‘You saved your life’: RCMP investigator told police officer in fatal shooting

Feb 7, 2017 | 5:00 AM

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — The day after Const. Joe Smyth of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary fatally shot Don Dunphy, an RCMP investigator reassured him during questioning that he’d acted in self defence.

“You saved your life,” RCMP Cpl. Monty Henstridge told Smyth after confirming for him that a .22-calibre rifle found at Dunphy’s feet was loaded.  

Henstridge makes the comment on a video of the police interview played Tuesday at a public inquiry into Dunphy’s death.

It came at the end of a day of questions about the objectivity and thoroughness of the probe, which was led by the Mounties because Dunphy was killed in RCMP jurisdiction.

Smyth had gone alone and unannounced to Dunphy’s home in Mitchell’s Brook after staff in then-premier Paul Davis’s office flagged a social media post by Dunphy. He is the only witness to the deadly encounter.

Cpl. Steve Burke, the lead RCMP investigator, had earlier told the inquiry he briefly worked with Smyth but didn’t consider it a conflict or give him special treatment.

Burke confirmed, however, that Smyth should have been photographed the day of the shooting in Mitchell’s Brook, N.L., on Easter Sunday 2015 but was not. Nor was his unmarked police vehicle searched.

Smyth was given a private room at the local RCMP detachment to meet with RNC officers immediately after the shooting. But he did not give a statement, as per the advice of his fellow RNC officers, until a full day later so he could regroup. The RCMP did not seize his work cell phone for 19 days.

This, as the RCMP was supposed to be investigating whether there was any criminal element to the homicide.

Commission co-counsel Kate O’Brien asked Burke if he agreed with the saying: “The best evidence is the freshest evidence.”

“It all depends on the circumstances,” Burke responded.

Burke was the primary investigator for the RCMP probe after Smyth said he shot Dunphy, 59, in self-defence when he aimed a rifle at him.

Burke said he had met Smyth a few times in the years leading up to the shooting.

He had also consulted him on a previous case about a person of interest and they had crossed paths doing protective work for VIPs.

But Burke says he didn’t have a personal relationship with Smyth, and said he responded “No” when a supervisor asked if there might be a conflict.

O’Brien asked Burke about a home visit Smyth has said he made with Burke on that previous case.

“I don’t remember,” Burke said, but added that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It was one of several instances where Burke, sometimes curtly, could not recall details or offered slightly different answers from when he was questioned by commission lawyers in December.

Burke’s report concluded “there is no evidence to support criminal charges” against Smyth.

Dunphy’s only child, 29-year-old daughter Meghan Dunphy, has long raised concerns about the fairness and quality of the RCMP investigation.

She had asked that an outside police force take over but the request was denied.

The province has no independent civilian-led team to investigate major police incidents. A review of the RCMP’s probe by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team found “minor shortcomings” such as lax note-taking but said they didn’t undermine the RCMP’s findings.

The team’s review also found dealings with Smyth were “very informal” — a criticism Burke said was valid but repeatedly denied it tainted the overall process. Smyth, for example, was not cautioned before he gave his statement to the RCMP that it could be used in any criminal proceeding.

Burke said that was because investigators didn’t want to influence his ability to give a “pure version” of what happened.

“Looking back at it maybe I would get the caution,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t see it as being a mistake that we made.

“I see it as a judgment call that we made at the time.”

The inquiry is hearing from more than 50 witnesses into March. Commissioner Leo Barry will not make findings of criminal or civil responsibility but any new evidence could be investigated by police.

His report is due by July 1.

Smyth has testified that although Dunphy was not considered a threat, the disgruntled injured worker had posted “disconcerting” tweets over his frustration with workers’ compensation and political inaction.

Smyth testified last month he fired four times at Dunphy — killing him with one shot to the left chest and two in the head — as he fled the living room when Dunphy suddenly aimed a .22-calibre rifle at him from the right side of his chair.

Friends of Don Dunphy and his daughter have testified he was never a violent man and wasn’t known to ever use the rifle that belonged to his late father. They’ve said he always kept a metre-long wooden stick to the right of his chair for protection in case of a break-in.

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Sue Bailey, The Canadian Press