Two officers with the Winnipeg Police Service were arrested in connection with impaired driving offences in a single week, Winnipeg police chief Danny Smyth said Wednesday.
Smyth said one officer was arrested by RCMP in Headingley on Monday, Nov. 20. The other was arrested Sunday, Nov. 26 by Winnipeg police in West Kildonan, in an incident CTV reported Monday.
Neither officers have been formally charged yet, Smyth said.
The arrests come a little more than a month after the arrest of Const. Justin Holz, 34, in connection with the Main Street hit and run death of Cody Severight, 23.
“Our organization is still reeling from that incident,” Smyth told reporters.
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“I’m taken aback that two more members have been involved,” Smyth also said, referring to the latest impaired driving arrests. He said officers involved have been placed on administrative leave.
Smyth said the force would typically deal with one or two such incidents per year.
He emphasized that police officers who engage in impaired driving are a minority of the 1400 or so in Winnipeg, and that resources are provided to police who show signs of having an alcohol problem.
Smyth said raising awareness and making efforts to curb impaired driving needs to be ongoing, and pointed out that some current members of the Winnipeg Police Service were children at the time of the high-profile death of Crystal Taman, who was killed in 2005 when she was rear-ended by an off-duty officer who had been at a party.
