Vancouver Police Department denies it favours women over men in domestic violence investigations

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      The Vancouver Police Board is expected to dismiss a complaint claiming that men are discriminated against in investigations of domestic violence.

      A report submitted to the board states that Vancouver Police Department “procedures and training for domestic violence investigations are focused on identifying the primary aggressor in an investigation”.

      “They are not based on gender,” according to the document written by Drazen Manojlovic, director of the planning, research and audit section, and Insp. Suzanne Muir, of the special investigations section.

      The report recommends that the police board dismisses in its meeting Thursday (September 14) a complaint filed in June this year by a man who was involved in a spat with his wife.

      Based on a redacted copy of the complaint, the man claimed that the VPD policy is to always take the side of the woman and to “treat the male as a criminal”.

      According to the man, the incident happened in June 2013 when his wife began “nagging” him about the cost of their upcoming wedding.

      The man related that it came to a point when he decided to call off the wedding, and that he threw the box containing the dresses of the bridesmaids out of the house window.

      The man went to say that the woman came after him and repeatedly hit him with a closed fist.

      The complainant also noted that he was later given a document, apparently by the police, which stated that he came home drunk, and became aggressive with the woman.

      In their report to the board, Manojlovic and Muir stated that there were “discrepancies between the complainant’s version of events and those found in the General Occurrence report”.

      “At the time of the incident, the investigating officers concluded that there was no violence and no grounds to arrest. The matter was resolved and the complainant was asked to spend the night with a relative (which he agreed to),” according to the report.

      The report also notes that there is no direction in policy regarding domestic disputes “to bias the investigation in favour of women over men”.

      “Each incident will have its own set of unique factors that require an investigation of the totality of circumstances before a charge can be recommended regardless of the gender of the abuser,” the report states.  

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