7 - Police Complaints

When creating a complaint, your identity remains anonymous to the defendant at all times. Most importantly when submitting a complaint is including evidence to reinforce your accusations. Providing evidence is required in order for you to submit a police complaint otherwise the complaint is highly likely to be closed for a lack of evidence to prove the allegations, all complaints are given 48 hours to be provided with evidence otherwise the complaint will be closed. Video evidence is the most preferred form of evidence, however witnesses, screenshots, etc can be used as evidence but may not be enough evidence to convict the officer you are making the complaint against. 

Additionally, demo files are not accepted as valid evidence for a number of reasons:

• Demo files are often incomplete, missing names, etc. 

• Demo files can break when there is an update to either PERPHeads or GMOD, thus removing one's ability to challenge the evidence in a dispute. 

• Not everyone is able to view demo files. 

• Demo files are extremely time consuming to investigate. 

• But above all it is nearly impossible for the Complaint Committee to deal with them due to the points stated above.

However you are able to record the demo file into a video format with the demo ESP enabled which can be submitted as valid evidence. For additional information, please refer to this guide: https://help.perpheads.com/page/demos

Once you have provided all the necessary details and evidence in your complaint, you are then able submit the complaint. From there, Internal Affairs command will assign either one or two investigating officers to handle with your complaint and will contact you when needed, such as asking you to comment on the officer's statement, etc.. You are also able to write to the investigators to address queries or concerns that you may have regarding your complaint.

7c) Rights of the Defendant

As a defendant of a police complaint, you will receive a statement request from the investigator(s) handling the complaint. This is likely to be the only time you will be contacted by the investigator(s) unless there are special circumstances. (e.g: receiving a second statement request, receiving a hearing request, etc.) Regardless, as a defendant you do have rights to defend yourself from the accusations being made against you. These are as follows:

• The defendant has the right to refuse to answer any question they are presented with. However this may affect the final outcome of the complaint in favour of the complainant

• The defendant has the right to be represented by a senior member of their primary division (e.g Lead section supervisor or Command member of Patrol/Traffic.)

• The defendant has the right to bring forward any evidence that he/she wishes so long as it is relevant and he/she believes that the evidence will exonerate them from the alleged actions. 

7d) Final Report & Complaint Outcomes

Once the investigating officer(s) have collected all the necessary pieces of information and evidence from the complainant and defendant, they will proceed to write up a final report. A final report contains a summary of the complaint and a verdict on what should happen to the complaint as a recommendation for the Complaint Committee to take into consideration. Once the Complaint Committee has reviewed the complaint and the investigator's final report, they will vote on a final decision as to what will happen to the accussed officer.

A complaint will receive one of four possible outcomes:

• Unfounded:

    -The investigation conclusively found that the alleged act(s) did not occur.

• Exonerated:

-The alleged act(s) occurred, but was justified, legal and/or proper.

• Not Sustained:

-The investigation produced insufficient information/evidence to prove or disprove the allegation.

• Sustained:

-The employee committed all or part of the alleged acts of misconduct or poor service.

If a complaint's outcome is sustained, then one of the following disciplinary actions will be issued against the officer:

• Reprimand (Remains on record for 30 days)

• Written Warning (Can be appealed after 90 days)

• Demotion (requires a Chief of Department or Head of Professional Standards to approve)

• Dishonorable Discharge (requires a Chief of Department or Head of Professional Standards to approve)

However, if the Complaint Committee feels that one of the following disciplinary actions above is unsuitable as an action to be taken against an officer, the Complaint Committee may issue a corrective action which are designed to help the officer improve and learn from their previous actions.

One of the following corrective actions may be issued by the Complaint Committee:

• Supervised Patrol

• Comment Card

• Talk with Professional Standards

• Probation

• Re-training

7e) What is the Complaint Committee?

The Complaint Committee is not a part of Internal Affairs, but is however still involved in the process a complaint goes through. The committee goes through all complaints and decides with, help from the final report, the outcome of every complaint.

7f) Appealing Disciplinary Action

DISPUTING DISCIPLINARY ACTION

If you have been issued disciplinary action as a result of a police complaint against you and you feel that the disciplinary action is unjust or excessive, you are able to make a dispute against it.

As stated in the Disciplinary Actions & Appeals policy, there are four grounds you can submit a dispute on:

• Policy & Procedure - if the actions taken against you were not legal and/or following policy & procedure.

• Challenge evidence - if you feel that there is a lack of evidence or the evidence is invalid to prove the allegation.

• Challenge the disciplinary and/or punishment - if you feel that the disciplinary and/or punishment proposed is unfair.

• Giving new evidence - if you have evidence which is new to the case and was not shown before.

When disputing disciplinary action, you are only able to dispute within 30 days of receiving the disciplinary action. Once this period has passed, you are unable to dispute. The exception to this rule however, is when you are providing new evidence that has not been previously seen or used in the investigation. If you are unsucessful in disputing the disciplinary action, you cannot dispute it again unless you are providing new evidence. 

Once you have determined on what grounds you want to dispute the disciplinary action on, you will need to make a helpdesk ticket to Professional Standards Department  (if you are unable to send it to them, send the ticket to Human Resources who will redirect it to them) stating the grounds you are disputing on and include an explanation as to why you feel the disciplinary action is unjust/excessive. If you are unsure about this process or are not comfortable with proceeding with it by yourself, you are able to have another officer of a higher-rank represent you, for example: your Section Supervisor.

From there, the Head of Professional Standards will review your dispute impartially and will decide to either review the disciplinary action taken against you and determine if the disciplinary action is justified or they will re-open and re-investigate the complaint.

APPEALING WRITTEN WARNINGS

After 90 days have passed since receiving a Written Warning disciplinary action, you are able to appeal to the Office of Professional Standards via a helpdesk ticket to have the Written Warning removed from your record. When writing this appeal, it is best practice to apologise for the actions that resulted in you receiving the Written Warning; why you wish for it to be removed and how you have improved since.