A prominent First Nations activist is appealing a decision by the Vancouver Police Department’s professional standards section (PSS) to dismiss a complaint she filed claiming abuse of authority and oppressive conduct toward a member of the public.

Audrey Siegl is a member of the Musqueam First Nation and a 2014 COPE candidate for city council who received more than 19,000 votes in last November’s civic election.

On February 13, 2015, she attended a protest where she alleges a VPD officer intentionally bumped into her, cutting her lip and leaving a bruise. Photographs confirm those injuries did occur, and a video posted on Facebook shows Siegl in close contact with a VPD officer.

Siegl lodged a formal complaint, and on September 17 that process ended with the PSS finding no misconduct occurred. She has since filed an appeal that remains under review by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC).

In the meantime, Siegl said, she wants to call attention to a process she described as rigged in favour of police.

“They based a lot of their decision on a VPD bodycam video which I have never been given access to,” she explained in a telephone interview. “I didn’t even know that it existed until reading it in the decision. They never told me they had it.”

A copy of the 55-page report reviewed by the Straight is heavily redacted. In several sections, full pages are blacked out in their entirety.

VPD spokesperson Const. Brian Montague told the Straight that privacy legislation means certain information must be withheld from the public. “There is a process in place to provide the individuals who have made a complaint with as much information as we can,” Montague said.

Doug King, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, described the concerns raised by Siegl as “not surprising”.

“Her feelings are not isolated,” he said. “I think a lot of people go through the process and leave it feeling like the system is stacked against them and the bias is real. My experience is the same.”

King said he’s seen the same series of events play out so many times now that Pivot seldom even bothers to file a complaint with the PSS.

“That is one of the reasons why our organization has, for the most part, boycotted the process and looked at civil litigation instead,” he continued. “Until we take investigations out of the hands of police, there is always going to be that issue with bias.”

Interviewed separately, Montague took issue with the characterization that police investigate themselves.

“There are several levels of accountability when it comes to complaints against the police,” he said. “While we are conducting the investigation, there is oversight by a civilian body.”

According to the OPCC's most-recent quarterly report, there were 558 complaint files concerning B.C. police officers concluded between April 1, 2014, and March 31, 2015.

Of those, 290 or 52 percent were declared "not substantiated". Another 218 or 39 percent were either withdrawn, informally resolved, or discontinued. Only 50 complaints or nine percent of those filed were ruled substantiated and approved for further action.