Article 65966 A journalist broke a story about vandalism. Now police claim he did it

A journalist broke a story about vandalism. Now police claim he did it

by
Alex Boyd - Staff Reporter
from on (#65966)
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CALGARY-The news landed on the internet within hours.

Photos showing the vandalized bust of a Ukrainian nationalist with ties to wartime Germany - the base of the statue scrawled with the words ACTUAL NAZI" - and a nearby monument in Edmonton were sent to an online news outlet called the Progress Report, it said.

Those pictures allowed the outlet, which describes itself as a proudly left wing media project," to report the story first on Aug. 10, 2021 - to break" it, as journalists say - though other outlets would follow.

At a time when criticism of statues of historical figures from John A. Macdonald to Winston Churchill had forced a conversation about who we immortalize in stone and why, the story laid out the divisive history of the monument and the push to have it taken down.

But according to the story by Duncan Kinney, it wasn't clear when two statues had been defaced, or who was behind it.

More than a year later, Edmonton police say they have the answer. They allege that it was Kinney himself.

I just thought it was bizarre," says Steve Lillebuen, an assistant professor of journalism at Edmonton's MacEwan University who has studied ethics in crime reporting.

To have someone accused of reporting on a crime they're accused of committing? I mean, that just beggars belief, right? Like, would somebody actually do that?"

It's not clear yet what evidence the police has to support its allegations against Kinney. But it's a case that will pit police against one of their most vocal critics.

Kinney, 39, is a political gadfly and outspoken head of a non-profit called Progress Alberta, whose take-no-prisoners approach to politics has earned him fans and foes in the Prairie province. (Kinney did not respond to the Star's requests for comment. He and the Toronto Star are both defendants in a libel suit brought by former UCP candidate Caylan Ford.)

A big chunk of his job is the Progress Report, which produces a newsletter and podcast and, according to its website, focuses on marginal communities and injustice, and rejects the idea that journalists must be apolitical or neutral. While his work has unabashedly championed progressive issues, it has also drawn criticism for sometimes veering outside the lane of what is considered the role of a reporter.

A vocal critic of former premier Jason Kenney, Kinney once ran a satirical campaign for a Senate seat - an attempt to thwart Kenney's push for elections for the upper house; sought, and won, an injunction in order to be able to attend prebudget briefings for journalists and even scored a (second-hand) sighting of Kenney at a time he was under fire for ducking the public, after his brother apparently spotted the former premier at a shawarma joint.

This new incident has sent waves through Alberta's media community.

According to a police spokesperson, Kinney was charged earlier this month with mischief under $5,000 in connect with an incident of vandalism to a statue on Aug. 10, 2021. He will appear in court on Nov. 10.

It was not the first time the statue had been vandalized, or that Kinney had written about it.

In late 2019, the statue was tagged with the words NAZI SCUM. Seven months later, in July 2020, Kinney wrote an article about the incident and cited other community organizations who said it was being investigated by the hate-crimes unit.

(Edmonton police told the Star that while the unit is often initially involved in cases that involve identifiable communities," no suspects were found and no charges were laid in this case.)

After the second act of vandalism, the Progress Report Twitter account posted a thread about how the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex, where the statue is located, had received a $35,000 federal grant as part of a program to reduce hate-motivated crime and increase safety.

In this case, the money had been spent on upgrades, including security cameras, the thread points out, again mentioning the recent vandalism of the statue.

But the case has raised eyebrows for another reason. Kinney as long been one of the Edmonton Police Service's most public combatants, and he has publicly sparred with senior officials over everything from police budgets to armoured vehicles to their removal of homeless camps.

It was work that police seemed to think crossed the line into advocacy. Last summer, Kinney wrote on the Progress Report website that he'd been told by a police spokesperson that the media relations team - the staff tasked with answering questions from journalists - would no longer be responding to him as he was no longer considered a media partner.

(In an email, a media relations staffer told the Star that they were not in a position to speak about Mr. Kinney and his situation specifically.")

They added that while accredited media could send questions to the media relations team and attend in-person press conferences, other people could still watch conferences online and ask questions through the freedom-of-information unit, which is normally a slower process.)

Then this spring came a sign that police scrutiny of Kinney may have become more serious.

According to a report in the Edmonton Journal, a member of the police commission named Ashvin Singh sent a letter to the mayor in June, asking him to investigate an alleged ethical issue" involving another city councillor who also happened to sit on the commission.

The supposed ethical breach? Singh claimed Coun. Anne Stevenson had attempted to actively influence" a police investigation - an investigation involving Duncan Kinney. At the time, the letter prompted more questions than answers, as it was unclear what Kinney was being investigated for, or what his relationship to Stevenson was.

But now that Kinney's charges have been made public, the police commission executive director told the Journal in a follow-up story that the claims of interference were still being probed. Meanwhile, Stevenson, the councillor allegedly involved, declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Lillebuen, the journalism professor, argues that the fact it became public in that way that Kinney was apparently the subject of a police investigation is itself an ethical breach that should be investigated. People come into contact with police for a wide range of reasons," he says. But for a commissioner to know that and to share that publicly is very, very rare."

There is also at least one infamous prior case where Edmonton police drew fire for their undue focus on a member of the media.

Almost 20 years ago, officers illegally used police computers to find the car of then-columnist Kerry Diotte, and then staked out a bar in the hopes of finding him drunk. Diotte, who has since done stints as a politician, was not suspected of a crime, but had been a vocal opponent of the force's use of photo radar.

Lillebuen stresses that Kinney is innocent until proven guilty, and the bar is set low for the police to lay a charge in Canada. They could have binders full of evidence, they could have virtually nothing," he says.

We'll just have to wait and see what comes out in court. But I'm keen to see what links if any, there would be between his police criticism and the fact that he became the subject of a police investigation."

Meanwhile, those concerned about the statue itself worry about it being lost in the commotion.

The charges have revived debate about the solemn-faced statue, which depicts a man named Roman Shukhevych, who died 70 years ago - reportedly in a firefight with Soviet forces - but who remains a prominent, albeit controversial, hero of the fight for Ukrainian independence.

Several Ukrainian cultural groups maintain that criticism of the man and his statue fans the flames of Russian propaganda while a war rages. But groups that combat antisemitism have long argued that Shukhevych's ties to the Nazi regime and participation in massacres outweigh his fight for a fledgling Ukraine.

News of the charges was applauded by some Ukrainian-Canadian groups, including the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.One of the people who featured prominently in Kinney's story was Abe Silverman, manager of public affairs for the Alberta chapter of B'nai Brith, an international organization that combats antisemitism.

In Canada, we still have a presumption of innocence until proven guilty," he says, speaking to the Star following the charges.

Still worries that this will overshadow concerns about the statue, which he continues to argue should not be on public display. The documentation is pretty clear. And a statue in his honour very offensive."

Alex Boyd is a Calgary-based reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @alex_n_boyd

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