Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin is speaking out about concerning leaks to the media from his department and has issued a statement to clarify a memo that was sent to CPS members.

Chief Chaffin recently delivered a podcast via email to all members and sources tell CTV, that he described the police leaks to the media as ‘embarrassing the service’ and that ‘the media is not the place to talk about our issues.’

The chief told members in February that the service is ‘actively seeking out the leak or leaks’ and that the anti-corruption unit has the job of finding mole or moles within the service.

A confidential source recently told the media that the officer involved in the fatal shooting of David McQueen in January was also being investigated for the fatal shooting of Anthony Heffernan in March of last year.

Relationships were inflamed after an article was published in 10-4 Magazine, a police union publication, which called members of the media, defence council and others ‘butt-holes.’

The Heffernan family’s lawyer responded saying, “One would hope that the Chief would find it unacceptable for one of his officers to call members of the media, community members and defence lawyers ‘butt-holes’ and it will be interesting to see his response.”

On Friday the chief released a statement saying...

I wanted to take a moment to clarify a communication I recently sent out to CPS members about damaging leaks of information to the media.

As I hope you know, I have huge amount of respect for the media and the key role you play in helping us keep Calgary safe. The relationship we have with you is envied by many agencies across the Country and I cannot emphasize enough how much I value and respect the way we work together.

There were a number of incidents over an extended period of time that prompted me to write the memo to our members.

The primary focus of those incidents included leaked operational plans that could have put our members in jeopardy, information about investigations that included hold back details, specific details about undercover operations and the identity of suspects we were tracking – all done so while the matters were still being actively investigated . As you know, information is sometimes withheld from the public as it is critical to the investigation. When it is leaked to anyone, it can have a significant impact on ongoing investigations.

I also want to make it clear that the memo was directed to members of CPS. We are not asking the media to do anything differently and we have not asked members to stop talking with the media.

We train our officers to have an open and honest relationship with media. Our policy and practices encourage members of the Service to talk with you and provide as much detail as we can without breeching FOIP, negatively impacting an investigation or prejudicing a trial.

As part of our commitment to being open and transparent with you and the public, most media outlets have our radios. This is something other agencies do not permit. We have a unit dedicated to helping media with requests. Each week we receive approximately 100 calls from journalists asking for assistance and we always do our very best to accommodate these.

We know our relationship is a two-way street. We often need your help and we are hugely appreciative when you assist us in covering stories where we need public assistance to help solve a crime to keep our communities safe.

However, we have a duty of care for the information that is intrusted to us. We have legislation and due process we have to follow as an organization, and I cannot risk that being breeched by individual members who bypass the appropriate procedures to release information.

I hope this provides some clarification about our practices.

To read the article in 10-4 Magazine, click HERE or scroll the document below.