Police in the municipality of Delta southeast of Vancouver are urging the Crown to lay two serious impaired-driving charges against a Mountie involved in a fatal motorcycle crash who was also at the centre of the Robert Dziekanski taser case.
The recommendation arises from a traffic accident that killed a 21-year-old man, just over a year after Corporal Monty Robinson gave the order to fire a taser at Mr. Dziekanski.
At the time of the vehicular accident, Cpl. Robinson was off duty and driving his jeep in the Delta-area community of Tsawwassen.
A Crown spokesman yesterday said a decision will be made soon on whether to charge Cpl. Robinson with impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death.
"The review is under way," Neil MacKenzie said, referring to the assessment of charges. "We anticipate it will be in the relatively near future that it is completed, but I can't say precisely how long that will take. I expect it will be within a month."
The Crown will have to decide whether there's a substantial likelihood of conviction if they proceed and whether a prosecution would be in the public interest.
Cpl. Robinson's lawyer, Reg Harris, said he would await the outcome of the Crown review, calling yesterday's developments "a natural step in the process." He added: "I have every confidence in the Criminal Justice Branch and I know they will review all of the information provided in order to determine if the charge-approval standard has been met in this particular case."
The prospective allegations arise from an Oct. 25, 2008, incident on a quiet street in Tsawwassen, where Cpl. Robinson's jeep collided with a motorcycle driven by Orion Hutchinson, who died on the scene.
Cpl. Robinson, who was arrested on the scene, was subsequently suspended with pay.
A year earlier, on Oct. 14, 2007, Cpl. Robinson was the most senior of four officers on duty when they approached Mr. Dziekanski, who had just arrived in Canada from Poland and was acting erratically at the international arrivals terminal of Vancouver airport.
In March, Cpl. Robinson told the Braidwood inquiry that he ordered an officer to stun Mr. Dziekanski after the 40-year-old labourer picked up a stapler in a manner he deemed threatening. Mr. Dziekanski, who was moving to Canada to live with his mother in Kamloops, was stunned five times and died after a subsequent struggle with police.
Cpl. Robinson, now 38, graduated as a Mountie in 1996. He held various postings in British Columbia before being assigned to the airport detachment in April, 2007. In November, 2007, he was posted to the RCMP Olympic Integrated Security Unit.
Sergeant Tim Shields of the RCMP said the corporal's status is unchanged, although a review is under way on his paid suspension. Sgt. Shields said he did not know why the review had been launched.
Constable Sharlene Brooks of the Delta police said the case had a sufficient profile for the department to take the unusual step of announcing it had wrapped up its investigation and for it to disclose its recommendation to the Crown.
She noted that the recommended charges are slightly different from those initially disclosed, which were impaired driving causing death and driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08.
Constable Brooks said the Delta force's criminal investigation branch was intent on taking as much time as was required to cover all aspects of what was "essentially a homicide." Such investigations "are by their very nature complex and they take a lot time," she said.
In March, the B.C. Supreme Court rejected a petition by Cpl. Robinson that a 90-day driving suspension in the case was unfair because his blood-alcohol content at the time of the accident was due, in part, to a pair of vodka shots he drank after the crash.
Court documents suggested Cpl. Robinson said, at the scene, he had walked to his nearby home after the crash, consumed the vodka, and returned. Cpl. Robinson asked for a judicial review because the reference to the vodka shots was not considered in the suspension ruling.
Ian Bailey