'Whistleblower' alleges Lethbridge police chief threatened retaliation against MLA, CBC journalist

A year ago, New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips received an anonymous "whistleblower" letter alleging someone from the Lethbridge police had threatened retaliation against her and a CBC journalist for exposing misconduct within the service.

Now recently obtained documents reveal it was the police chief, Shahin Mehdizadeh, who was accused of making the threat.

Phillips's lawyer had previously called for a public inquiry into that letter, and into another letter sent to a woman who had accused a former Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) inspector of sexual assault. The request was rejected owing in part to the police commission's concerns about the letters' anonymity and lack of specific evidence.

Still, justice studies expert Doug King says the situation warrants further investigation — to clarify once and for all if there's any truth to the allegations in the letters. 

"If I was in the chief's shoes, I would want this — I would want a mechanism by which I can clear my name," said King, a professor at Mount Royal University.

He noted that public trust in police is maintained through transparency and dialogue. 

"You can't kind of push this stuff aside, you have to embrace it and say, 'OK, let's try and be as transparent as we can,' [while] protecting the legal rights of everyone involved," King said.

The whistleblower letters are quoted in correspondence between Phillips's lawyer, Michael Bates, and Lethbridge Police Commission chair Rob vanSpronsen.

The documents were recently obtained by CBC News after being tabled in the Alberta Legislature late last year, and include: 

According to the correspondence, the letter to Phillips said, in part: 

"You should know that Shahin Mehdizadeh speaks very negatively and in a sexist way about you daily at LPS. He is very vocal about a complaint he says he is preparing against you. He has said a number of times that he is going to 'burn you and CBC's Meghan Grant down.'"

The letter alleges the chief used an offensive word meaning mentally disabled.

"[He] has openly said in front of employees at LPS 'anyone who would vote for Shannon Phillips is r----ded,'" according to the documents. 

"One can … fairly ask how a disabled or lesser-educated member of the community can be expected to be treated within the LPS if individuals with political differences are deemed 'r----ded,'" Bates said in his note to vanSpronsen.