B.C. orders probe into allegations RCMP dropped ball investigating abuse of Indigenous girls in Prince George

UPDATE: On March 8, 2023, B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), that province's police watchdog, has been chosen to lead the independent investigation into Prince George RCMP.

(See original story below)

The provincial government has ordered an external investigation after an independent report found the RCMP failed to properly investigate what one officer described as potentially "egregious" allegations that Mounties had abused and harassed Indigenous girls in Prince George, B.C., decades ago.

A statement on Thursday confirmed the province will be launching a "full, independent, out-of-jurisdiction investigation into the troubling complaints" detailed in the report from the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), which responds to complaints about the RCMP the public believes weren't handled correctly.

"The RCMP has confirmed they will fully co-operate with the investigation, including providing all their records to the external agency — which will be announced in the coming weeks," read the emailed statement from Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, whose ministry oversees the RCMP.

"Our government is absolutely committed to ending systemic violence against Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQ+ people, and vulnerable persons, particularly in the cases which involve the police, and there still remains work to be done."

The new investigation is the latest step in a case described as "scandal, layered on scandal, layered on scandal," snowballing from accusations of police wrongdoing in the early 2000s to allegations of a coverup by high-ranking police officers in the country's largest police force — a mess only made public when a veteran officer refused to let the matter drop after his original complaint went largely unaddressed. 

"I do want to see those officers all accountable by whatever means possible ... the public needs to know, First Nations needs to know: Why did they do what they did? Or, quite frankly, didn't do," said retired Staff Sgt. Garry Kerr, whose complaint led to the CRCC report.

"This is a place to start."

Kerr, now 62, was sitting at home in coastal B.C. around dinnertime when he heard a few of the words he'd been waiting to hear his entire retired life: an official in power, a provincial minister, was ordering what Kerr saw to be a proper investigation into allegations he'd been ringing the alarm on since 2011.

"I applaud the province for taking the steps they have and announcing that it will be an outside agency. That is the absolute right thing to do," he said. "Here is an opportunity — albeit many, many years late."

The CRCC report, first reported on by the Toronto Star, revealed the details of the scandal for the first time.

The case began for Kerr when he received a phone call from a junior officer in Kamloops, B.C., where they were both stationed at the time in 2011. The constable told Kerr she'd found videotapes in her basement years earlier showing fellow officers, including her ex-husband, harassing an Indigenous teenager on the streets of Prince George.

She alleged all but one of the incriminating tapes went missing after her ex-husband reportedly broke into her home in 2006, according to a copy of the CRCC report shared with CBC News.