't slept in two nights and neither had Arlene.
"We did everything together. We were a very, very, very close family."
Doreen "would give the shirt off her back. She helped anybody, like if
they were hungry, or whatever. It didn't matter who the person was," Hank
said.
The afternoon before Doreen died she had been at their house and stayed
for supper. It was around 10 when Hank walked her back home. She was having
trouble walking. Doreen suffered from bone cancer.
Arlene, Doreen and their other sister Corrine had grown up together in the
north end, but it had been years -- as many as 15 -- since Hank and Arlene
had seen Corrine.
They wouldn't see her that night, either.
They wouldn't even see her the following morning when there were police
cars all over the street.
When they went by, Hank and Arlene thought there had been a drug bust and
continued on their way to work.
That's where police located them late that morning to tell them about the
slayings.
Arlene has understandably been taking it hard.
"I can't believe it happened," she said.
And the next thing I knew here arms were around me. Hugging and holding on.
"I can't believe the police weren't there to help my sister," she said. "I
don't understand it."
Arlene is a small woman and she was almost whispering.
"That's all my family," she said. "They're all gone."
"Mom died in '95. We kept her here. She was dying of cancer and she was
this little old lady who didn't want to die alone."
"So we looked after her. And now my little sister's dead. And my other
sister's dead. And I don't understand it."
Then, suddenly, she had a glimmer of understanding, the kind of clarity
the grief-stricken tend to have in overwhelmingly tragic times.
"Because there's a law for the rich and a law for the poor," she said.
"Manitoba Avenue. North end. They don't care . . . So what? A couple of
more Indians killing each other. Who cares? Two more less we have to worry
about?"
"Yes . . . I'm Metis. My mother was a Cree Indian. We are Metis. I'm very
proud of it."
I asked her about Corrine.
But it was obvious there had been a split in the family on that side.
"We don't know nothing about her," Hank said.
An hour earlier I had stood in the stairwell of the Maryland Street
apartment block where Corrine had lived since just before Christmas and
heard the manager answer my question in a very different way.
"What don't I know about her?" said cowboy hat-wearing Joe Wojcik, 45.
"She's divorced, got one child. He's about 28, 29 years old."
Corrine had lived in B.C. for a while, he said.
"She was a very easy-going person. We used to sit around the apartment.
Talk. Drink. Go to the bar. Go to the legion."
Joe was clutching a beer.
There were two other tenants in the second-storey stairwell, just down the
hall from No. 12, where Corrine moved because a man had broken into her
ground-level suite just before Christmas and slashed her neck and arm.
The other two were Wanda Lawrence, 33, and a shirtless Dean Van Nest, 38.
"Did she have any hopes or dreams? I asked the three of them.
"Not that I know of," Wanda said in a way that made it clear that I had
asked a stupid question.
"She just kind of lived life one day at a time," Joe said.
One day at a time.
How odd, I thought, given that the last time anyone in the building saw
Corrine she was staggering drunk into a waiting Duffy's cab at about 7:30
the evening before she died.
She got in the front seat, another tenant named Lynn told me. And a man
got in the back.
On Monday, the last time Van Nest had any contact, he went to her
apartment to complain about loud music.
A guy answered.
"I'd sure as hell like to know what he was doing in there."
Tuesday afternoon Wanda saw Corrine.
Two uniformed officers came to Corrine's apartment and she answered.
Wanda shut her door.
That was the last time she saw Corrine.
Back on Manitoba Avenue Hank is talking, now.
"My heart is frozen. My soul is ready to leave my body. I mean, when you
put two and two together what do you actually get? You're supposed to get
four, eh? In this case here I don't know what the hell I get."
"Five," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "Five calls."
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