A pair of criminal lawyers say that RCMP officers overstepped their bounds when they entered a Mount Moriah, N.L. home early Sunday morning and the police should provide a clear explanation as to what happened.
Michael Spratt, a criminal defence lawyer in Ottawa, says the police can only legally enter a home if they have a search or arrest warrant, or if there are exigent circumstances, such as a hot pursuit or information that a person is in imminent danger.
“It doesn’t seem like any of those grounds existed here,” Spratt said.
“What seems to have happened here is that the police simply took the easy way, took the law into their own hands and completely disregarded their constitutional obligations.”
[…]
He said there are issues with ongoing training around constitutional obligations for police officers across the country. It’s possible that some officers are negligent because they haven’t been properly trained, or if officers have been trained, that they’ve disregarded it entirely.
“Both sides of that coin lead to pretty damning conclusions,” said Spratt.
“Incompetent officers, whether it is because they are individually incompetent or systemically incompetent, shouldn’t be armed, shouldn’t be given the authority that we give police officers, and shouldn’t be on the streets and certainly shouldn’t be skulking about in someone’s house in the middle of the night.”
[…]
Read Lukas Wall’s full story: CBC News
