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RCMP’s treatment of B.C. aboriginal women, girls coming under watchdog’s scrutiny

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is launching an investigation after a Human Rights Watch report was released earlier this year.

Longstanding complaints by northern B.C. First Nations people about their treatment at the hands of the RCMP has triggered an investigation by the force's independent watchdog.

But it took a report Human Rights Watch to do it.

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP said in a news release it has begun its own investigation into allegations contained the New York-based human rights organization's February report.

"I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for me to initiate this complaint," commission interim chairman Ian MacPhail said.

Commission operations director Richard Evans told CBC News there will be a thorough review of the abuse allegations contained in the Human Rights Watch report.

"When it comes to looking at some of the issues raised in the Human Rights Watch report, we don't have to just rely on what people are telling us," he said. "We'll be able to go into the RCMP files and examine them as well."

[ Related: Damning reports of abuse, mistreatment lend RCMP a perception problem ]

The report centres around the RCMP's treatment of aboriginal women and girls, covering issues such as officers' use of force, the handling of reports of missing and possibly murdered women and treatment of young people the Mounties encounter, the Globe and Mail reported.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 50 aboriginal women and girls, as well as family members and service providers in northern British Columbia, CBC News said. The accounts, given anonymously out of concern about retribution, included the use of Tasers and pepper spray on young girls and women being strip-searched by male officers.

The group said it also documented eight incidents of police using "questionable" force and even assaulting girls under 18.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Rob Vermeulen said the force takes the allegations seriously and wants to identify the complainants.

“Complaints can be made to the RCMP directly, to the Commission [for] Public Complaints against the RCMP or to other independent investigative bodies without fear of retaliation,” Vermeulen told the Globe via email.

But the commission's involvement doesn't sit well with Human Rights Watch, which thinks the commission is in a conflict of interest.

“They’re not a body that is at an adequate distance from the police to be able to go in and do this kind of an investigation,” Meghan Rhoad, lead author of the report, told the Globe.

Rhoad also told CBC News the alleged abuse victims also don't trust the commission because of past negative experiences.

"A big piece of the report is looking at the access that victims of abuses have to a remedy when things do go wrong,” she said. “So some of the women and girls we spoke with actually talked about problems they had with the commission."

The commission also cannot look into criminal allegations against the police, she added.

"The recommendations that come out of them — assuming that the investigation itself is effective — the recommendations that come out of such an investigation will not be binding [on] the RCMP," Rhoad.

The commission's release seemed to acknowledge some complaints might need further investigation.

"While the commission's intent is to make findings and recommendations of general application, the commission is cognizant that the potential exists that specific complaints from individuals will arise during the course of the public interest investigation," the release said.

"If such complaints arise, they will be handled by the commission as separate public complaints, and/or notified to the appropriate criminal process."

[ Related: 'Highway of Tears' tips flow from U.S. TV show ]

Aboriginal leaders and federal opposition politicians have been pushing for a national commission of inquiry into missing and murdered women across Canada. The situation in British Columbia has been highlighted because of the so-called Highway of Tears, roads in central and northern B.C. where hitchhiking aboriginal women have disappeared or been killed.

Meanwhile on the Prairies, the RCMP has another mess to clean up.

CBC News reported it obtained documents showing 10 members of the RCMP's D Division, which polices Manitoba, have been disciplined between January 2010 and September 2012 for improper use of police databases.

The offences ranged from snooping on girlfriends and spouses or ex-spouses, doing licence-plate searches for civilians and downloading pornography via RCMP computers.

Penalties for the infractions ranged from formal reprimands to loss of up to 10 days' pay. Some decisions noted the transgressing Mounties could have been fired, CBC News said.

The RCMP's head of adjudication directorate said such transgressions are rare but the force takes them seriously.

"It takes away from the work done by dedicated members across the country," he said. "The bottom line is to get the members back into the confidence of the [RCMP] and the public."