'A Private Joke Among Friends'
Constable R., four years' service, exemplary record, is off duty and posts in a closed Facebook group of about 40 people, six of whom are co-workers. The post is a photograph of a well-known local man who is homeless and has an acquired brain injury, captioned: 'Found the guy who calls 911 forty times a week. This is why I don't do welfare checks.' Two commenters pile on. One group member screenshots it and shows a sergeant; a member of the public in the same group emails the identical screenshot to the chief's office with the subject line 'Is this what I pay for?' Confronted, Constable R. says it was 'a private joke among friends, not a police matter.'
1. What process does the public email trigger under Ontario's policing legislation, and can the service deal with the post even if the member of the public never files a formal complaint?
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Process: the email is a complaint about the conduct of a police officer. Under Ontario's policing legislation, public complaints go to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), not directly to the chief. The OIPRD screens the complaint, decides whether to refer it back to the service, handle it itself, or dismiss it, and notifies the service. Complaints must generally be made within six months of the incident and in writing - an email with a screenshot will usually satisfy that.
The key point: the chief's disciplinary authority does not depend on a public complaint. Misconduct can be investigated and prosecuted internally at the chief's initiative under the Code of Conduct. If the complainant withdraws or never files, the internal process can still run - and probably should, given the public nature of the post.
Do not treat the email as a customer-service issue simply because it came to the chief's inbox. Route it properly, record the date received (limitation periods matter), and respond to the sender factually without admitting or denying the allegation.
2. What should the sergeant and the co-workers in the group do in the first 24 hours?
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Preserve, do not investigate informally.
- The sergeant should capture the post, comments and metadata (screenshots with timestamps, URL, group name), and identify the group's membership. Directed deletion of anything is spoliation and is itself misconduct.
- The co-workers have a duty to report what they saw to a supervisor. 'I talked to him about it' does not discharge that duty, and neither does reporting to a friend of the poster. Report up the chain, not sideways.
- The sergeant should not run the inquiry personally if he is close to the constable - professional standards or another uninvolved supervisor should.
- Notify the professional standards unit and the chief. Consider interim measures (reassignment, removal from front-line contact) only if there is a real risk to the public or to the integrity of the investigation - not as punishment.
- Note the human rights dimension: the post targets disability and housing status, which raises a Human Rights Code and poisoned-environment risk for the six colleagues who saw it.
- Advise the poster, in writing, of his duty to preserve evidence and not to contact the complainants.
3. How would you assess whether off-duty expression can be disciplined here?
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Framework: off-duty expression is protected by s. 2(b) of the Charter and is not automatically caught by a Code of Conduct. Discipline requires a real nexus between the expression and the officer's duties or the reputation of the service.
Ask three questions:
- Is he identifiable as a police officer? Yes - 'this is why I don't do welfare checks' is a statement about how he performs his official duties.
- Does it damage public confidence in impartial policing? Yes. A serving officer announcing that he declines to attend welfare checks on a man with a brain injury tells the public that calls for help are discretionary and that vulnerability is a joke.
- Does it target a protected group? Yes - disability and homelessness, and it invites others to pile on.
The 'private group' argument: a group of 40 that includes colleagues and members of the public is not a private conversation. He either knew or ought to have known it would travel - and it did.
Likely outcome: this is a hearing matter, not a coaching matter, given the flagrant link to duty. Discipline should still be proportionate to the record and any genuine remediation; the fact that he called it a joke goes to insight, not to liability.