RCMP conduct authority lawyer calls move to replace board ‘desperate’ legal manoeuvre

A lawyer for three British Columbia RCMP officers facing dismissal over alleged racist group chats says a conduct board panel should be replaced over “real or perceived” bias against the officers.

Wes Dutcher-Walls, a defence lawyer for Coquitlam RCMP constables Mersad Mesbah, Ian Solven and Philip Dick, says emails between board members and staff referred to his clients as the “three amigos.”

Dutcher-Walls says the use of the term “amigos,” which means male friends in Spanish, among the board shows a “broader pattern” of dismissiveness and skepticism, and he urged the panel members to recuse themselves as a matter of fairness.

He says the use of the term is “problematic,” and evokes U.S. President Donald Trump’s referral to Mexican people as “bad hombres,” and a “brash American tourist ordering a beer in Cancun.”