More than 400 complaints made against Ottawa police officers during ‘Freedom Convoy’

Of the 410 complaints about police officer conduct during the protests, 390 were dismissed or "screened out" by the office of the police review director.

The public made 410 complaints about police officer conduct during the “Freedom Convoy” demonstrations in Ottawa last year, but nearly all of them were dismissed.

The Ottawa police board’s 2022 annual report says public complaints nearly doubled from the previous year, with an 88-per-cent increase overall, and 94 per cent more complaints relating to police conduct.

The provincial Office of the Independent Police Review Director received more than a thousand total complaints about the Ottawa Police Service, and 571 reports about the conduct of its officers.

Police staff said in the report that increase was due to the illegal protests against COVID-19 vaccination mandates and other public health measures in January and February 2022, with nearly 38 per cent of all complaints linked to the “Freedom Convoy.”

Of the 410 complaints about police officer conduct during the protests, 390 were dismissed or “screened out” by the office of the police review director.

More than half of the screen-outs were because the complainants were not directly affected by the incident or interaction with police, according to the report.

The report said another 70 complaints relating to the protests, still pending in 2022, were consolidated into two complaints.

Ottawa police were sharply criticized for their poor handling of the protests, including during last fall’s public inquiry into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act to clear the streets around Parliament Hill.