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An arsenal of firearms police believe are now being shopped on the black market was stolen from a former senator’s Rockcliffe Park home.
And the traffickers have a head start after the Wednesday morning theft, thanks to an increasingly problematic police on-call pay policy, officers said.
The five-bedroom home near Beechwood Cemetery is registered to Rod Zimmer, the former Liberal senator from Manitoba who made headlines in 2012 after his significantly younger wife, Maygan Sensenberger, threatened him during a flight from Ottawa to Saskatoon.
Ottawa police detectives in an unmarked police vehicle were outside the red-brick home, which is undergoing renovations, on Wednesday morning. Zimmer was out of town at the time of the break-in.
It’s believed more than a dozen guns were taken. The working police theory is that the weapons were targeted by one or more people now looking to illegally hawk them.
Patrol officers received a call reporting a suspicious incident just before 1 a.m. Wednesday in the exclusive Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood, home to politicians, ambassadors and high-profile CEOs.
Upon arriving, police determined that a break-and-enter had occurred and multiple firearms — a mix of long guns and handguns — and ammunition had been stolen from the home. At least six hours elapsed before specialized detectives began investigating around 9 a.m., though other investigators did begin triaging as the hours passed.
The high-profile crime comes as Ottawa police investigators continue a quasi work-to-rule campaign, strictly adhering to their collective agreement to protest what some officers say is the unreasonable expectation that they remain available to work at all times without being adequately compensated for it.
The police contract does not make it mandatory to answer work-issued phones after-hours unless an officer is receiving on-call pay.
The residential break-in was not immediately investigated by the break-and-enter unit, and the theft of several firearms that are now believed to be guns obtained by crime was not turned over to the guns and gangs unit because those units do not receive on-call pay, where police are compensated for one hour of paid time for every three hours that they remain on call.
“Hours later, those guns could be anywhere,” one officer said of the risk posed by the delay.
“Nobody looked into it for at least six hours, which is unacceptable and is dangerous to this community,” another officer said. “It is absolutely unacceptable for a police service to be operating like this.”
Chief Charles Bordeleau told the Citizen in an email that the force is evaluating changes to the on-call system and practices “to ensure they are working and meeting the operational needs of the Service and to ensure public safety at all times of the day.”
Bordeleau would not answer whether the theft of multiple guns warrants an immediate guns and gangs response or whether on-call supervisors are facing hurdles when detectives won’t pick up their phones.
“I am not going to comment on any ongoing investigations,” Bordeleau said.
According to the chief’s last verbal report less than a month ago to the police board, the civilian body that oversees police, officers had seized 17 crime guns to date in 2015. Now, in a single incident, a comparable number of weapons is believed to have hit the streets.
Gun violence was at a record high in 2014, and anti-gang officers have always maintained that gang-related shootings, carried out with illegally obtained firearms, peak in the summer months. Quashing guns and gangs in the city continues to be one of Bordeleau’s “operational priorities.”
Senior officers have contended that officers are paid quite handsomely with what’s referred to as “callback” pay where officers return to work when called in. When a detective agrees to return to work for an after-hours incident, he or she receives time-and-a-half for every hour worked and must be paid for a minimum of three hours. But many investigators say the move to keep their phones off when their shift ends has less to do with pay and more to do with the direction of a cost-cutting police force that is operating like a business and is nickel-and-diming fundamental parts of police investigations.
In separate incidents reported by the Citizen this week, a sexual assault suspect and suspected drug dealer sat in police cellblocks for nearly 20 hours each waiting for the right investigators to begin files into their alleged crimes. Officers say they’re concerned the force’s insistence that only supervisors are on-call for a handful of police units means the charter rights of accused who have a right to appear before a judge in due time might be violated.
After their headline-grabbing incident in 2012, Sensenberger pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance on the Air Canada flight and received a one-year suspended sentence. Zimmer, meanwhile, retired from the red chamber in August 2013 at the age of 70, citing ongoing health concerns.
Attempts to reach Sensenberger and Zimmer were unsuccessful.
Police were continuing to investigate the gun theft.
syogaretnam@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
查看原文...
And the traffickers have a head start after the Wednesday morning theft, thanks to an increasingly problematic police on-call pay policy, officers said.
The five-bedroom home near Beechwood Cemetery is registered to Rod Zimmer, the former Liberal senator from Manitoba who made headlines in 2012 after his significantly younger wife, Maygan Sensenberger, threatened him during a flight from Ottawa to Saskatoon.
Ottawa police detectives in an unmarked police vehicle were outside the red-brick home, which is undergoing renovations, on Wednesday morning. Zimmer was out of town at the time of the break-in.
It’s believed more than a dozen guns were taken. The working police theory is that the weapons were targeted by one or more people now looking to illegally hawk them.
Patrol officers received a call reporting a suspicious incident just before 1 a.m. Wednesday in the exclusive Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood, home to politicians, ambassadors and high-profile CEOs.
Upon arriving, police determined that a break-and-enter had occurred and multiple firearms — a mix of long guns and handguns — and ammunition had been stolen from the home. At least six hours elapsed before specialized detectives began investigating around 9 a.m., though other investigators did begin triaging as the hours passed.
The high-profile crime comes as Ottawa police investigators continue a quasi work-to-rule campaign, strictly adhering to their collective agreement to protest what some officers say is the unreasonable expectation that they remain available to work at all times without being adequately compensated for it.
The police contract does not make it mandatory to answer work-issued phones after-hours unless an officer is receiving on-call pay.
The residential break-in was not immediately investigated by the break-and-enter unit, and the theft of several firearms that are now believed to be guns obtained by crime was not turned over to the guns and gangs unit because those units do not receive on-call pay, where police are compensated for one hour of paid time for every three hours that they remain on call.
“Hours later, those guns could be anywhere,” one officer said of the risk posed by the delay.
“Nobody looked into it for at least six hours, which is unacceptable and is dangerous to this community,” another officer said. “It is absolutely unacceptable for a police service to be operating like this.”
Chief Charles Bordeleau told the Citizen in an email that the force is evaluating changes to the on-call system and practices “to ensure they are working and meeting the operational needs of the Service and to ensure public safety at all times of the day.”
Bordeleau would not answer whether the theft of multiple guns warrants an immediate guns and gangs response or whether on-call supervisors are facing hurdles when detectives won’t pick up their phones.
“I am not going to comment on any ongoing investigations,” Bordeleau said.
According to the chief’s last verbal report less than a month ago to the police board, the civilian body that oversees police, officers had seized 17 crime guns to date in 2015. Now, in a single incident, a comparable number of weapons is believed to have hit the streets.
Gun violence was at a record high in 2014, and anti-gang officers have always maintained that gang-related shootings, carried out with illegally obtained firearms, peak in the summer months. Quashing guns and gangs in the city continues to be one of Bordeleau’s “operational priorities.”
Senior officers have contended that officers are paid quite handsomely with what’s referred to as “callback” pay where officers return to work when called in. When a detective agrees to return to work for an after-hours incident, he or she receives time-and-a-half for every hour worked and must be paid for a minimum of three hours. But many investigators say the move to keep their phones off when their shift ends has less to do with pay and more to do with the direction of a cost-cutting police force that is operating like a business and is nickel-and-diming fundamental parts of police investigations.
In separate incidents reported by the Citizen this week, a sexual assault suspect and suspected drug dealer sat in police cellblocks for nearly 20 hours each waiting for the right investigators to begin files into their alleged crimes. Officers say they’re concerned the force’s insistence that only supervisors are on-call for a handful of police units means the charter rights of accused who have a right to appear before a judge in due time might be violated.
After their headline-grabbing incident in 2012, Sensenberger pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance on the Air Canada flight and received a one-year suspended sentence. Zimmer, meanwhile, retired from the red chamber in August 2013 at the age of 70, citing ongoing health concerns.
Attempts to reach Sensenberger and Zimmer were unsuccessful.
Police were continuing to investigate the gun theft.
syogaretnam@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
查看原文...
