The Lions Tale

Disappointing but hardly surprising commentary in a June 13th article in The Province from Don Morrison, defense counsel for Charles Kembo. Kembo was convicted on June 11th for four homicides including that of his own stepdaughter, Rita Yeung.

For Morrison, a former Police Complaints Commissioner, to publicly announce:  “a young woman gets set up and left alone by police to be killed” is extreme and over the top.

There could be scores of killers walking the streets of Greater Vancouver at any given time – and Charles Kembo was but one of these.  Police managers throughout the province of BC operate with strained resources in good faith, applying manpower based upon carefully considered enforcement priorities which can change at any time.  These leaders accept the consequences of error inherent in their job, and base their decisions on information available to them at the time.  Keeping the public safe is not easy work.

Police officers agonize over the death of an innocent.  In the cold light of day, the notion of terminating a mobile surveillance of Kembo on the night he killed Ms. Yeung is disturbing.  There were, in all likelihood, valid reasons for the decision.  There may have been nothing to suggest that Ms. Yeung was any more at risk than many other British Columbians in the company of men like Charles Kembo on that particular night.  It may have been that the police manager felt that the GPS and audio device in Kembo’s vehicle provided sufficient awareness of Ms. Yeung’s risk level to allow for a 911 response if there were signs of trouble.  Pedestrian as it may seem, it may also have been explained by a lack of available overtime funding to extend the shift of surveillance personnel.

Decisions upon where to apply precious surveillance resources are generally fraught with risk and subject to scrutiny after the fact if something goes wrong.  It goes with the territory of being a police manager in British Columbia today.

I support a review of the police decision to terminate the surveillance of Kembo that night.  The explanation is bound to shed light on the violent death of this young woman.  I expect that it will be explained, as many of these tragedies are, by the fact that there are simply too few police officers to address the public need.  Let’s wait for the findings before we indulge in recreational platitudes in the absence of the facts, as Mr. Morrison has so publicly done.

This was yet another example of the fine work done by senior Crown Counsel Hank Reiner, one of the absolute best at what he does.  We have been very fortunate to have him securing convictions against the worst of men for so many years.