A commentary by the president of the Victoria City Police Union.

On Christmas Day in 2019, while on vacation, Victoria Police Const. Ron Kirkwood volunteered to assist his colleagues with the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team during a high-risk incident in downtown Victoria.

The call involved a barricaded individual armed with a knife. It was an unpredictable and dangerous situation that tragically ended in the death of Lisa Rauch.

What followed has been its own kind of tragedy: an investigative and disciplinary process that has now stretched more than five and a half years.

After three separate reviews, including by the Independent Investigations Office, the Vancouver Police Department and a retired judge in a Review on the Record, each found no misconduct.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner nonetheless ordered a fourth review in the form of a........

© Times Colonist