How to File a Complaint Against a Police Officer

Have you been wronged by law enforcement? Do you feel like your grievances are worth filing a complaint about? Or that they would be if the process didn’t look purposefully meandered and futile? Well keep reading, because I’m going through the meat grinder myself and I can share some insight on how to get through.

This article shall focus on civilian oversight of police forces, not civil lawsuits or criminal complaints. In every jurisdiction that enforces civil rights, there is some kind of civilian body specifically watching over the actions of law enforcement, which at the behest of the public can investigate matters specific to the police, issue legally enforceable rulings, and dispense sanctions up to dismissal.

This article shall also be centred on my own jurisdiction, which is British Columbia, Canada. The process varies from one location to another and also depending on which police force is targeted; for instance, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner investigates municipal police forces throughout BC, while federal law enforcement complaints go to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. The legislation defining police officer offences is also different across jurisdictions; here in BC it’s called the Police Act, while at the federal level it’s the Canadian Royal Mounted Police Act.

This information is strategically important, so find the act in question and read it thoroughly. Fighting law enforcement is clearly asymmetrical warfare, and our only asset against them through the system is this police act, which contains rules the police is bound by but we aren’t. That being said, the worst punishment is typically dismissal, so don’t expect a police complaint to send an officer behind bars or get you a zillion-dollar award; if that’s what you’re after then you should pursue other legal options, like a criminal complaint or a human rights complaint.

The trail begins here

Your first step shall be to request the police’s incident report, which should be doable either online or in person at your local police station, via a Freedom of Information request; without this document you’re not going anywhere. The document may take several weeks to reach you, and will most likely come significantly redacted to protect the confidentiality of the plaintiffs or the general public, but it should still be readable and provide ammunition to use against your target. It also provides the incident report number, which is necessary to file a complaint, and the name of the officer who wrote the report.

In the meantime you should brainstorm for any admissible evidence that could be brought forward. The most obvious is camera footage, but may be the most difficult to come by. There are of course many others which may be relevant, starting with witnesses, but may extend as broadly as receipts, banking account records, medical and dental records, email correspondence, phone records, any documents brought forward or exchanged during an encounter, or pictures taken immediately after the encounter (to document injuries in an excessive force case, for example).

And while you’re at it you should read as much as possible about the process which, while opaque, is still subject to publicly available judicial reviews whose decisions are bound to be published online. That should give you an idea of what to expect, how offences are interpreted, which arguments stick (or not), and so forth.

How to build a case

So you think you’ve got an ironclad case that the officer did something illegal because you’ve got a heap of damning evidence to put forward? Not so fast. If you haven’t heard of qualified immunity by now, time to start reading, because that’s the biggest hurdle in pleading a case against the police. In vernacular, it’s a legal doctrine which states law enforcement is largely immune from prosecution over the course of performing its duties, from both a civil and criminal standpoint, and which raises the bar to establish wrongdoing to stupendous levels. For example, a police officer isn’t expected to know the minutiae of most laws, therefore could hardly be charged with false arrest merely because charges were dismissed by the prosecutor for sitting on shaky legal grounds. Likewise, the police is expected to make split-second decisions in high-risk contexts, so proving excessive force requires overwhelming evidence of outright malice, such as planting evidence after the fact, and indeed the police regularly gets away with assault caught on camera for this reason.

There is, however, a way to overcome even such a brick wall that is fairly likely to work in practice, and it’s to prove the officer’s conduct blatantly violated their training or policies, because then pleading ignorance amounts to criminal levels of incompetence, which is certain to at best send the defendant back to retraining with a dunce hat permanently sewn to their scalp—assuming taking the idiot defence works in the first place.

The hard part, of course, is to dig out police officer training documentation. In simple cases, looking at legislation such as policing standards may be enough, but otherwise it may be worth looking for their textbooks, which unfortunately may not be available just a few clicks away. One way around this obstacle is to reach out to the body which trains police officers in your jurisdiction, such as the Justice Institute of British Columbia, and get them to answer a few basic questions; while it may frown at answering intrusive questions from the public, in my experience a bit of charm, shrewdness, and realistic expectations work. In other cases, such as the RCMP, the police body provides its own training and may prove opaque, but investigation reports and judicial reviews may provide some precedent pertaining to your case.

Time to put everything together. You’ve got to decide under which offences to file your complaint. Of course the most common and obvious is abuse of power, but may also be the hardest to prove unless it follows from another offence. In contrast, the easiest and most likely to withstand judicial review is to claim the defendant engaged in disreputable conduct; simply put, that the officer did something so egregious that the public has grounds to question the integrity of the police force, and it even extends to off-duty conduct. This one offence turns the burden of proof on its head in such a way that qualified immunity does not apply, and makes gathering evidence far easier, because at the limit even social media posts unrelated to the incident may be used against the culprit. Pleading one’s case before the court of public opinion first and foremost, by reaching out to the media, is therefore a strategy worth considering if confidentiality isn’t an issue, and may be the only way to effectively plead certain arguments such as racial bias.

How to file a complaint

If nothing else, do not tarry. There is typically a one-year window during which a complaint can be filed, and any delay is bound to play against you during the investigation process. Your case doesn’t even have to be ready for a hearing; trust me, you’ll have plenty of time to brush it up by then.

Once again, a complaint can be filed either at your local police station or at the body which investigates the police. The complaint itself needs not be extensive, as you’ll have ample opportunity to elaborate further on, so keep it simple and go straight to the point. Your first paragraph should state clearly who you’re accusing, what the accusation is (pertaining to offences in the relevant legislation, remember), and why it reaches the threshold of a complaint.

Then you have to make specific claims, grounded in fact and supported by evidence, although there is no need to produce any evidence at this stage; nevertheless, you should be able to explain how the officer broke the rules, in terms as accurate as possible, as well as any significant departure in the report from the actual facts of the case (which is particularly important in allegations of deceit). Think of an investigator reading your complaint, trying to match it to a specific offence, because this is how your complaint shall be cleared to proceed.

Follow-up

Once your complaint has been accepted, two things will happen. One, your case will be assigned to a police officer investigating police matters, if only for the purpose of collecting depositions (yours, the officer, witnesses). The other is that you shall be offered to take the matter through some kind of complaint resolution process, which allows for negotiated settlements instead of hard discipline like dismissal, although the complaint can still proceed to a hearing if the negotiation fails.

Some terms can only be reached through complaint resolution, such as receiving a letter of apology or a policy statement; indeed civilian oversight may not compel a police officer or police department to issue an apology, or cooperate in parallel judicial proceedings. Think about that before deciding whether to accept the offer or turn it down.

As for your deposition, it’s like filing the complaint but more elaborate; you’ll be pressed to provide as much detail as possible, and if you have damning evidence waiting to be unleashed it’s a good time to mention it; the more information the police investigator has, the more pressure can be put on the defendant when the time comes to produce their own deposition. Also, it may be worth mentioning that while every statement you make must be true, not all of it needs to be supported by evidence; a bit of bluff is admissible, and you never know what a police officer will admit to when pressed with an outrageous claim, or on the contrary lie about in a disprovable fashion. Think of it as a one-sided game of poker, in which some of your cards are on the table while some remain hidden, whereas the officer has to play cards on the table from the onset.

Conclusion

This is as far as my own experience goes. The process is far from swift, and your best asset is patience. Of course by this I don’t mean just waiting while sitting on your hands, but rather of all the hours you’ll spend researching and building your case. Complaining about police misconduct is bound to turn into a game of “he said, she said” in which the more persistent and resourceful side will prevail; just make sure that side is you, for justice’s sake.

One last thing: you’re not alone in this fight for police accountability. Some organisations can help you if a case is beyond your ability to plead or the system proves too difficult to navigate, such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; although the assistance they provide can be disappointingly meagre, sometimes a single tip from a mere paralegal can tip the balance in your favour, so don’t hesitate to reach out and ask, you’ve got nothing to lose in this regard.