Chelsea Poorman’s father says Vancouver police lied, mishandled investigation into daughter’s disappearance

The daddy of Chelsea Poorman says police lied to him and mishandled his daughter’s case from the second she was reported lacking 20 months in the past up till they introduced her demise in late April and categorized it as not suspicious.

Mike Kiernan says he can not help however marvel if the Vancouver Police Division would have taken Chelsea’s disappearance extra severely, and acted extra rapidly, if she wasn’t Indigenous. 

“I consider they’ve a difficulty with Indigenous ladies, 100 per cent,” mentioned Kiernan, talking on the telephone from Saskatoon. “I consider as a result of she was Indigenous she did not get the right service that she deserved.”

Skeletal stays of the 24-year-old Cree lady had been discovered outdoors a vacant mansion in Vancouver’s rich Shaughnessy neighbourhood on April 22. Poorman was final seen Sept. 6, 2020 when she met her sister for dinner and drinks on Granville Avenue in downtown Vancouver. She was reported lacking two days later.

Kiernan instructed CBC he broke into the Shaughnessy house on Might 11 and 12, after police investigators had left, and was shocked to seek out plenty of Chelsea’s private gadgets nonetheless there, together with a part of her cellphone case, socks, a bus move, hair elastics and what he known as a “disgusting” variety of police gloves strewn about.

“There’s only a ton of things,” he mentioned. “A lot of figuring out issues that she had in her purse that ought to have been, for my part, on the very least been collected for the investigation. Nothing was collected.”

Police mentioned in an earlier press convention there was no proof Chelsea was ever inside the home. Police mentioned she possible died on the property on the evening she disappeared or shortly after. Sheila Poorman, Chelsea’s mom, mentioned her daughter was lacking a number of fingers and a part of her cranium, particulars that haven’t been launched by police. 

Sheila Poorman mentioned police instructed her the case was closed. An e mail from VPD to CBC Tuesday mentioned the other.

“The Vancouver Police Division’s investigation into Chelsea’s disappearance and demise stays open,” mentioned VPD spokesman Sgt. Steve Addison.

Addison reiterated that police have “inadequate proof to counsel her demise was the results of against the law.”

Kiernan moved to Vancouver and lived in his van for 17 months to seek for his daughter. He mentioned whereas she remained lacking he shunned criticizing Vancouver police publicly as a result of he did not need to “piss off” investigators working Chelsea’s case.

However, he says, there are nonetheless too many unanswered questions, beginning with how his bodily disabled daughter received from 1278 Granville Avenue, the place she was final seen, to the Shaughnessy home.

“It is 5.8 kilometres and she or he would have a tough time doing the 0.8 kilometres, not to mention getting there and getting over these large gates,” he mentioned. “It is mainly unimaginable for her to do this.”

Kiernan believes an absence of urgency by VPD meant beneficial info was misplaced. He mentioned not solely was there a 10-day delay in issuing a lacking individuals discover, he mentioned police had been untruthful about their efforts to gather video from the evening of her disappearance from shops alongside Granville Avenue.

“I talked to each enterprise proprietor … and so they had been by no means approached, they had been by no means requested,” he mentioned. “[Police] did not examine the cameras. They declare they did an in depth video search — nothing however lies. Nothing however lies and I can confirm that.” 

Making issues worse, mentioned Kiernan, was studying that police did not even have video from their very own surveillance digicam on the VPD Granville Neighborhood Policing Centre that factors on the constructing the place Chelsea was final seen alive. 

“That is the half that breaks my coronary heart … Once I requested them concerning the digicam that faces 1278 Granville Avenue they instructed me it isn’t working,” he mentioned. 

The damaged digicam is not his solely criticism of Granville Neighborhood Police Centre operations. Kiernan mentioned on a number of events he was dismayed to seek out Chelsea’s “lacking individual” poster taken down and changed with one promoting $20 VPD sun shades. A employee instructed him it was finished on the order of “greater ups.”

“I mentioned, ‘The place the hell is Chelsea’s poster?’ They mentioned, ‘Oh, I am so sorry Mike, we’ll get one again up there for you.”

Kiernan mentioned there was plenty of complicated communication from investigators after Chelsea’s stays had been discovered. He was first instructed by police she was found in a garbage pile. Then he was instructed she was discovered mendacity on a cushion with a blanket over her. He mentioned it was solely after talking straight with the contractor who found her physique that he realized neither was true, that she was discovered mendacity on the again patio of the home.

CBC requested the VPD to reply to Kiernan’s claims. In his e mail, Addison acknowledged the VPD carried out a “detailed and complicated” investigation into Chelsea’s disappearance that began the day she was reported lacking.

“Her disappearance was investigated by VPD’s Lacking Individuals Unit and our Main Crime Part, the place it was led by a staff of senior murder investigators,” mentioned Addison.

Provincial policing standards, beneath which the VPD operates, state that in relation to lacking individuals, “Aboriginal ladies and ladies are at an elevated danger of hurt” and “disproportionately represented amongst lacking and murdered ladies all through Canada.”

“This should be thought of when figuring out the suitable response and assets,” say the rules, which had been developed out of the Lacking Girls Fee of Inquiry that discovered “blatant failures” of police in investigating the serial homicide of ladies, a lot of them Indigenous, by Robert Pickton.

Former VPD Const. Dave Dickson, who was instrumental in connecting Pickton to the Vancouver ladies who went lacking within the Nineteen Nineties, believes there’s nonetheless police bias in relation to investigating lacking Indigenous ladies.

“I am sorry to say, right here we’re 20 years later or extra and nothing’s higher,” mentioned Dickson, who now works as an outreach employee for the Lookout Emergency Assist Society. “It is simply as unhealthy for the ladies because it was again then.” 

Kiernan mentioned his daughter was failed by the VPD.

“My message to police is do your job,” he mentioned.