Surrey RCMP is continuing its investigation into the whole sordid affair that has set off a firestorm in the community. “We will not be releasing details about the individuals involved or details of the allegations at this time,” said Cpl. Joanie Sidhu in an email to the Optimist on Monday morning. “We are committed to doing a thorough investigation and while we cannot predict an exact date for our investigative tasks to be complete, our officers will work diligently to complete their work in a timely manner.”

DELTA — They’re calling her “Karen” after the white-privilege packing middle class white women who are ignorantly being racist to minorities and unfortunately this label is being applied liberally to Delta Police Chief Neil Dubbord’s wife Lorraine after she sprayed an Indo-Canadian woman  with her hose near her Crescent beach home in Surrey.

While Dubbord made a statement in regards to the incident and the wife apologized through the media but a storm is brewing after the Delta police did a shoddy job of dismissing the incident and Indo-Canadian-South Asian community members are asking for a proper apology given the effects the incident has had on the community.

UVIC law student Naya Dhatt told News 1130 she’s sent a letter to Dubord asking for more of an apology for his wife Lorraine’s actions and insensitivity towards Kiran Sidhu, who was hosed down with water and called fat.

“I had so much hope for the Delta Police Department’s leadership. I was positive that someone like you, who had accomplished so much academically and seemed to have a modern outlook, would spark positive change in the community where I attended elementary and high school,” Dhatt writes.

“This is why I was so deeply hurt and shocked by your wife’s assault of Kiran Sidhu and your department’s handling of the assault.”

Dhatt writes, the toll on the assault for South Asian women like herself matters as members of the community “feel less safe and valued in Delta when the police do not take a racist assault seriously.”

“How can the South Asian community in Delta and other minority communities in Delta have faith in you to protect them when you cannot acknowledge the extent of the damage caused by your wife’s actions? How can we have faith in you when you cannot even acknowledge that your wife’s values impact your own values and in turn the department’s values? How can we have faith in you when your wife’s apology is so woefully inadequate? Consistent with recent events in Canada and in the US, this assault highlights the racism inherent in our police,” she adds in her letter.

Dhatt tells NEWS 1130 she is not satisfied with the chief’s response and she would like him to acknowledge the harm that happened to Sidhu particularly.

“The harm that his wife’s actions have caused to the South Asian community in Delta, as well as other racialized communities in Delta, who now may not feel confident that the police chief is going to take the steps to protect them,” she says.

Chief Dubord has said through a statement the matter at hand in no way reflects the values of the Delta Police Department. Lorraine has apologized but Sidhu told NEWS 1130 she’s hopeful for a more sincere apology.

In the meantime, Surrey RCMP is continuing its investigation into the whole sordid affair that has set off a firestorm in the community.

“We will not be releasing details about the individuals involved or details of the allegations at this time,” said Cpl. Joanie Sidhu in an email to the Optimist on Monday morning. “We are committed to doing a thorough investigation and while we cannot predict an exact date for our investigative tasks to be complete, our officers will work diligently to complete their work in a timely manner.”

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) announced on Tuesday afternoon that they have initiated an external investigation into allegations of misconduct related to the Delta Police Department’s handling of a case involving the wife of Chief Neil Dubord, reported Delta Optimist.

““The OPCC learned of the incident initially in media reports and requested additional information from the Delta Police Department,” said the OPCC in the release. “The office subsequently received a misconduct complaint from an affected person. After reviewing the complaint and responses provided by the Delta Police Department, the OPCC deemed the complaint admissible and assigned the Vancouver Police Department to carry out an external disciplinary conduct investigation into the matter.”

Victim Sidhu was at a socially-distanced picnic with friends at Centennial Beach on June 6. A Surrey resident and teacher in the Richmond School District, Sidhu left the gathering before the picnic was over.

Unfamiliar with the beach area, and with the tide coming in, Sidhu said she was forced to climb onto rocks, which according to the City of Delta are on public property, to get to where her car was parked.

As Sidhu walked across the rocks, she said Lorraine Dubord yelled at her over the fence from her back yard to get down, but with the tide coming in, Sidhu said she was unable to do so.

“There was no way to get through with the tide coming in,” she told the Optimist. “I started crawling, climbing the rocks and then this woman comes out from the home above me who I now know is Lorraine Dubord and she tells me to get down. I told her I was just trying to get back to my car and that there was no other way to get through.”

Sidhu said Dubord told her she should have been better prepared and ‘if I was as fat as you, I wouldn’t be at the beach.’

“I kept going, and I called her a ‘Karen’ and asked whether she was going to call the police. She started it and I’m not one to be a victim of abuse from anyone,” Sidhu said. “I almost slipped at one point, and she said it would be so funny if you fell. I swore at her again and she said she would spray me with her hose, which I told her would be assault because you would be making contact.”

Sidhu said Dubord then returned a minute or so later, allegedly spraying her with a garden hose.

“My face was wet, my hair was wet… it was so shocking,” she said. “I didn’t expect that to happen. She is an adult woman, I’m an adult woman. That kind of assault is not something you’d expect to happen at the beach by people who live in these big, fancy houses.

“At one point she also told me to go home, to go home and that I didn’t belong there. Potentially racist or whatever you might want to call it and made to feel unwelcome in these white spaces, that I’m super aware of already as being as racialized woman who spends a lot of time in these white spaces as a teacher, as an active member of my union, all very white spaces and I work on changing that.”

Sidhu said the next day she reported the incident to Delta police, adding she was not interviewed in person and was asked by the department to email her official statement.

She said she was contacted by phone by DPD on June 10 and told the investigation was closed.

“I felt like this happened very quickly… do all cases get solved this quickly?” she asked. “I really felt like something was missing. In that moment, I thought, wait, they didn’t even meet with me. That feels wrong.”

She said as she continued to think about the case, and share details with friends, she wondered what to do next.

“I didn’t specifically know the different avenues of justice I could pursue… no one knows that off the top of their head, so it took me a few days to share my story with people who might know – a cousin who is a lawyer – and then I realized there was a few things I could do, like filing a complaint with the Delta Police Department, who I wasn’t sure if that would be fruitful because I didn’t know who would be responding to that.”

She said she filed her complaint with DPD on June 15 and on June 16 received an email from DPD introducing her to an investigating officer from Surrey RCMP.

“It was a very pleasant email from Surrey RCMP and very transparent. The investigator said she had no knowledge of anyone involved in the case. I felt like that was a very good starting point,” said Sidhu, who met with RCMP investigators on Tuesday.

A day after the video surfaced, Lorraine Dubord issued a statement exclusively to the Optimist.

 “I would like to apologize to the individual involved in the way the situation was handled at Centennial Beach three weeks ago. Everyone should feel welcomed and supported in our community,” stated Dubord. “I trust that all the facts and the complete story surrounding this regrettable incident will be gathered in due course through the ongoing and independent RCMP investigation.

“I would like to reaffirm my ongoing commitment to promoting diversity and fighting racism and hate in our community. I will continue to listen and learn from the discourse occurring in our community on this matter.”

Sidhu said she was disappointed in the lack of empathy in Dubord’s statement.

“I feel like she didn’t take any responsibility. It was not a genuine apology at all. She could have mentioned my name… at that point she knew my name,” said Sidhu. “That just further dehumanized me. It was bad enough to go through being sprayed like that… like some animal and she can’t use my name. This is part of the problem. We have to name these things, name these incidents, name the people involved to make it an issue that people should care about as we should.

“I think it would be great if she would give a genuine, heartfelt apology publicly with the acknowledgement of what she did, that it was wrong and that she abused her position.”

With Files Courtesy Of The Delta Optimist Newspaper