The reputation of the Hamilton Police department has taken yet another shattering blow. This time, a veteran cop is accused of ignoring a woman's domestic abuse complaint and telling her he was once her customer at an illegal massage parlour.
Constable Rick Mowers faces Police Act charges for neglect of duty and discreditable conduct related to a call at the woman's house, but nothing related to allegations he once paid her for sex.
Mowers' predicament began Dec. 6 last year. He and Constable Chuck Beasley responded in separate cruisers to a child custody dispute in Millgrove.
The mom says she was loading her sons, 2 and 8, into a taxi to escape an abusive household when her partner arrived and called police. She says both officers spoke to them for an hour. Then Beasley left and Mowers stayed behind.
The mom says she told Mowers, a cop for 16 years, that her partner choked her and kicked her in the head a week earlier. She told him she'd phoned police on the day of the beating for advice on escaping an abusive relationship. Mowers, she says, did not take notes, ask questions or investigate her allegations.
What he did say, according to the mom, is he'd once been her customer at a massage parlour called Chelsey's that used to operate behind the Piccadilly strip club on Barton Street East. Vice and drugs officers raided Chelsey's in December 2003 on sex related charges.
Here's where the story gets predictable. The complaint makes its way through the system until it gets to an internal Discipline Review Committee of superintendents and the service's lawyer. In June, that committee decides Mowers did act wrongly, but then goes on to identify his mistakes as "nonserious" rather than "serious," which are the terms used within the Police Act.
A serious act carries with it a hearing, a pay loss of three days or more and a black mark on an officer's record for five years. A nonserious act requires no hearing, costs less than three days pay and stays on the record two years.
Some redeption occurred when the decision and appealed to the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services. In October, OCCOPS ruled that "there is sufficient evidence to warrant a hearing into the conduct of Constable Richard Mowers."
A hearing is set for Jan. 16. Mowers continues to perform his regular duties in the meantime.
Mowers it seems is no virgin to controversy, this is Mowers' second time before a Police Act hearing. In the late '90s he was convicted of two counts of neglect of duty after a complaint that he did not arrest a man who breached a court ruling ordering him to stay away from his wife because of an assault charge.
He was also convicted of not conducting a proper investigation for not getting an interpreter for the couple.
I can't believe the arrogance of our police. This is the second time their committee has tried to sweep serious charges against one of their own under the carpet recently. The first was when Hamilton police cleared two officers after they arrested a black man for a break-in -- despite descriptions of a white suspect -- and never checked his alibi. OCCOPS ordered a hearing. The officers pleaded guilty to not checking the alibi.
I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but when will this city get rid of these filthy 'pigs'. Oh, and as note as the story in the Spectator points out, so far, no one is questioning that Mowers may be in the habit of paying women for sex at massage parlours. What?!
Later,
Kenaz
