Conduct hearing underway for three suspended Coquitlam RCMP officers accused of making racist, sexist, harassing comments

The RCMP is seeking to can three Coquitlam officers who allegedly made racist, sexist and harassing comments about other officers and members of the public.

A two-week code of conduct hearing began on Sept. 16 for Consts. Philip Dick, Ian Solven, and Mersad Mesbah, who reportedly made the comments on the RCMP’s messaging system and a private group chat with 12 other officers in 2021.

Const. Sam Sodhi filed an official complaint with his line officer, Insp. Darren Carr – who is now Coquitlam RCMP’s superintendent – on May 11, 2021, stating the officers on his shift were harassing him and other officers in person, as well as online.

All three accused officers have been suspended since June 16, 2021, and the RCMP is seeking to terminate their employment, according to the court documents.

While the details of the messages have not been released, RCMP conduct standards bar officers from engaging in discriminatory or harassing behaviour, or in a manner that could discredit the force.

As part of the investigation, the RCMP obtained a warrant in April, 2022 to seize electronic data, including 4,427 messages from Signal, an encrypted app used for private group chat.

The accused officers – who were all administrators of the private chat – have been attempting to have the messages excluded from the conduct proceedings.

In November, 2023, they filed a motion stating the seizure of the data breached their privacy rights under the charter, and the RCMP failed to properly report the seizure, violating RCMP policy and procedural fairness.

The conduct board ruled in June, 2024 that the seized data should not be excluded from the hearings.

Although the board ruled the officers’ privacy rights had been breached, amounting to unreasonable search and seizure, they also found their procedural fairness complaints do not apply, as it is not a criminal proceeding. 

On July 3, Solven’s counsel sent notice via email to the RCMP, stating the seizure had still not been reported properly for judicial oversight, and it was being unlawfully held, prompting the RCMP to finally file it on July 26.

The issue of whether the seized data could be used was again revisited on Sept. 3, after the RCMP sought an order from a provincial judge allowing the data to be kept until the conclusion of the conduct hearings.

The order was opposed by the officers, but Judge Robin McQuillan said the RCMP Act left her “very limited discretion” to decline a detention order on the basis of the 27-month filing delay.

She said that the conduct board is the proper venue to determine if there should be any penalties to the RCMP for its “prolonged failure” to file.

Another involved Coquitlam officer, Const. Cameron Lang, was also subject to a code of conduct hearing on May 29, 2024, though the board dropped the complaint against him.

Lang was a member of the private group chat, and had one conduct allegation against him related to making racist or offensive remarks about members of the public.

The board, however, ruled the RCMP failed to initiate a conduct hearing within the one-year deadline from when the allegations were reported. An appeal has been filed by the RCMP.

Snippets of internal investigator’s interim report were included in the board decision, which states six other officers involved in the group chat may face some culpability for failing to report the racist or sexist content.