Sixty Days Since Harley's Death

It has been two months to the day since Harley the Dog was kicked to death by an off-duty Calgary Police Officer; and surprise surprise still no word -- not a peep -- from police, prosecutors and media responsible for investigating this event. No charges laid, nobody exonerated, no suspect even named. Of course, the justification for not naming “the suspect” is because he has not been charged, but of course, as any literate reader of the news understands, suspects and even witnesses are often named before charges have been laid. Alas I digress….

In 60 days since the date of the incident local authorities simply haven’t said whether they are charging or exonerating. In a world where charges get laid against ordinary citizens within hours (or even minutes) of the event, one might be a little cynical as to why it is taking so long to figure this one out.

But perhaps that is exactly the strategy.

As I said in an article on July 23rd, 2009, “The Code of Silence – Investigation into the Death of Harley the Dog Fading Away”, “[a]s each day passes, and as Harley’s death at the hands (or the boot, as the case may be) of the anonymous boy in blue fades from memory due to the passage of time, it becomes more a certainty that I was right…”; time will ease the reaction to a troubling event, to the extent that we might forget it even happened at all.

http://andjusticeforall-calgary.blogspot.com/2009/07/code-of-silence-investigation-into.html

The very first post on this discussion board was titled, “A Token Investigation – Investigation into the Death of Harley the Dog”.

http://andjusticeforall-calgary.blogspot.com/2009/07/token-investigation-investigation-into.html

This article addressed a number of rather cavalier comments made by police and others with respect to this case, and questioned whether the investigation was just a formality that would lead by design to nothing whatsoever. Of course, the information relative to this case has been sent to an out-of-jurisdiction Prosecutor approximately 1 ½ months ago. To be fair, perhaps the assigned Crown has been away on holidays, after all, it is summer and many lawyers are away.

Regardless, the passage of time reinforces this writer’s cynicism that there will never be any meaningful closure to this case.

Today’s article is to remind us, the case is still out there….. We are waiting…

David G. Chow
Calgary Criminal Defence Lawyer

www.calgarydefence.com