The paramilitary culture of blind obedience that pervades cop shops like the Vancouver Police Department did in Frank Paul, suggests the interim report by the commission of inquiry in his death.

Commissioner William Davies noted in his report that the rookie Vancouver police officer who left Paul in a back alley, where he later died from hypothermia in the winter of 1998, might have done otherwise but didn’t because of the dictates of a paramilitary culture.

Referring to Cst. David Instant, Davies wrote: “He was not an uncaring person, but was persuaded by his training and superiors to behave as if his natural sympathies and sense of humanity were out of place and inappropriate.”

Obedience and compliance to orders from superior officers are key elements in military and paramilitary organizations.

War stories are replete with examples of how otherwise gentle and caring persons are sometimes driven to commit unimaginable acts, and all because they’re just following orders.

Police officers also value a culture of deference to superiors.

Such paramilitary discipline, which spells the difference in life and death situations faced by the police when confronting violent criminals, may sometimes lead to fatal civilian consequences, as was the case for Paul.

Instant’s superior officer Sgt. Russell Sanderson refused to accept Paul into the VPD’s drunk tank, and ordered Instant, then on probationary status, to release the Native man.

Davies said that Instant was placed in a difficult position, “by reason of his junior rank in the paramilitary culture of the VPD”.

“He was given orders that he did not understand, but was not equipped in his training to reject them and to seek suitable advice and assistance where it was clearly required,” the former judge stated in his voluminous report.

However, Davies noted that he’s not minimizing the “seriousness of Cst. Instant’s conduct that night”.

Instant, according to the commissioner, could have asked another senior officer to talk to Sanderson.

Or, he could have asked for the name of a shelter where he could place Paul.

Instant could have likewise asked the Detox Centre, where he drove to in his wagon that carried Paul and other persons, to accept the severely intoxicated aboriginal man.

“The decisions made that evening may also have been influenced by the late hour and the collective fatigue associated with doing an unpleasant job that may seem without great moment or value, in a setting where the decision makers sit at the bottom of the paramilitary hierarchy,” Davies wrote.

Davies also noted that after leaving Paul in the alley, Instant could have returned later on to check on him.

“It was Cst. Instant’s deference to an organizational model that discouraged questioning a superior officer that was Frank Paul’s undoing that evening, coupled with the fact that Cst. Instant’s training had not equipped him to seek an appropriate answer when confronted with an order that made no sense to him,” Davies noted.

But despite this situation, according to Davies, Instant had the “professional and moral duty” to make sure that Paul didn’t face harm.

In this regard, Davies wrote, Instant “failed to fulfil that duty”.

See also:
Commissioner explains how former chief coroner Larry Campbell thwarted inquest for Frank Paul