Accessing Police Records System ‘Routine,’ Retired Officer Says at Hearing for Detective Who Looked Into COVID Vaccine, Child Deaths

An Ottawa Police Service building in Stittsville, Ont., on Jan. 9, 2024. (Matthew Horwood/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—A retired Ottawa police sergeant testified at the trial of Detective Helen Grus that it was “normal” for police officers to make records management system (RMS) queries for cases they were not the lead investigators of, seeming to contradict prosecutors’ claim that Ms. Grus “self-initiated an unauthorized project” when investigating the COVID-19 vaccination status of the mothers of deceased infants.

“That’s normal, daily activity at the Ottawa Police Service [OPS] and I assume any police service across the Western world,” testified retired OPS Staff Sergeant Peter Danyluk on Jan. 9 at the trial in Ottawa.

“The last two years, I got a call from an [Ontario Provincial Police] officer that had consulted one of my information reports I submitted when being off-duty in Renfrew coming back from one of my homes. And the officer said, ‘Hey, can we use your information report in the case against this individual?’ I wouldn’t bat an eye at that.”

Ms. Grus, a detective with the OPS sexual assault and child abuse unit investigating child abuse and neglect, is accused of discreditable conduct for conducting an “unauthorized project” between June 2020 and January 2022 by probing into the sudden deaths of nine infants. Ms. Grus is alleged to have accessed Ottawa police files and then contacted the coroner’s office to learn the COVID-19 vaccination status of the parents, as she believed there could be an association between the two.

On Jan. 30, 2022, Ms. Grus also allegedly contacted the father of a deceased infant to inquire into the COVID-19 vaccination status of his wife, without the knowledge of the lead detective.

Mr. Danyluk’s claim about accessing RMS inquiries was echoed by defence lawyers for Ms. Grus, who claimed on Jan. 8 that searching through the system did not constitute an “unauthorized project” because Ms. Grus had done so throughout her career at OPS.

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The full accusation sheet for Ms. Grus also claims that she failed to record her involvement or findings throughout the RMS inquiries in a file, and that she interfered in another ongoing investigation, two aspects that the defense also argued the prosecution failed to prove throughout the months-long trial.

Mr. Danyluk, who joined the OPS in 1999 and retired in January 2022, said that Ms. Grus was skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines but was “very reasonable” in her conversations with him about the issue. He also said she mentioned finding an “anomaly” in the number of infant deaths in 2021 compared to the previous year, and that she was going to conduct a “fact-finding exercise.”

While Ms. Grus was suspended without pay from the OPS back in February 2022, she was ordered to return to work with restrictions during an Oct. 11, 2022, OPS internal hearing.