11 Ottawa police officers investigated over false traffic warnings

An internal investigation is underway after 11 Ottawa police officers were accused of falsely boosting the number of warning tickets they handed out in the force's record management system.

Two officers have been suspended and nine more have been placed on administrative duties as the force's professional standards section investigates, Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau confirmed.

"What we're hearing is that, potentially, it was to boost their stats for potential transfers or for their performance appraisals," Bordeleau said.

The Ottawa Police Service Professional Standards Section launched an audit after concerns surfaced last November that an officer was entering warnings into the system that had not been handed out to the drivers named.

Warning tickets provide a record of drivers who have violated road rules, but they don't carry a fine.

Bordeleau explained the allegation is officers handed out tickets to drivers for speeding, for example, and then enter warnings for other infractions into the database "that either didn't exist or the driver was not made aware of."

Tickets indicator of performance

The professional standard's investigation has caused the force to reevaluate its use of an officer's ticket statistics in giving promotions, Bordeleau said. But he added that those statistics are still an indicator of an officer's performance.

"We will always have a need to evaluate our officers, to measure their performance, and one of their core duties is traffic enforcement," he said.

"But I'd rather see an officer give a number of tickets that have the quality because they're based on traffic problems being identified in the community, as opposed to just giving tickets for the sake of giving tickets."

Bordeleau said suspected false warnings remain in the police database for now as the investigation continues. Warnings that are found to be unsubstantiated will be removed from the database, he said.

Bordeleau said the number of suspected false tickets "varies from officer to officer." He did not disclose a number as the investigation continues. 

Bordeleau emphasized that the audit suggested that proper procedure surrounding warning tickets was followed by the "vast majority of officers." Periodic audits will continue to monitor warning tickets, he said.