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A lawyer for three British Columbia RCMP members facing dismissal over alleged racist group chats told a police conduct board panel that they should be replaced over “real or perceived” bias against the officers.
Wes Dutcher-Walls, a defence lawyer for Coquitlam RCMP constables Mersad Mesbah, Ian Solven and Philip Dick, said Wednesday that emails between board members and staff referred to his clients as the “three amigos.”
The code of conduct hearing is being held at a hotel in Surrey, B.C., where lawyers for the officers and the RCMP conduct authority are presenting their cases to a three-member board, which has the power to recommend an officer be dismissed or directed to resign if allegations are established.
Dutcher-Walls said the use of the term “amigos,” which means male friends in Spanish, in emails among the board shows a “broader pattern” of dismissiveness and skepticism toward the officers, and he urged the board members to recuse themselves as a matter of fairness.
He said it was “very awkward” to ask the board to remove itself from hearing the case, but said he doesn’t have to prove actual bias and only has to demonstrate an “appearance” of either conscious or unconscious bias for the board to recuse itself.
“You do not have to be like the villains at the end of (a) ‘Scooby-Doo’ episode and come out and say ‘you got me, you pesky kids. Turns out I hate your clients and I am biased consciously.’ Nobody would ever say that.”
He said the repeated use of the term amigos is “problematic,” and evokes U.S. President Donald Trump’s referral to Mexican people as “bad hombres,” and a “brash American tourist ordering a beer in Cancun.”
However, John MacLaughlan, a lawyer for the RCMP conduct authority, said the use of “amigos” was innocuous, not derogatory, and the defence is making a “desperate” 11th-hour legal manoeuvre to argue issues that have already been decided.
MacLaughlan said the board has policing expertise and should dismiss the defence bid to have the members recuse themselves after a “years-long saga” to have the matter heard.
Mesbah, Solven and Dick’s conduct came under scrutiny after a fellow officer complained of “atrocious” behaviour in a police group chat on encrypted messaging apps WhatsApp and Signal in May 2021.
The group chats on their personal phones, and other communications on RCMP mobile data terminals, allegedly show the officers exchanging inappropriate messages showing racist and misogynistic attitudes.
An RCMP search warrant document alleges the officers demeaned a Mexican sexual assault victim and made jokes about “Tasering unarmed black people.”
The code of conduct hearing began Monday, and all three officers denied allegations of workplace harassment and discreditable conduct.
The conduct board adjourned the hearing Wednesday, and will release its decision on whether to recuse themselves on Friday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press