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Vancouver cops scoop journalist

It was a reporter’s worst nightmare.

After spending two years trying to get access to a key piece of evidence on a story he broke in 2006, Vancouver Courier columnist Allen Garr had a frustrating surprise on January 23.

Garr had sought a copy of the bullet-perforated shooting-range target that then-VPD chief Jamie Graham had left on the desk of his city hall rival Judy Rogers in the summer of 2006. But on the 23rd he learned it had been posted on the Vancouver Police Department website January 21.

Graham, who retired from the VPD in 2007 and is now the chief of the Victoria department, was not disciplined for the target incident. He was, however, cited for “discreditable conduct” in a report from Dirk Ryneveld, police complaints commissioner, that cited the chief’s lack of co-operation in investigating complaints of police misconduct in the Downtown Eastside.

Worse, Garr learned that the VPD had apparently issued a press release to other media newsrooms, drawing attention to the posted image. The press release, which Garr told the Hook did not go to him or his paper , the Vancouver Courier, led to extensive coverage of the newly released image on CTV and in the Vancouver Sun.

“This was very frustrating,” Garr told The Hook. “As a journalist, you count on producing unique material now and then. I had been through an exhausting process with the Freedom of Information application, and finally the police board was ordered to give me the target. But it was only after I had seen the Sun, Globe and CTV scoop me that I finally got my copy of the target in the mail on Friday afternoon, the 23d. It looks like the image was posted and other media informed well after the order to disclose to me was issued. I’m not sure I’d do all this again.”

The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association has already filed a letter with David Loukidelis, BC’s Information and Privacy Commissioner about this matter. In a copy of the January 27 letter made available to The Hook, Darrell Evans, the watchdog organization’s executive director, calls on the Commissioner to investigate how the competition got the contested image before Garr.

“In particular, we are concerned about the possibility that the Police Board or the VPD may have ‘tipped off’ other reporters to the released material before making it available to the applicant. But even if this was not the case, the effect of disclosure of the requested records to competitors at or before the same time as an applicant journalist will cast a discouraging chill on future journalists filing FOI requests,” Evans writes.

Tom Sandborn is a contributing editor to The Tyee with a focus on health policy and labour issues. He welcomes feedback and story tips at [email protected].

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