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Edmonton police stories | 2005: Inquiries
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2005: Tom
Engel |
- Lawyers forced police
to give internal investigation a public review
'They had no choice,' Tom Engel said after threatening legal
action
Elizabeth Withey,
The Edmonton Journal, February 01, 2005
EDMONTON - The Criminal Trial
Lawyers' Association says it has forced the Edmonton Police Service
to allow a civilian review of its internal investigation of a
police investigation that allegedly targeted the head of the
police commission and a journalist.
"They had no choice,"
Edmonton lawyer Tom Engel said Monday. "I viewed their initial
position to be entirely without merit and only designed to try
to preclude the possibility that there be a public hearing before
the Law Enforcement Review Board."
The lawyers' association filed
a public complaint in November with police Chief Fred Rayner.
The association filed the complaint because, under the provincial
Police Act, police are required to investigate every public complaint
and make their findings public.
Police investigations of a
public complaint also are subject to review by the Law Enforcement
Review Board. By contrast, internal police investigations may
not be subject to the same public scrutiny.
Last week, lawyers for the
police service dismissed Engel's demand to lodge a public complaint.
They said the EPS had started its own internal investigation
when it received Engel's letter. Engel then threatened court
action to force the EPS to obey the law and allow his complaint.
On Monday, the EPS said it
would "re-characterize" the complaint as a public complaint.
EPS spokesman Chris McLeod said the police conceded to avoid
going to court.
But he insisted the legislation
on such public complaints isn't "crystal clear." He
said the police service agreed to include Engel as a third-party
complainant because the intent had always been to release as
much of the report to the public as possible.
"It's a matter of public
interest and the chief's made a commitment to be open and let
the public know what's going on," McLeod said.
On Nov. 18, police commission
chairman Martin Ignasiak and Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte
were allegedly targeted and watched by police at a downtown bar.
Both said they were not drunk
and neither man drove home. Both men contend they were targeted
because of their public criticism of the police.
Rayner ordered two internal
investigations; one to deal with the stakeout, which was conducted
by the force's traffic section, and the other to probe why police
issued a press release on Nov. 21 which may have given the impression
that the two unnamed men were intoxicated and might drive.
The internal investigations
were conducted by Edmonton police internal
affairs detectives. Their reports
were then sent to Calgary police for review by a deputy chief,
who reported back to Rayner on Monday. The chief will spend the
next few days reviewing them before deciding what action, if
any, to take.
Engel says his complaint will
help promote a transparent investigation. "I think this
is very important because we expect a whitewash," he said.
"If that's the case there will be an appeal to the Law Enforcement
Review Board."
ewithey@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2005
Lawyer
wins a point
Happy that cops accept his complaint
By MAX MAUDIE, EDMONTON
SUN, Feb. 2, 2005
After threatening police with
a court order, a city lawyer is pleased his complaint over an
alleged sting operation will now be acknowledged. "I'm satisfied
on this point," said Tom Engel, head of the Criminal Trial
Lawyers Association (CTLA) police-conduct committee.
Police commission chairman
Martin Ignasiak and Sun columnist Kerry Diotte allegedly were
targeted by cops in a drunk-driving operation Nov. 18 at the
Overtime Broiler and Taproom, 10304 111 St.
An internal police investigation
followed and Calgary cops have reviewed it. EPS Chief Fred Rayner
received it several days ago, police said.
Engel's complaint to the chief
was filed Nov. 23. He said he filed it so that if there was a
"whitewash,'' he could appeal. That appeal could lead to
a public hearing.
Last Thursday, Engel learned
his complaint had been ignored by police. The next day, Engel
demanded cops accept his complaint, threatening to file a court
order compelling the Edmonton Police Service "to obey the
law.''
But Engel said it remains to
be seen just how much will come out in Rayner's assessment.
"If the result of this
thing is that they find no wrongdoing by any officers in relation
to this Overtime operation, then we will launch an appeal because
that would be a perverse result."
EPS spokesman Chris McLeod
said police reserve the right to argue against future complaints
from people not directly involved in a matter, but it wasn't
worth the battle this time.
"Police felt that we were
going to be dealing with this in a very public manner regardless
of whether or not Engel was a third party, so we felt on this
particular case that it warranted it."
- The police chief's goal is
to have his review and action plan done sometime this week, McLeod
said.
Fear
and anger
Legal assistant very upset that skinhead has personal information
By KATE DUBINSKI, EDMONTON
SUN, December 2004
When she heard a skinhead jailed
in California has her social insurance number and tax information,
Shera Vigeant's gut reaction was fear. Now Vigeant, a former
legal assistant at city lawyer Tom Engel's office, is still afraid
- but a lot of that fear has turned to anger.
"I feel violated and vulnerable.
He's got my tax information, my SIN - my parents and my family
don't even know that," Vigeant said.
Skinhead Daniel Sims has financial
data - including personal income, taxes paid and pension contributions
- for Engel, his partner, their wives and four legal assistants
in an immigration file he requested from the U.S. government
as part of his battle against deportation to Canada.
Engel represented late broadcaster
Keith Rutherford when he filed suit against Sims and other white
supremacists for their violent attack on Rutherford in Sherwood
Park in 1990.
Sims has been in a Bakersfield,
California, pretrial jail since Sept. 3, said Sgt. Joe Pilkington
of the Kern County sheriff's office.
"He's being held for illegal
entry into the United States of America because we have a contract
with Citizenship and Immigration Services to house detainees
when they don't have room," Pilkington said.
Sims is being held as a "federal
detainee," he said.
Since Sims phoned the Sun with
the information last week, Engel has asked the provincial and
federal privacy commissioners to look into how the sensitive
information made it into his hands.
"My wife thinks it's pretty
creepy. I guess it doesn't surprise me that they would be gathering
information about me, but the extent to which they would go surprises
me," Engel said yesterday.
The federal privacy commissioner
called him on Friday, Engel said, and told him he's already started
an audit of Revenue Canada and what information was passed to
Sims - and by whom.
The issue's also received some
media attention in California. Engel has been interviewed by
a Bakersfield radio station about the story.
Vigeant said she worked for
Engel on and off from 1999 to 2001 - but not during the case
against Sims.
"This guy's got my life
in his hands," she said. "I'm feeling a lot of anger.
When it first hit me, I just sat down and thought about the gravity
of it. I can't do anything - I'm sitting around waiting for something
to happen. It's frightening."
When asked about the information
leak last night, Premier Ralph Klein said he's "absolutely"
curious about how it got into Sims' possession.
Klein is scheduled to meet
with cabinet tomorrow, followed by a caucus meeting Wednesday.
"We'll have a good discussion
about that, and the whole issue of personal information being
sent to unauthorized individuals, and how that happened and what
action needs to be taken to tighten it up," he said.
- How did the US Authorities
get the personal data on high-profile Edmonton Lawyer Tom Engel?
- No privacy
DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN,
Dec. 10, 2004
Three government departments
are trying to find out how private financial information linked
to an Edmonton law firm ended up in the hands of a skinhead convict
in California. Lawyer Tom Engel has filed complaints with the
Alberta and federal privacy commissioners, demanding to know
how tax-file data belonging to him, his partner Harold Brubaker
and their wives ended up in Daniel Sims's immigration file.
"I'm beyond shocked,"
he said. "This is very serious, and I can promise everyone
this is not going to go away."
Engel said he'll consider suing
government agencies on both sides of the border if the privacy
commissioners fail to settle the question.
Revenue Canada, meanwhile,
has pledged to look under its own rocks to find out if it was
responsible for turning over personal financial information from
Engel's law office to American authorities.
"We're going to try to
find out where this came from," said department spokesman
Ron Quinn, adding he "couldn't think of any circumstances"
under which Revenue Canada would release such information to
U.S. authorities.
Sims told The Sun this week
he found financial data linked to Engel's firm in an immigration
file he requested from the U.S. government as part of his battle
against deportation to Canada.
The information included personal
income, taxes paid, Canada Pension Plan contributions and social
insurance numbers.
Engel represented late broadcaster
Keith Rutherford when he filed suit against Sims and other white
supremacists for their violent attack on him in Sherwood Park
in 1990.
Sims was convicted for the
attack that year but later moved to the U.S. He is now being
detained by U.S. authorities pending his deportation back to
Canada.
Sims told The Sun his immigration
file also included documents from the Edmonton Police Service
and Alberta RCMP. Neither agency is planning its own investigation.
Tim Chander, spokesman for
the provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner's office,
said commissioner Frank Work will investigate the EPS's contribution
to the file.
Privacy law experts were scratching
their heads yesterday over the data leak. Ontario lawyer Ross
Wells said Engel may have a lot of trouble getting answers out
of the Americans.
"American privacy law
is pretty much non-existent," he said. "Obviously some
Canadian agency gave this information to the U.S. government
- but I can't think of why, or how it could have been obtained
legally."
"In the U.S., law enforcement
authorities have a great deal of latitude in collecting personal
information and a lot of legal immunity while they're doing it,"
said Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa.
Engel said the whole incident
has him and his family thinking about the so-called Overtime
Lounge affair, in which EPS officers are alleged to have set
up a drunk-driving sting to capture police commission chairman
Martin Ignasiak and Sun columnist Kerry Diotte.
- "My wife's taking it
harder than I am. She's starting to wonder if we should worry
about our personal security."
-
- He's the lawyer cops
love to hate
Tom Engel won't pull any punches
By LORI COOLICAN , EDMONTON
SUN, February 14, 2004
Mention Tom Engel's name to
almost any Edmonton cop - especially the ones working internal
affairs - and you'll get a frustrated growl in reply. "The
majority of complaints sent the chief's way, certainly if there's
any lawyers involved, Tom Engel is usually behind them,"
says Staff Sgt. Peter Ratcliff, president of the Edmonton Police
Association.
"He's just irascible as
hell when he needs to be," says fellow criminal lawyer Peter
Royal. "He's like a dog with a bone. He just never lets
it go."
Engel's face is in the news
a lot because so many of his clientele have a big axe to grind.
If the justice system held a popularity contest, no one would
bet on him to win.
"I know that I'm not well-liked,
but it doesn't bother me," Engel told the Sun recently.
"I mean, it comes with the territory. If you take a look
at the oath that a lawyer swears when they're admitted to the
bar, it's your duty - your sole loyalty is to your client and
you are to disregard anything bad that might come personally
to you (as a result)."
Fresh from the University of
Calgary law school's class of 1979, Engel started his career
at an Edmonton law firm representing insurance companies and
banks collecting debts. It wasn't his style, so he switched to
criminal law, eventually starting his own firm in 1995.
Five years later he found himself
on the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association's police conduct committee.
Since then he's represented dozens of people with complaints
against cops and prison workers - an area of law that few lawyers
relish.
"It's not as if I go out
there looking for people to make complaints against the police,"
he says. "I mean, they come to me. I probably on average
get at least two calls a day, and a lot of it comes from other
lawyers."
Engel was born in Toronto,
the son of a United Church minister. He lived all over Ontario
in his youth before settling in Alberta in 1973 at the age of
20. "I guess even back then I kind of had an interest in
challenging authority," he laughs. "That's probably
my family background. My mom and dad sort of had that kind of
challenge-authority attitude."
He's married with four children,
aged 16 to 28. His wife, AmberLee, is a journeyman chef, writer
and actress.
Friends joke that he has to
behave himself in his personal life because so many cops would
love to pull him over.
Engel frustrates police officers
because "sometimes it seems like he just doesn't know when
enough is enough," complains Ratcliff.
"Maybe his clients aren't
willing to accept when the police or the law enforcement review
board say that there is no evidence, nothing to substantiate
an allegation. He's not always too keen on accepting it ..."
And he's unpopular with some
lawyers "who he's been critical of from time to time,"
says Royal. "If Tom thinks a fellow's been badly represented,
he won't pull his punches."
Defence lawyer Robbie Davidson,
who's known Engel for 20 years, says he deserves credit for his
ethics - and his fighter's instincts. "You're not going
to survive in that arena of law unless you have a strong belief
in the right of the individual and that the power of the state
should be used appropriately, and you're prepared to put your
heart and soul into it. If you're not, you're just not going
to succeed," he said.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
