VANCOUVER -- B.C.’s director of police services says she’s leaving the organization to spend more time with her family, after only two years on the job and in the middle of a complex transition to the Surrey Police Department, according to a memo obtained by CTV News.
Brenda Butterworth-Carr, who also commanded the RCMP’s E Division in B.C., says she’s leaving the job, which oversees policy and much of policing in the province, early in the new year.
“I am writing to advise you that after thoughtful consideration, I have made the difficult but necessary decision to leave the provincial government, and my role as assistant deputy minister and director of police services, early in the new year to focus on personal matters and spend more time with my family,” she said.
There is no successor planned at this point, Butterworth-Carr says in her letter. In a news conference, B.C. Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth said he had no comment.
“Even in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, I know this work will continue to advise and great progress will be made to modernize policing and public safety,” Butterworth-Carr writes.
Her office is responsible for several facets of policing, including vetting candidates for police boards, which provide civilian oversight over municipal forces.
The Vancouver Sun reported last week that one person picked for the police board in Surrey, Harvey Chappell, posed with members of the White Rock Hells Angels in photos from 2018.
Butterworth-Carr is also one of three officers named in a complaint about how the force handled the aftermath of the tasering of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski in 2007. The others were Comm. Brenda Lucki and Insp. Kevin Cyr.
That complaint was referred to the Ontario Provincial Police, which is now doing an investigation.
