The man at the centre of a botched police probe into the death of a woman north of Winnipeg admitted Tuesday he made some mistakes, but rejected accusations he covered up for a fellow officer who caused the crash.
"I think I did the best I could do (with) what I had there and with my abilities at the time,'' Harry Bakema said Tuesday at a public inquiry examining the case.
Bakema was the police chief in the bedroom community of East St. Paul, Man., in 2005, when a truck driven by off-duty Winnipeg Const. Derek Harvey-Zenk plowed into a car driven by Crystal Taman, killing her.
Harvey-Zenk had been partying all night with fellow officers.
Bakema arrived on the scene and found Harvey-Zenk standing near his truck, his face bent down toward the ground. Under questioning Tuesday, Bakema said he recognized Harvey-Zenk as someone he had once worked with on the Winnipeg force.
Instead of questioning Harvey-Zenk or testing him for sobriety, Bakema said he put his arm around the officer and helped him walk to a nearby police cruiser.
"Did you ever take the opportunity to stand back and see whether he was unsteady on his feet?,'' asked inquiry counsel David Paciocco.
"No, I did not,'' Bakema replied.
"You never really tried to determine whether his speech was slurred?,'' Paciocco asked moments later.
"He wasn't really talking, sir,'' Bakema said.
Bakema, a 32-year police veteran, also told the inquiry he and his fellow officers did not interview some of the witnesses at the scene, including a paramedic who later told another officer Harvey-Zenk's breath had a strong odour of alcohol; a tow-truck driver who reportedly told the victim's family that Harvey-Zenk's truck "reeked'' of alcohol and an off-duty firefighter who helped out at the scene.
"To some, it would appear that your either abdicated your role in this investigation ... or you actually set out to protect (Harvey-Zenk),'' Paciocco said.
"I did not, sir,'' Bakema replied.
Harvey-Zenk was charged with several offences, including impaired driving causing death and refusing the breathalyzer by another East St. Paul officer back at the station.
Because of a lack of evidence, most charges were eventually dropped under a plea bargain that angered the victim's family.
In the end, Harvey-Zenk was sentenced to two years' house arrest on a charge of dangerous driving causing death.
Inquiry told of errors
The inquiry has already heard about a host of errors committed by East St. Paul police. They lost mug shots of several people including Harvey-Zenk. They didn't interview bar staff that served Harvey-Zenk and his fellow partiers hours before the crash.
Bakema admitted making mistakes such as not ensuring witnesses were interviewed and asking Winnipeg police to help the investigation into one of their own members.
He was also grilled about several phone calls he made in the hours following the crash. He made four calls to the commander of the Winnipeg detachment where Harvey-Zenk worked.
"I'm going to suggest to you, officer, that what you did is you said words to this effect: `One of your boys was on a drinking spree and got involved in an accident. I'll clean up this end, you clean up the other end','' said Gene Zazelenchuk, lawyer for the Taman family.
"Absolutely not, sir. Absolutely not,'' Bakema replied.
Bakema also rejected accusations from other East St. Paul officers that he told one officer not to write down that he had detected alcohol on Harvey-Zenk's breath. He said another accusation that he rewrote an officer's report was also false.
"I don't tell anybody what not to write in their reports or what to write in their reports,'' Bakema said.
The victim's family said they did not believe Bakema's testimony.
"He in no way was trying to find out anything about (Harvey-Zenk) once he found out he was a policeman,'' Sveinn Sveinson, Taman's father.
"It's just a farce.''
Bakema was removed from the East St. Paul force after a review was launched into the case. He currently sells real estate in Winnipeg.
With a report from CTV's Alana Pona.
