Ottawa police sergeant demoted for making racist remarks online
Posted Dec 7, 2016 09:11:43 AM.
Last Updated Dec 7, 2016 06:45:43 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – A punishment was delivered to an Ottawa Police sergeant who pleaded guilty to making racist remarks online about the death of Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook.
Sgt. Chris Hrnchiar has been demoted to constable for three months and will undergo sensitivity training.
Hrnchiar, a 30-year veteran who was working as a forensic investigator at the time of the remarks, pleaded guilty in early November to two counts of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act.
Pootoogook’s body was found in the Rideau River September 19th. Police did not consider her death suspicious at first, although they were calling for assistance in retracing her steps in her final days.
A few days later, comments from a Facebook account under Hrnchiar’s name on an Ottawa Citizen article stated Pootoogook’s death was not connected to missing and murdered Indigenous women, and ‘much of the aboriginal population in Canada is just satisfied being alcohol or drug abusers.’
