SIU twice investigated disgraced city officer
Constable shot at stolen van, injuring teen passenger
Posted By SUSAN GAMBLE, EXPOSITOR STAFF
Posted 1 year ago
Acity police officer who pleaded guilty to cocaine possession this week shot at a stolen van in 2007, injuring a teenaged passenger.
Const. Jeffrey Servos, who admitted in Ontario Court on Monday that he had used cocaine while on duty in June 2007, shot off four rounds into a van that was boxed in by police cruisers on May 27, 2007.
Two of the shots went through the van's windshield and one of them hit a 15-year-old who was a passenger in the van. The girl was treated for a gunshot wound to her left arm.
Servos testified that he feared for himself and another officer when he shot at the vehicle.
The shooting took place just over a day after police received a tip that an officer named Jeff was buying painkiller pills. Servos had a two-year history of drug problems at that point.
Three and a half weeks after Servos shot at the van, police took the unprecedented step of putting a camera in the officer's cruiser.
When the video revealed Servos snorting a painkiller and smoking crack, he was immediately suspended.
A urine test revealed the officer also had been taking methadone and ephedrine -- a nasal congestion medication that can also be used as a stimulant or weight loss aid.
Chief Derek McElveny said Servos's drug history was reported to the Special Investigations Unit that investigated the shooting.
Despite the officer's ongoing substance abuse issues and an agreement that his employers could ask for urine tests, neither city police nor the SIU asked Servos be tested after the shooting.
"We couldn't," said McElveny on Wednesday. "The agreement was that a drug test had to be based on some behaviour that caused concern.
The chief said the drug tip information hadn't filtered as far as his office when the shooting occurred.
"This was a timing issue and a matter of verifying information. People phone and say lots of things about police officers.
"Things don't happen like CSI. We don't solve everything in an hour. You try and sift through the information and do an investigation."
Once police had video evidence of Servos taking drugs, events moved swiftly, the chief said.
He also noted that city police and the SIU did
independent investigations on the shooting incident and in both cases determined that the shooting was "just."
"That's all we have," said the chief. "There's nowhere else to go."
It wasn't the first time that the SIU had investigated Servos.
In 2003, a man named Jim Carpenter had his leg broken during an arrest and accused Servos.
Carpenter said at that time that he was forced to walk to the police cruiser on a broken leg. When a woman yelled at police for hurting her friend, the same officer accused by Carpenter smashed the woman's face onto the roof of the cruiser, knocking out a tooth.
Carpenter requested medical attention from the desk sergeant at the police station and was taken to the hospital.
Although the SIU looked into Carpenter's injury, no charges were laid.
SIU spokesman John Yoannou couldn't confirm information about such an old case on Wednesday.
But Yoannou said that when the SIU investigated the 2007 van shooting, it found no evidence that Servos was impaired at the time of the incident.
"The decision by the SIU was based on all the available evidence, including forensic evidence."
Yoannou said Servos consented to be interviewed, accompanied by his lawyer, Dean Paquette, even though he had the right to remain silent. In an SIU investigation, witness officers are required to submit to interviews but "subject officers" are not.
McElveny said Servos -- who will be sentenced in court at the end of the month -- still faces 16 charges that have been laid under the Police Services Act.
Those charges include seven counts of discreditable conduct, five counts of neglect of duty, two counts of consuming drugs or alcohol in a manner prejudicial to duty and one count each of corrupt practices and insubordination.
Each of the charges has a synopsis attached but those circumstances aren't made public until the hearing.
The charges have not yet been proven. A hearing under the Police Services Act will be scheduled once Servos has been sentenced on the criminal charge.
Meanwhile, Servos is suspended with pay, a deal dictated by the Police Services Act.
He might yet return to his job as a city police officer, said McElveny.
"It's not my call. All I do is present the evidence and the hearing officer will decide. I've done what I can do and that's to suspend him from duty."
Servos's hearing under the service act charges will be public and McElveny said the force has nothing to hide when it comes to the charges or Servos's history.
"When issues came up, we tried to direct him to the help he needed just as we would any other person. Three times he's been to rehab. This is someone who has some demons in his life that he's hopefully dealing with or has dealt with and he still has some pretty significant hurdles to get over."
McElveny said city officers are held to a high standard of behaviour, whether they're on or off the clock.
When officers show a marked departure from their "excellence in professionalism," said McElveny, "we believe that communicating to our community members in an open forum is paramount in maintaining the confidence of the people we serve."
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TIMELINE
Here are some significant dates in the career of city police Const. Jeffrey Servos:
July 26, 2001:Sworn in as a police officer.
Fall 2003:Complaint lodged by James Carpenter regarding broken leg.
March 2005:Servos admitted to a supervisor he was addicted to OxyContin, a painkiller. Went into 30-day treatment
April 6, 2005:Servos returned to work.
Aug. 30, 2005:Performance and well-being begin deteriorating. Informally disciplined.
June 27, 2006:Servos disclosed his dependency on pain meds for a second time. Suspended and ordered to take treatment. Aug. 27, 2006:Servos's suspension lifted and he returned to duty.
March 29, 2007:Servos admitted his ongoing addiction, was suspended and entered a new program.
April 6, 2007:Servos assured the police chief that he was doing well with his addiction and his urine tests were negative.
May 1, 2007:Unknown to police, Servos entered a methadone treatment program.
May 7, 2007:A doctor assured the Chief of Police that Servos was doing well.
May 25, 2007:Police receive info that an officer named Jeff was illegally buying oxycodone pills May 27, 2007:Servos shot four rounds at a "boxed in" van, hitting a 15-year-old girl in arm
June 20, 2007:Servos is videotaped snorting a prescription painkiller and smoking crack cocaine on duty.
June 23, 2007:Servos arrested. His urine tests positive for oxycodone, methadone, a metabolite of cocaine and ephedrine/pseudoephedrine.
