Uncover - S11: "Carrie Low VS." E3: Believed

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

The original investigator assigned to Carrie's case reveals what he says happened behind the scenes. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/carrie-low-vs-transcripts-listen-1.6218432

Hey friends, I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud. I'm the host of Commotion. Look, every day you're going to hear about the biggest stories in the worlds of pop culture, art, and entertainment. And luckily, I'm not doing it alone, okay? I'll be joined by some really brilliant culture writers, people who follow this world really closely. We're going to have some hilarious hot takes, some vibrant, thoughtful debates. I think it's time. I think it's time for you to join the group, Ted. Get in here. It's commotion. Find us wherever you find your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

The story you're about to hear includes details of sexual violence. The content may be distressing for some listeners. Please take care. Carrie told me that when she first reached out to me, she was sharing her story as a last resort. She knew that by going public with allegations that police had mishandled her investigation, she may be recognized. The people would know what happened to her. But she never expected that being on the news would lead to one of the few people with inside knowledge of the

case to reach out. So it's almost like an out-of-body experience watching a movie happening before my eyes. Within 24 hours of her story airing on the news in September of 2019, RCMP Constable Jarell Smith, the original lead investigator on her case, asks to meet in person. I was shocked because he wasn't, you know, currently on my file anymore. And when we got the phone call that he wanted to talk, I was blown away. Smith isn't an on-duty officer anymore, and he's been on paid medical leave for a year. He says Carrie's case was his last. I remember panicking. I remember just pacing the floor in my kitchen.

What does he want to talk about? Carrie says he asks to meet. He wants to tell Carrie what was really happening during the investigation. I'm Maggie Rahr, and this is Carrie Lowe vs. Episode 3, Believed. You must have been floored to hear from him. I was. It was a rough day. Carrie and her lawyers arranged to meet with Constable Jarrell Smith.

On a late summer day, Carrie and the cop, once tasked with investigating her case, get together for the first time outside police offices at the local chapter of the Elizabeth Fry Society. They meet in a humbly furnished room. There's a computer and a desk and two couches and a low coffee table between them. A quote on the wall reads, And what did he tell you? So he told me that when he was given my file on the following Tuesday

from the weekend of my assault, that he was told from a supervisor that I was a liar and a drunk and what I'm saying isn't true, so just make her go away. Don't investigate. Emma Halpern of Elizabeth Fry was there for that meeting. If the allegations Jarrell Smith made against his superiors in the state unit were true, she saw problems. Well, it raised some very significant concerns. significant concerns. Concerns about some of the language that was used to describe Carrie, that she was painted as a liar. At one point it was called a drunk because there was some indication she'd been drinking, she had had alcohol, consumed alcohol. That these are pervasive myths about women. Pervasive myths about types of women who become victimized or who are somehow

themselves at fault for their victimization. I can't even explain it. I was blown away. Jarell Smith's accusations are explosive, and they cause Carrie to reconsider the entirety of how her case was handled. You know, so it puts some of the pieces together as to why, you know, things were dragging on, why I wasn't getting updates on my file. Police have not responded to my questions about Smith's version of events. not responded to my questions about Smith's version of events. But after sitting with Jarrell Smith and talking with him for hours, Carrie told me she believes him. She had no reason not to. There's officers in there telling other members, don't investigate. If you bring her file to me putting your hand up, I don't want to talk about her case.

Make her go away. Carrie says Smith told her he believed her the whole time. He wanted me to know what was happening. He was on leave of absence from work. He told me that my store was a straw that broke the camel's back for him. Before meeting, Carrie had held Constable Smith responsible for the perceived delays and failures in her case. In fact, he was one of the officers named in an official complaint she filed with the RCMP the same day she filed her original complaint with the Halifax Regional Police.

It's a lot for Carrie to absorb. So all that time I was thinking, well, he's the culprit. He's the bad guy, you know? So when I first met him, I was... I remember him saying, like, I apologized to him repeatedly. And he's like, you don't need to apologize to me, but I felt I needed to because I felt so much anger and resentment towards him. And yet now here he was telling me... Carrie says this was a big shift for her because she had reservations about Constable Smith in the early days of the investigation.

I didn't like him. I kind of didn't like him from the beginning because there was a lot of miscommunication with him and I. But in the beginning, I was really concerned with him being the lead investigator, just because of the information I was told. Like when I first met with him and I brought up the concern about the clothing, my clothing wasn't picked up. And, you know, I was told on that day, well, we can't take the clothes now because they could be tampered with you know and I'm thinking what the fuck or like they didn't even talk to the taxi company they didn't go to the scene they didn't they can't do that now they can't go beating down doors they can't get warrants and I'm like I just put all my blame on him because

he's sort of the only person tangible that I had. I didn't really have anybody else. And yeah, they were telling me that it was his fault. They didn't even bring up Novakovic, now that I think about it. It was Jarrell. Jarrell should have taken the clothing on that Tuesday. Jarrell should have went to the, you know. The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP responded to Kerry's complaint,

stating that Jarrell Smith was found in neglect of duty for not collecting evidence, specifically the clothing Kerry was wearing when the sexual assault occurred, and for a lengthy delay in forwarding it for analysis. Also, that Constable Smith failed to have toxicology reports submitted properly to gain appropriate evidence from them. In both cases, the appropriate remedial action

is identified as operational guidance, but considering he is on extended leave, the letter states this will be addressed with him upon his return. I asked the RCMP what they meant by operational guidance, if that meant that Jarrell Smith did not receive enough supervision during the investigation, or that he wasn't in the SAIT unit long enough to take on such a significant file. They declined my request. They do not comment on personnel. Now, Smith is telling Carey that it wasn't his fault, that he'd been prevented from doing the investigative work that needed to be done.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

For us to be able to connect, and then for him to let me know he was fighting for me, and he's believed me since day one, and I had a little bit more faith in some police officers and in humanity. Everything Constable Jarrell Smith told Kerry raises new questions about what might have been happening behind the scenes. It shattered my whole thinking of how this department is running, how the Saint Unit works. Sorry. It's tough to hear. It was tough. It was very emotional and it was really tough.

My nightmares came back. tough. My nightmares came back. Every time Carrie has to communicate with police as she seeks updates on her file, she says it's an ordeal and her PTSD symptoms return. I'm still in therapy. I started a week after the assault and I've been doing weekly therapy and I am still not at the stage. We have not yet to be able to go over that night. And what did they say to you about that? Because I've been, you know, dealing with the police stuff. Like I've been re-traumatized over and over and over again and until there's closure with what's happening with this investigation, they don't want to put me through that trauma again.

I've become so paranoid now with the police and like, what are they actually doing, you know, and here I am trying to fight for change in the system and finding out that they don't even believe me. and finding out that they don't even believe me. In the midst of all of this, a small victory arrives for Carrie. News breaks that Justice Anne E. Smith has made a decision in Carrie's case before the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. A woman who says police in Halifax mishandled her case will have her complaint re-heard. Carrie Lowe went to the province's police complaint commissioner last May. She alleged officers failed to properly investigate a sexual assault a year earlier.

Now a judge has ordered the commissioner to re-examine the case. The judge sides in Carrie's favor, ordering police to hear her complaint. A civilian can only complain about police misconduct if she knows about it, Smith concluded in her written decision, determining that the six-month statute should have begun when Carrie discovered problems, not from the day of reporting to police. not from the day of reporting to police. The justice also finds that the commission erred in concluding that the complaint was only about the first officer Carrie met, instead of the department as a whole. Carrie's original complaint goes back to the police.

Now they've been instructed by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge to hear her concerns. When Carrie first told me that she'd heard from Constable Jarrell Smith, I passed a message on to him. I told him if he ever wanted to speak with me, on or off the record, I would be here, no deadline. Months later, I was the one who was surprised to hear from him when he reached out and asked to speak with me. Jarrell Smith is 38 years old and has been working for the RCMP for 20 years.

By the time he was 18, he had his first job in a cruiser responding to calls with a partner. It's something that I always wanted to do since a young age. I don't know what it was, but I always either wanted to be in the military or wanted to be a police officer. but I always either wanted to be in the military or wanted to be a police officer. I spoke with Jarrell Smith's first partner when he was recruited, and just starting out back in the early 2000s. They asked to remain unnamed because they still work in the force. But they said Smith was a natural cop because he could talk to anyone.

They said it was no surprise that he had advanced through the ranks despite his young age. Smith tells me he was posted in a quiet community detachment until 2018 when he joined the Sexual Assault Investigative Team, the SAIT unit. He was four months into working at SAIT when he became the lead investigator on Carrie Lowe's case. I asked Smith if he'll walk me through some of the paces of his investigation. The night before Carrie reported to police, she was out having drinks at a bar in her neighborhood. The bar rests at the end of a long parking lot, surrounded by a few strip malls. Like, first of all, there's a camera outside, right? Yeah, that camera doesn't work, sorry.

Oh, this one, I see it right there by the sign. But was that not working? That one was not working, and they had another one over here that came out into the parking lot. Okay. Smith points to a security camera outside the bar, resting just below signs bearing the local specials. Corned beef and cabbage, salt cod and pork scraps, Molson Canadian draft beer on tap. We walk in. That's not what they wanted me to do.

Okay, so let's put our masks on and go in. And if you can tell me, like, so you come here. Yeah. And then where's the camera? There's cameras all over the place. So there's like, actually there's like seven or eight different ones. The bar is a large Legion-style layout, with big circle tables and low, rounded chairs, worn down and polished by years of use. It was extremely busy.

Right, like super jammed, pre-COVID. Smith says when he first came here, he immediately spoke to the bartenders. It was a normal night. So one thing with Carrie is very, you know, that night she was very protective of herself. So when she first came in, she took all of her belongings and purse and everything. She asked the bartender to keep it there. Her purse and personal items were actually still here the next day. She had to come back and get them.

Smith says he spotted Carrie right away on the video footage from inside the bar. So when she got here, again, just what you'd expect from a normal person having a couple of drinks. There was a time where she went to the dance floor with a group of people and then she was a time when she was by herself. I think she was just there dancing to a song. A random guy comes up, starts groping her, you know. Where was that happening? On the dance floor. Right over there? Yeah. Okay. There's a group, this just a random guy. So I followed him through the night and then I realized that he was just doing that to everybody. So then I followed her throughout the night. So it's really hard to say, like, she's having a normal night.

She's not drunk. She's just walking around enjoying herself, just like anybody would at a bar. I mean, it's just a normal night. But then Smith said he saw something on the video, a critical moment. She's dancing in a group. It looks like she's called over, and there's a guy standing up against the wall. So she goes towards that person, and it's difficult to see,

but there is some sort of, you can see them coming in closer. And that's where I feel that that's where she was drugged. them coming in closer. And that's where I feel that that's where she was drugged. From the very beginning, Carrie says she suspected she was drugged. I've reported on drink tampering in bars and can say that it's a frighteningly common experience. So immediately after she has this meeting with this person, you can see Carrie's head in the video turn and again because the video is at her back I can't see what had happened, but She walks off she goes back to the bar and I'm when I say she walks off she walks off

Like quickly there. Yeah rigged rigged to the bar here goes in and I think she might even grab a cigarette or something Or and then went over a smoke vape. Yes exactly what it was She grabbed her vape came back out. I'll write out it was. She grabbed her vape, came back out. Out, right out this front door here? Right out the front door. And then not 15 seconds behind her was the gentleman... The guy that called her over? The guy that called her over. Went right out behind her.

Follows her out. Follows her out. And then she never comes back in. And she never comes back. Back when Constable Jarrell Smith was still investigating Carrie's case, he says he identified two people from the bar's video footage and brought them in for questioning in the summer of 2018. Those two guys were the two guys that I had brought in as witnesses.

And in my investigational plan, even though they were suspects in my mind, I didn't have any evidence. And I was bringing them in for an open-ended witness statement. And my plan was to say, hey, I'm interviewing, which is true, I'm identifying people that I interviewed that I can see at the bar and I can identify you that had contact with Kerry and I want to have an interview with you. We can go and follow up with those. So that's what I was going to do. One guy said he didn't know the other guy. The other guy said, yeah, I worked with him for years. He's sort of my host.

So there's so much good information that we can use, investigate, and continue on. Carrie came to me a few months ago with her story. It was incredibly compelling. This is Mike Dull. He's a lawyer who works on behalf of Carrie. And he believes her story. Shocking, really.

As someone who lives in Nova Scotia and entrusts the police for safety and doing investigation, it was hard to believe. After that first meeting at the Elizabeth Fry Society, where Constable Jarrell Smith made allegations that he had been instructed by his bosses to close the case,

Kerry's lawyers decide to build a civil legal case against police. That's when Dull joins the team. I've never heard of a police officer sort of coming to a victim of a crime or survivor of a crime with an apology that he or his institution failed that survivor. Dull builds a case arguing that the SAIT unit failed to follow its own policies and practices in handling Carrie's case. in handling Carrie's case. Carrie Lowe files a claim alleging she experienced, quote, negligence, reckless indifference,

and intentional infliction of mental suffering at the hands of police. At a minimum, they have to meet the standards of a responsible and an average policing agency in terms of conducting that investigation. I've never heard of a lawsuit like this before in which one person is going up an entire police department. In your experience, have you ever heard of anything even close to this before?

As far as I know, this is the first lawsuit of its kind in Canada. As far as I know, this is the first lawsuit of its kind in Canada. We have not been able to verify Jarrell Smith's allegations, that he was told to close Carrie's file, or that she was labelled a liar and a drunk. He did not provide any evidence to support those accusations, and the police have declined my requests for comment. Remember, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP determined that Smith was responsible

for early problems arising in the investigation, even going so far as to find him in, quote, neglect of duty. But Carrie and her legal team have included these allegations in her statement of claim for a civil lawsuit against the Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP. The Halifax Regional Municipality, representing the Halifax Regional Police, and the Attorney General of Canada, representing the RCMP, have filed statements of defense.

In it, they refute the allegations. Quote, Ms. Lowe was not labeled a drunk and a liar, nor were her allegations classified as unfounded by the RCMP. The RCMP did not instruct any officers to refrain from investigating Ms. Lowe's report of a sexual assault. It reads, all interviews with Carrie were done in good faith and a full investigation was undertaken. We know that the investigation did in fact remain open

because two and a half years after she reported, Carrie finally receives news. There's been a break in the case. Someone has been arrested. Coming up on Carrie Lowe vs. Halifax Regional Police have charged a 33-year-old man in connection with an alleged sexual assault from 2018. This is the case of Carrie Lowe.

When I got the phone call from the Crown, I asked her, like, well, what about everybody else? Like, why has no one else been arrested? Unfortunately, I wish things could have worked out differently. And I just feel betrayed completely because there was a different way to handle this situation, I believe. And I just totally feel betrayed by him. This series is produced by Janice Evans and Nancy Hunter and written by me, Maggie Rahr.

Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly. Our digital producer is Emily Cannell. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu. Legal advice from Danielle Stone. Theme music by Aqua Alta. Our senior producer is Chris Oak

and the executive producer of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. I was taking a bow, I was taking a step Out of this town because you were selling me out I was making a move, I was waving goodbye And you were screaming out, out, out He was crying