A McLennan RCMP officer is again being investigated for impaired driving. Police say they were called to a convenience store in High Prairie on June 1st after a witness reported seeing someone they believed to be impaired drive into the parking lot.
They reportedly tried to convince her to hand over her keys but were unsuccessful. Officers arrived a short time later and say they recognized the suspected impaired driver as Corporal Anita Doktor. The mountie has since been charged with impaired driving and has been suspended from her job with pay.
“Maintaining the public trust is one of the key components of policing”, says Chief Superintendent Rhonda Blackmore, District Commander for the RCMP’s Western Alberta District. “Any conduct that could harm the public’s trust and confidence in their police is taken very seriously.”
Court documents show just a few days earlier, Doktor had been found not guilty of impaired operation of a vehicle from a separate incident.
In December 2015, Doktor was working out of the High Prairie detachment and was off-duty when she was called in to work as a breath technician as part of a suspected impaired driver investigation. When she showed up, her coworkers believed she herself was impaired.
“The Court accepts that the accused attended at the detachment after she had consumed alcohol,” Justice J. K. Sihra wrote in her decision. “However, the evidence on the whole is insufficient to convince the Court beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused’s ability to operate a motor vehicle was impaired by alcohol.”
The trial was held in February 2018, with the decision issued May 27th.