VANCOUVER – A former detective says the Vancouver police force put too much power in a skeptical inspector who ignored warnings that a serial killer was murdering sex workers.
Geographic profiler Kim Rossmo has told the public inquiry into the Robert Pickton investigation that he wrote reports concluding a rash of disappearances in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside was likely the result of a single killer.
But the officer in charge of the force’s major crimes section, Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, didn’t believe that theory and effectively disbanded a working group that was looking at ways to investigate it.
Rossmo says Biddlecombe honestly believed he was correct, which Rossmo says reveals a problem with the strict adherence to the rank structure that governs the police force.
Rossmo says there was no way for him to approach a supervisor without doing an “end-run” around Biddlecombe and further alienating the major crime section.
He says there needs to be a system in which officers can initiate discussions with their superiors to prevent single high-ranking officials from becoming the final word on how investigations proceed.
