Police board members say doctor's charge not withheld on purpose

Sault Police would not have deliberately withheld a local doctor’s impaired charge from the public last year, say two members of the police services board.

Matthew Shoemaker, who sits on the board as a city councillor and is currently running for mayor, said he understands it was an unfortunate error or oversight that police didn’t alert news organisations when officers laid charges against a local general practitioner following an August, 2021 collision near Bruce and Algoma.

“I have faith that the person who does communications at the police service is on top of his job. There’s no record of trying not to disclose any of this information or hide any of this stuff — I don’t think that was the case here,” said Shoemaker.

Three criminal charges laid in August 2021 against Dr. Mark Jenkins, who practises at the Group Health Centre, were never made public by the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and Jenkins eventually pleaded guilty to a non-criminal charge of careless driving.

When details of the case finally made the news last week, some residents expressed concern that Jenkins may have received special treatment by the police because he is a prominent member of the community.

Lisa Vezeau-Allen, who serves as the board’s chair, told SooToday the service’s media policy is an operational issue within the department and not within the scope of the board, but she said she doesn’t believe police acted improperly.

”I do not agree with the comments of a two-tier system — the chief and deputy run a very transparent operation and I have complete faith that proper protocols were followed,” said Vezeau-Allen.

A search of SooToday’s email inbox showed that no emails were received from Sault Ste. Marie Police Service between July 30 and Aug. 9, 2021. The incident involving Jenkins occurred Aug. 2, 2021.

Although the department does not send emails to media every single day, it is unusual for multiple days to go by without a police brief being sent. The department's computer systems were hit by a ransomware attack last year causing months of issues and lost data, but police have said they became aware of the attack on Aug. 26, more than three weeks after Jenkins' arrest.

SooToday reached out to the police department on Thursday and again on Friday, asking for additional details on the circumstances that led to Jenkins' name and charges not being included in a press release. The police did not respond.

The police service’s spokesperson, Lincoln Louttit, has said earlier that if information about the arrest was not disclosed publicly, it was an "oversight and an error,” but has not elaborated.

SooToday requested a copy of the current disclosure policy from Louttit on Thursday. He directed the request to the department’s freedom of information officer.

Shoemaker described the policy as "permissive," and while he doesn’t think that played a role here, he suggested the policy be changed.

"It is optional whether (the police service) discloses the information or not and I think to ensure consistency the policy should be the police service will disclose all of these things, in all circumstances when any person is charged with any number of listed offences that are in that policy, and I know driving impaired is one of those,” said Shoemaker.

“Absolutely, it requires a policy change,” added Shoemaker. “I don’t think the policy change would have changed the circumstances here because it looks like it was just a human error that led to the issue not being disclosed.”