Gareth Jones has probably directly investigated more police pursuits that involved a death or a serious injury than anyone else in the world. As a member of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of Ontario, Canada, which is one of the very few civilian oversight agencies in the world that conducts criminal investigations into police conduct, he investigated or reviewed approximately 175 incidents where a vehicle driven by a police officer was involved in a death or serious injury. Most involved pursuits. In a significant number of the cases, he was the lead investigator.
He has been retained as an expert / consultant in police pursuits in Canada, the United States – including cases in New York State, Minnesota, Georgia, Oregon, Montana and Alabama – as well the Cayman Islands.
Gareth can assist counsel with:
- duty and standard of care
- the adequacy of pursuit policies and procedures
- whether a pursuit met standards that were, or should have been, in place
- if a pursuit should have been initiated, continued or terminated
Gareth has helped counsel:
- prepare questions for examinations for discovery / depositions.
- dissect what happened during a pursuit, second by second.
- provide context as to the role training and supervision played in any pursuit.
- assess the quality of any investigation conducted into the pursuit
Experience
Gareth is a former police sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, London, UK. He was involved in numerous police pursuits, as a driver, passenger and supervisor. At SIU, his work involved:
- interviewing police officers, police supervisors, dispatchers, drivers and passengers in pursued vehicles and independent witnesses;
- reviewing policies and procedures;
- ensuring that all physical evidence at the scene was identified, secured and properly processed;
- working with collision reconstructionists;
- identifying, securing and reviewing physical, digitally-stored and documentary evidence related to the incident, including police communications tapes, officers’ training histories and vehicle records;
- attending the autopsies of deceased parties; and
- working closely with forensic scientists to ensure that all appropriate testing was completed as thoroughly as possible.
He has a comprehensive knowledge of pursuit policies and procedures from across North America and the UK. He is the co-author of How to Investigate: The Fundamentals of Effective Fact Finding ( Thomson Reuters 2021), and the author of Conducting Administrative, Oversight and Ombudsman Investigations (Canada Law Book 2009). He contributed a chapter entitled The Top Ten Things Not To Do When Setting Up A Police Oversight Agency, which will be included in a book entitled Deaths In Custody: Problems and Issues, (2012). He is the co-author of Death or Injury Cases Involving Law Enforcement Officers, published in 2002 in The Champion. The Champion is the journal of the United States National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL).
In 2017, Gareth was retained as an expert in the investigation of deaths involving police officers by the Commission of Inquiry into the Death of Donald Dunphy in Newfoundland, Canada and was qualified as an expert in the investigation of serious incidents involving police.
He has provided training for police oversight agencies on how to investigate incidents involving police, including the Independent Police Review Authority of the City of Chicago (including students from the Chicago Police Internal Affairs Division), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Complaints Commission and the Complaints Commissioner of the Cayman Islands. He has presented at annual conferences of the United States National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) and the Canadian Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. He is a member of the Association of Law Enforcement Response Trainers (ALERT International).
Contact Gareth at 647 531 3517 or by email garethjones@policepursuitexpert.com