The chief of police in Canada's capital city offered to resign his post after a series of allegations about officer conduct inside its cellblocks.
Ottawa police Chief Vern White has been dealing with the fallout of several reported incidents involving his officers, which have sparked public outrage and put his force in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
The recent trial of a young woman accused of assault and public intoxication led to the release of video showing Ottawa officers cutting off her clothes and strip-searching her in front of male officers. A judge threw out charges against Stacy Bonds and called the September 2008 incident an "indignity to a human being."
Another video showed one of these same officers kicking a homeless man inside a jail cell in a separate incident 10 months later.
Since then, the OPP have been called in to investigate two other allegations of the abuse of prisoners by Ottawa police officers and Acting Chief Gilles Larochelle has said the force seems to have a systemic problem with the actions of officers in cellblocks.
Larochelle is currently filling in for White, who is in Finland where he is getting married.
The Ottawa Citizen newspaper reports White has signalled he can step down "at any time" if the police board wants him to do so.
Eli El-Chantiry, a city councillor and the chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board, told the newspaper that White has the support of board members.
Fellow city councillor Bob Monette, who also sits on the police services board, told local radio station CFRA Thursday that White is the "best police chief in Ottawa's history" and one of the best in Canada.
He also said White has the support of the board.
Meanwhile, White is also fielding criticism from the head of the Ottawa Police Association for failing to deal with these same problems.
In an email to his association membership, Steve Boucher alleged that the chief knew about these problems for more than a year, but failed to offer more training to officers.
"In fact, as far back as a year ago, a letter was presented to the chief concerning these very issues and recommending that cellblock personnel be provided additional training specific to their duties," Boucher wrote in an email that was sent out Wednesday.
"This reasonable request has gone unanswered. It is extremely regrettable that it took a public relations crisis for our leadership to act."
Boucher says the situation has cause the reputations of officers to be unjustly attacked before they get the chance to explain themselves.
