Overtime Bar Scandal
Rayner Files Suit
Bubbles???
August 25, 2005
So, it looks like Edmonton's ex-Chief of Police Fred Rayner has joined the litigation circus bandwagon by filing a $1.5M wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against the City of Edmonton and numerous others for firing him over his mishandling of last November's 'Overtime Bar Sting' operation. Not unlike his predecessor (allegations of abusing hookers back in the 80's), Hapless Freddie got caught with his pants around his ankles (so to speak) lying about how officers on his watch came to be staking out a local bar in hopes of catching a pair of vocal police critics-former Police Commission Chair Martin Ignasiuk and Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte-driving home drunk.
At first he said it was a routine operation with no intended target, then he said the officers were acting on an anonymous tip that Kiotte and Ignasiuk were imbibing copious draughts and would likely be driving home.
A Sun staffer monitoring a police scanner recorded some embarassing conversations among officers conducting the sting operation (perhaps the same ones who circulated the racist e-mail a couple months ago thinking they would escape detection on an internal e-mail system? Come on guys-journalists do have access to scanners, you know. Better double your Starbuck's order!) and before you know it, the excrement starts flying.
Well, as we all know, the next day transcripts of the Sun staffer's recordings were released and police spokesmen admitted that Diotte and Ignasiuk were, indeed, targets of a police sting operation-designated T-1 and T-2 (Target-one and Target-two), respectfully (or not, maybe).
Oops! So now Rayner's lawsuit is crying 'foul' claiming the Police Commission acted in bad faith by first commending his handling of the affair then turning around and firing him. Sounds to me it's more a case of giving him enough rope to hang himself-which he cheerfully did!
Just as a sidenote, two of the last three Police Chiefs in Edmonton have left on a sour note-Rayner, John Lindsay (under clouds of corruption charges), and the third one (Bob Wasylyshen) is currently suing the CBC over a documentary it aired in February of 2004 concerning members of the Edmonton Police abusing hookers back in the 1980's. It's also interesting to note that, according to Edmonton lawyer Tom Engel, EPS legal bills in 2003 topped over $1.02M-nearly twice that of Calgary. Engel by the way, is suing EPS for allegedly illegally running his name through a police database computer 16 times over the last few years.
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