The Friends of Levi Schaeffer: Citizens Together Stopping Police Impunity

Let's Stop Police Impunity in Canada: JUSTICE FOR LEVI -  WE WANT JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES, NOT POLICE IMPUNITY

by www.justiceforlevi.org

This is a story about people deciding to take action to make sure that governments and that police are accountable to the people in Canada.

We've gotten a number of inquiries from people who would like to make a donation but are not able or comfortable with making transactions online.

Checks, money orders and the like can be send to the:

Peterborough Community Credit Union

167 Brock St   PO Box 1600
Peterborough, ON
K9H 2P6
Phone: 705-748-4481

JUSTICE FOR LEVI account # 14629

WE WANT JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMUNITIES, NOT POLICE IMPUNITY.

This is a story about people deciding to take action to make sure that governments and that police are accountable to the people in Canada.

Summary

The Coalition was formed after the police killing of Levi Schaeffer to create a supportive personal and political network of solidarity for the Schaeffer family as they joined forces with the Minty family. The families asked Ontario’s Courts to look at whether the systemic police actions of lawyer note vetting and joint lawyer retainers pursued as internal policy by the O.P.P. during S.I.U. investigations were -or were not permitted within the law laid out in Police Services Act and legislation regarding police and oversight. The families won a unanimous decision at Ontario’s highest court in November, 2011.

The decision laid out with great clarity that the police actions in question were not permitted by law and could not be permitted without greatly jeopardizing the legitimacy of investigations, breaching necessary segregation laws and threatening the sanctity of police notes used by police in courts as they appear for the crown as state witnesses.

Unhappy with the decision that they must follow the law, the police are now taking the families to the Supreme Court of Canada. We need support so that we can support by helping to pay off family legal bills and to pay logistical costs involved with going to Supreme Court.

The Story

Maybe it’s hard to imagine… but Imagine living in a country where police can do anything- even kill you or your loved ones, but do not bear appropriate consequences because they are impune. Imagine living in a country where police can function outside of the laws that bind the common people, outside of the scope of independent oversight or outside the reach of the courts of our justice system. Imagine, just for a moment, a Canada where police live by special, extrajudicial, internal laws, paid by the public but operating outside the realm of civilian law, much as the military does.


Police officers are public employees- paid to serve and protect- to enforce laws, to keep the public peace, and to safeguard against criminality. They have special responsibilities- such as acting as state witnesses in our courts of law and special rights- such as the right to bear arms and use force- including lethal force- on members of the public. These special rights and responsibilities given to police officers must be subjected to a very high level of oversight, inquiry and transparency to ensure the Canadian public that its police and its justice system are functioning responsibly, accountably and to the standards of a proud democracy.

Perhaps the most important thing police officers do is complete their notes by the end of their shift. Though this might sound trivial compared to chasing robbers and saving lives- it is an officer’s notes that lay the foundation of evidence, investigation and witnessing as members of the public come into contact with police and are brought through the Canadian justice system. Legislation and acts related to police make it clear that police notes must be written independently (without consulting with anyone else) and contemporaneously (as soon as possible after an occurrence).

In September 2009, an Ontario family whose son was killed by police that June came to realized the incredible importance of police notes. The director of the Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s independent police oversight body- revealed that officers involved in the death of Levi Schaeffer completed their notes days after his death and all officers involved in the case submitted notes to the S.I.U. which had been reviewed and vetted by a singular lawyer for the Ontario Provincial Police Association. The Schaeffer family combined efforts with Minty family who also lost their son Douglas to police action and went, with their lawyers to asked Ontario’s courts to interpret the Police Services Act and other relevant legislation and to determine whether police lawyer note vetting was or was not permitted within the law.

On November 15th, 2011- The Ontario Superior Court of Appeal released its unanimous decision in which it clarified that police officers could, of course, contact their lawyer for general legal advice but that they could not postpone writing their notes or handing them in for the S.I.U. until after their lawyer has checked and approved them. The decision spelled out that the personal interests of an officer for self protection or protection of another member of the force, or of the force- must be understood as secondary to the sworn duty that an officer has as a public employee and professional state witness. Lawyer vetting of police notes could obstruct the well functioning of all levels of our justice system.

Unsatisfied with the courts decision, police interests now take these matters and these grieving families to the Supreme Court of Canada where police lawyers are prepared to argue that the decision laid out by Ontario’s highest court is ‘unworkable’.

On April 19th, 2013 Canada’s highest court will hear arguments and in the months that follow- render a decision- that will establish once and for all whether police in Canada- will be allowed to function from a special law- unfettered by accountability standards, legislation or the will of the public.

It is both absurd and obscene it has been left to the efforts and the pocket books of two Ontario families to insist that enormous systemic problems of impunity and lacking accountability be resolved. They continue, knowing that there can be no justice for their dead, but that there can be justice for the living… if we act fearlessly to insist that we want justice for our communities, not police impunity.

JUSTICE FOR LEVI IN THE NEWS!!!!

An article about this case publshed in the Toronto Star, the Calgary Herald and others.
By: Colin Perkel The Canadian Press, Published on Fri Apr 19

Only two weeks left for our Indiegogo fundraising campaign... Help crowd source a thank you to the families by helping to pay off one small chunk of the legal bills... Let's Stop Police Impunity.



Supreme Court to hear arguments about whether police under investigation can have lawyers vet notes.
www.thestar.com
 
Whether police officers under investigation by a civilian watchdog can have a lawyer help them prepare their notes finds its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Fundraising Campaign 

Along with lending support to the families and coordinating education and solidarity efforts, the Coalition Justice For Levi exists in order to help raise legal funds. It is absurd that it has been left to the efforts and to the pocket books of two grieving Ontario families to bring a widespread, systemic, governmental mess to light and to seek firm resolution through the courts. For many, many long years, the Office of the Attorney General of Ontario, the Special Investigations Unit, police associations, Ontario’s courts and Ontario’s justices have all been embrangled in a dispute and conflict. Each of the aforementioned parties is funded by taxpayers and each is, in fact, a public employee. Each of these parties has a substantial budget and each one has an obligation to meet their mandates as funded by the public and to assure the greatest level of transparency, efficiency and accountability possible. Where the resources and responsibility to address these matters do exist within the mechanism of the state, the cohesive political will necessary to finally and clearly resolve this systemic mess does not.

The Coalition Justice For Levi is helping with fundraising efforts because grieving families should not be forced into the poorhouse as they seek the courts’ assistance to resolve these systemic matters. The Coalition Justice For Levi is helping to raise legal funds, as well, because the outcomes of this historic court case are of great impact and relevance to the greater public interest.

Who is the Coalition Justice For Levi?

The Coalition Justice for Levi is a small group of family members, friends and community members who have directly lost loved ones to unaccountable police violence with a support circle of grassroots prison, policing and mental health organizers and media activists who work to help ensure not only that this particular story gets out but that it functions as a platform for directly linking problems of systemic police lack of accountability to struggles across communities particularly affected by unaccountable or abusive policing.

Like so many others killed by police, Levi Schaeffer and Douglas Minty were both men who suffered their whole lives from extreme mental health challenges and the associated poverty, stigmatization and criminalization. An overwhelming number of police killings relate to low income victims and their adjoining low income families who often spend all savings to bury their dead. And the links between poverty and race and gender and sexuality and ability and age… are all too clear. The Coalition works to empower an opportunity for the people most directly affected- the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and lovers of those killed to lead a struggle to affirm the right of all peoples to insist that legal frameworks exist to ensure police do not have unfettered powers. The long history of police targeting of low income, racialized, stigmatized communities reveals a particular necessity to ensure that it is those very voices receiving support to come together and say NO MORE.

What is this funding for?

The Coalition Justice For Levi is hoping to offer direct logistical needs funding to family members as they go to Ottawa for the Supreme Court of Canada. We are hoping to relieve the stress of self-funding bus trips, hotel stays, food, in city travel and incidentals for family members by taking on the bill.

All funding, aside from these logistical costs, will go towards helping to pay off a portion of owing and accruing legal bills.

It has been a long and arduous battle since the deaths of their sons, and the Schaeffer and Minty families have paid dearly. Help repay them for their efforts and determination by making a donation or by sharing this campaign so that they do not have to bare the costs alone of daring to insist that police be held to account.


Other ways you can help

*Indy-go-go campaign. Help to share and highlight this campaign

*Help to share our new 2 minute fundraising video created for this campaign

*Publish the J4L story/fundraising appeal on your website (and put up link to www.justiceforlevi.org), in newsletters, in community publications… and ask your allies to do so as well

*Pass on info about this campaign to any friendly media sources

*SAVE THE DATE: APRIL 19th 2013 ….we will need people writing, tweeting and posting on the day that we go to Supreme Court to make sure that this important day does not go unnoticed

*Link this campaign each time that you deal with police-related issues… Help us make it very clear that we are dealing with issues of systemic police impunity, not a series of bad apple scenarios

*Screen “We Want Justice for Our Communities, Not Police Impunity”, our 15 minute educational youtube video at a meeting, an event etc… or play the audio on radio shows

*Learn more and share what you learn by checking our www.justiceforlevi.org

*Send words of encouragement to info@justiceforlevi.org