If only Circe* were around to set things aright...

In July of last year, after the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry presentations had been concluded and before Oppal's final report was released, I wrote a DJ! post about the controversy surrounding Coquitlam RCMP officer Cpl. Jim Brown.

In light of ongoing criticism of the RCMP, of charges of sexual harassment against female officers and of reported incidents of systemic and individual violence against indigenous women, I wondered what had happened to him. 

Brown's right to privacy, an entitlement to satisfy his transgressive sexual appetites and the privilege to separate personal pursuits from his professional duties were nimbly defended by a faux-menist blogger who declared private acts didn't "necessarily" impinge upon the public world, as though the dedicated practice of hard-core activities that featured the brutal degradation and humilation of women by a cop enmeshed in Pickton's network, belonged to a completely separate reality. 

By implying that an accountant's or a plumber's BDSM diversions wouldn't affect their work, ethical issues and red flags about the officer's conduct were smoothly dismissed by this blogger.  Interestingly enough, his response to a female cop's abusive deportment was not equally indulgent. 

A quick search reveals this, from last October.  Public reaction to Cpl Brown's activities triggered an organized campaign of damage containment by the RCMP.

In an affidavit filed in court describing himself as “not a mere informant” but “an agent” directed by the force, Grant Wakefield says he provided the RCMP with that material and accused Cpl. Brown of engaging in sex while on duty and being involved in bondage- and domination-themed websites.

The RCMP found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, but concluded “allegations of professional misconduct appear to be supported.”

The RCMP said Cpl. Brown has been suspended since July.

On Aug. 18, the Mounties raided Wakefield’s home and seized his computers.

Along with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and media outlets, the New Westminster man is asking the court to unseal the information police used to obtain the controversial warrant to invade his apartment.

One wonders what might connect the RCMP's innumerable undisclosed "failures" during the Task Force investigation into missing DTES sex trade workers, Cpl Brown's proclivities and Commissioner Bob Paulson's fast and furious response to the Human Rights Watch report last week.

Also, it appears Cpl. Jim Brown is suing Wakefield and lawyer Cameron Ward, who acted as counsel to several of the families of missing and murdered women during the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry for damages.  His claim is the very demonstration of tactics an accused bully will use to shift focus away from the harm he may have perpetrated, to his own alleged suffering as a victim.

The claim accuses Wakefield, along with Jane and John Doe, of improperly obtaining photos of Brown in bondage, domination and sado-masochistic scenes from a fetishist website, and sharing the images with the police and media.

It further states the three were behind a "false and defamatory" online campaign that was "deliberately calculated by the defendants to expose (Brown) to contempt, ridicule and hatred, and to cause other persons to shun or avoid (Brown), and to lower (Brown's) reputation in the eyes of right-thinking members of the community, all of which has in fact occurred."

The court document states the officer, who remains suspended from his job, has suffered "substantial and persisting" injury to his personal and professional reputation as a result of Wakefield's alleged actions. His pride and self-confidence have also been damaged, the claim states. Ward, meanwhile, is accused of writing and publishing defamatory blog posts that questioned Brown's role in the investigation of serial killer Robert William Pickton.

According to the claim, Brown played a minor role in the Coquitlam RCMP investigation that later led to Pickton's arrest and conviction on six counts of murder.

The claim states Ward's conduct "is sufficiently egregious to warrant an award of punitive damages."

Oddly, he's not included the RCMP in his suit though it seems his colleagues instigated the events that led to the revelation of his off-duty amusements.

Meanwhile, Marnie Frey's family's request to secure her remains for burial - she was one of the DTES women killed during the Pickton farm carnage - was handled in a desultory and improper manner.

*The title is inspired by Circe's mythical sorcery which transformed men into swine.

On the *healthy* priapism of privileged androcentrism

Erotizing and fetishizing the dehumanization of women is a necessary instrument required by any form of social conditioning that reinforces a man's *right* to an erection - and his *right* to breed.

Mark Steyn proclaimed here that gendered sexual terrorism was the exclusive domain of one belief system; Robin Morgan proposed in "The Demon Lover" that all three Abrahamic religious traditions are responsible for promoting such ideals.

There is this, my emphasis.

During a brief telephone call Wednesday at the detachment, Brown declined to comment about the pictures and the "Kilted Knight" persona featured in them.

He acknowledged being aware of the material.

"I am familiar with an internal investigation that was conducted," Brown said tersely. "It concluded in March or April and it was decided it was a non-issue - There was no victim."

Lawyer Jason Gratl was astounded by the images and said Brown's even peripheral involvement in the missing women investigation was troubling.

Gratl, who represented Down-town Eastside community groups at the public inquiry into the Pickton police investigation, wondered why Commissioner Wally Oppal wasn't informed when he was conducting hearings at the very moment the RCMP learned of the material.

"This pictorial enactment of a kidnapping and torture by an RCMP investigator crystallizes the ethical nexus between the detachment and the farm," Gratl said.

Victim: A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.

Then there's the "innocent" victim, a distinction which implies a person had no control, influence or role with regard to the event that caused them harm or injury.

I loathe how the use of the term victim has been co-opted by the aggressors, the predators and the bullies.

BlobBloggingWingnut recently wrote a more bizarre than usual post that was consistent with HER religious zealot approach to blaming and shaming victims. SHE declared "You had it coming!" is an appropriate response to any circumstance where the victim might have somehow contributed to the negative outcome.

"They had it coming!" is the implicit subtext to the expensive theatrical production recently staged by the BC government - The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry - which was directed by its lead performer Wally Oppal.

There was little, if any evidence allowed to counter the dominant view that the women who were savagely murdered by Willy Pickton, and by other alleged participants involved with the activities at the pig farm, "had it coming".

Requests to secure all relevant information were stonewalled, again and again.

A. Cameron Ward, the lawyer who valiantly tried to advocate for the Missing Women's families, blogged here about his ongoing efforts to monitor the proceedings, and to intervene effectively.

As I stated in the comment thread after this post, it seems to me much of the bloviating about Cpl Brown's gawd-given right to damn well get an erection in whatever way he wants, circumvents questions relevant to his professional deportment.

Nobody has said Brown would actually mutilate and murder a woman in the name of his liberté d'érection, but that possibility evidently stimulates his libido. As it would for many men who avidly devour p0rn0graphy that features the continued debasement of women and the depiction of violence exerted against their humanity, in every conceivable way.

It's an insult to pigs to call cops by their name.

News that Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jim Brown (aka the “Kilted Knight”) posted graphic photos of himself holding a knife to a woman’s throat on a website devoted to sadomachism has prompted significant public concern. Although this appears to be just another black eye for the nation’s police force, there is potentially a much bigger issue here.

Cpl. Jim Brown isn’t just a police officer who is a sexual deviant on his own time and who likes to connect with other like-minded individuals to share their twisted experiences. He is the RCMP member who produced informant Ross Caldwell in mid-July, 1999, almost three years before the RCMP accidentally discovered evidence that Robert Willy Pickton had been disposing of women’s bodies on the Port Coquitlam property he shared with his brother David. Caldwell was an acquaintance of the Picktons who reported that Willy Pickton had been seen skinning a woman in the barn, that he kept handcuffs under his bed and that he owned night-vision equipment, a semi-automatic rifle and wigs that he wore when he went trolling downtown.

From here.

Xtra and Dan Savage have weighed in on Twitter, claiming that CBC news coverage about RCMP Cpl. Brown is an invasion of his privacy and that his personal sexual preferences should not be a public concern.

Given his close connection to the Pickton investigation - and that someone in the fairly tightly-knit and protective BDSM community found his photo re-enactment of actual crime scenes where women were tortured, murdered, dismembered and fed to pigs, disturbing - Brown's professional deportment should be scrutinized.

During the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, a number of police officers who worked on the investigation that eventually led to the trial of Willy Pickton were exempted from examination.

Willy Pickton didn’t kill up to 49 women by himself, not according to the jury who convicted him of six counts of second degree murder. The women whose remains were found at the pig farm were likely the victims of a group of sexual sadists and torturers, who likely included convicted murderer Willy Pickton himself.

How did Cpl. Jim Brown meet informant Ross Caldwell? Was Cpl. Jim Brown one of the sexual sadists frequenting Piggy’s Palace? Why didn’t the RCMP act on the important information he brought forward? Were the RCMP monitoring the gang activities, including the Angels’ visits to Piggy’s Palace? Why did the RCMP seemingly ignore a ten year string of serial murders? Did they have bigger fish to fry? How many murderers remain at large?

All of these questions should have been answered by the just-concluded Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. We tried our best to pry the lid off and get the evidence out, but our attempts to have Cpl. Brown, Ross Caldwell, Bev Hyacinthe and David Pickton testify (among others) were rejected, as were our attempts to get access to the records of the Organized Crime Agency of BC that would reveal the nature and extent of police surveillance and gang infiltration activities involving Piggy’s Palace.

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is patently incomplete. Now it has been revealed that the Coquitlam RCMP had a sexual sadist in their ranks who was sufficiently connected to the Picktons to produce a key informant, someone who tipped the police what Willy Pickton was up to three years before he was arrested. The Commission hearings must be re-opened. If it does not re-open the hearings, it will be perpetuating a police cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Canada’s worst serial killing case.

Instead, the Commission targeted a number of minor players, including this police clerk. It was a travesty of justice miscarried in order to protect Pickton's buddies-in-crime.

The RCMP has become emblematic of the worst examples of male sexual entitlement and privilege.

Added: Rabble has a long screed regarding Brown: "Private fantasy, Public Reality". It's not that great. The author is clearly not familiar with the premise of 'safe, sane and consensual' activities that informs ethical practitioners of BDSM. As well, she misrepresents Terri-Jean Bedford who is a professional dominatrix - not someone who currently experiences abuse, exception made for the violence of a "justice" system that criminalizes sex trade workers to "protect" them.

Competent research, precise knowledge of legal questions, including the criticism directed at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry and a better understanding of boundary issues would have been highly helpful to Meghan Murphy and it would have made her rant referral-worthy.