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VANCOUVER EASTSIDE MISSING WOMEN |
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U.S. use of
geographic profiler underlines Vancouver's failure Editorial The Vancouver police
would dearly love to put the Kim Rossmo affair
behind them. But just when they think they may have heard the last of him, he's
in the local news again.
Dr. Rossmo,
you may recall, is the geographic profiling expert who rose quickly -- too
quickly for some, it would seem -- to the position of detective-inspector in the
Vancouver police force.
In 2000, he was essentially demoted to
constable, left the department and then sued for wrongful dismissal. The B.C.
Supreme Court rejected Dr. Rossmo's suit on
the grounds that he served as a detective-inspector only on a contract basis,
and his five-year contract had expired. He is appealing the decision.
Now Dr. Rossmo
works on geographic profiling for the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C. The
system of geographic profiling he developed while studying for a PhD at Simon
Fraser University is being used in the case of a serial killer now stalking the
Washington area with a rifle.
In the security-crazy Washington region, his
expertise is sought and respected. He was present when police met with reporters
in Rockville, Md., a suburb just north of Washington.
Which reminds us that his expertise was not
held in such high regard in Vancouver, where senior police failed to respond
appropriately when he told them in May 1999 that a serial killer was likely
behind the troubling disappearance of women from the Downtown Eastside.
Despite the warning, senior police downplayed
the theory.
The investigation of the missing women -- now
numbering 63 -- continued to be dogged by inertia and a lack of resources. A
formal joint investigation with the RCMP in neighbouring municipalities wasn't
established until early 2001.
We know that what's done is done, yet many
questions linger.
Why didn't senior Vancouver police respond
smartly to the opinion of such an expert in their midst? And why have we seen no
formal, public effort to examine how the failures of the missing women
investigation can be avoided in the future?
Unlike many Vancouver police, we're glad that
Kim Rossmo's name is back in the news, as it
reminds us that these troubling questions have yet to be adequately answered.
Courtesy of The Vancouver Sun |
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Updated: January 01, 2007 |