There's been no shortage of legal proceedings or social media videos focused on the treatment of protesters, said lawyer Karen Mirsky, who is the president of the BC Civil Liberties Association .
The officer, with 13 years of experience, remains on the force but resigned from the RCMP's controversial Community-Industry Response Group . The concerns raised by the officer during the Fairy Creek blockade reflect a pattern of behaviour by RCMP while policing protests tied to resource extraction industries, Mirsky said.
Citing alleged violations of human rights, civil liberties and racist and violent attacks on Indigenous Peoples, journalists and protesters, the federation also urged mandating on-site Indigenous civilian oversight of all RCMP operations on Indigenous lands. “The C-IRG are a militarized division of our national police force that are paid to defend pipelines and cutblocks from Indigenous people,” Olsen said.
Of that number, 108 fall under the commission's purview and will be initially investigated by RCMP and potentially reviewed by CRCC if complainants aren't satisfied with police findings. Two other complaints were withdrawn and two were terminated by RCMP, leaving 78 complaints outstanding.