The employee dressed in the Star Wars stormtrooper costumer at Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina. (Supplied by Bradley Whalen)

By Dori Modney

ASIRT to take a role in “Stormtrooper” arrest, once external service investigation is complete

May 11, 2020 | 10:42 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB. — A May 4 incident which has become known as the “Stormtrooper arrest” has spawned further action.

As a result of discussions between the Director of Law Enforcement, the Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) and the Medicine Hat Police Service (MHPS), an external investigation into the actions of LPS officers who responded to a firearms complaint, the matter has now been deemed by the Director of Law Enforcement to meet the criteria of Section 46.1 of the Police Act, which relates to serious and sensitive matters.

Consequently, once the investigation has been completed by Medicine Hat Police, it will be reviewed by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), to ensure the investigation was conducted impartially, thoroughly and without bias.

ASIRT is an independent provincial agency that investigates incidents where serious injury or death may have been caused by police and serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct.

ASIRT’s role in a review, is to provide an objective, independent, critical examination and assessment of an investigation to confirm that it was properly conducted using best practices and ensure all appropriate investigative steps were taken. The process involves an ASIRT investigator, team commander, the Director of Investigations and ultimately the Executive Director to review the investigation.

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Once the review is complete, the file will be returned to LPS with any recommendations ASIRT may have made, which could relate to specific steps that could or should be pursued in the investigation or broader practice or policy recommendations.

The assessment of whether there are reasonable grounds to believe an officer has committed a criminal offence is not within the scope of an ASIRT review. In a review, ASIRT assesses the quality of the investigation not the incident itself.