Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) 

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) ensures excellence and independence in the investigation of matters referred by the Director of Law Enforcement.

ASIRT has jurisdiction over all sworn police officers in the Province of Alberta. Their mandate is to investigate incidents or complaints involving serious injury* or death of any person, and matters of a serious or sensitive nature, that may have resulted from the actions of a police officer. They are governed by Section 46.1 of the Police Act, and currently have two offices located in Edmonton and Calgary.

ASIRT does not take complaints from the public, rather files are forwarded to ASIRT by the Solicitor General. The public should forward any complaints to the police agency in question.

ASIRT is lead by a civilian director, Clifton G Purvis, who is a lawyer and Crown Prosecutor. Reporting to him are:

• A civilian assistant director
• Two administrative assistants
• Two civilian team commanders
• One civilian criminal analysts/researcher
• Five civilian investigators
• Nine sworn police officers (from the Calgary Police Service, Edmonton Police Service, RCMP, and the DND)
• Four on-call civilian investigators
• Two information administrators

The director may also engage public overseers from the community to ensure independence in the investigative process.

Once an investigation has been completed, the ASIRT director reviews the results of investigations to ensure completeness and fairness. A report can be forwarded to the office of the Crown Prosecutor requesting an opinion on charges. The director will decide what charges if any will result from the investigation.

MISSION:

To effectively, independently and objectively investigate incidents involving Alberta’s police that have resulted in serious injury or death to any person as well as sensitive allegations of police misconduct

VISION:

To enhance public confidence and ensure accountability in the investigation of serious or sensitive incidents involving Alberta’s police

VALUES:

Integrity, Independence, Investigative Excellence, Respect, Trust and Professionalism

Clif Purvis: 

Mr. Purvis is a career prosecutor, who has devoted his entire professional life to public service. He has appeared in all levels of Court in conducting both trials and appeals on behalf of the Attorney General.  He has also advised police agencies on many complex investigations.  While assigned to the Special Prosecutions Branch Mr. Purvis was the Coordinator for Organized Crime investigations and prosecutions. He has lectured and provided training to, both police and prosecutors on a broad range of issues.

He is currently seconded to and responsible for the establishment and implementation of ASIRT, an initiative of the Solicitor General Alberta.  ASIRT is an independent investigative agency whose mandate is to investigate police misconduct and incidents that come within the scope of s. 46.1 of the Police Act – specifically, incidents where the actions of a Police Officer cause serious injury or death or, incidents of a serious or sensitive nature. As the Civilian Executive Director of ASIRT he is responsible for ensuring independent, objective investigations into s. 46.1 incidents.

To view a map of Police Agencies in Alberta, click on the following link.

Once opened, press the Facilities button and then check the Police checkbox to view where all of the Police agencies are in Alberta.

* Serious Injury is defined when the victim is admitted to the hospital with injuries consistent with a fracture to a limb, rib or vertebrae or to the skull, burns to a major portion of the body, a lose of any portion of the body, and/or when a victim suffers loss of vision or hearing

As another way to communicate with Albertans, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) can now be found on Twitter!

You can follow us by going to @ASIRT_AB where you will find items of interest to the public such as:

• Links to our news releases
• Investigation updates, quotes and information
• Requests for witnesses
• Updates to our website
• Information about ASIRT

This account will be managed and maintained by ASIRT Communications.  ASIRT will not be responsible for technical Twitter issues and the times that the site is unavailable to users.

While we invite you to follow us on Twitter, we will not be automatically following everyone in return. If we do follow you, please be aware that we are not endorsing you in any way.

Conversation is encouraged and feedback is welcome but we will not always join in the discussions and will only respond when appropriate.

If anyone sends messages which are deemed inappropriate, profane, or rude, we will block those accounts. We want Twitter to be a place of constructive conversation and one where we can inform our followers of ASIRT-related information.

We cannot and will not accept messages sent through Twitter as official communications with ASIRT.

ASIRT does not accept complaints about police behavior from members of the public. Public complaints must be made to the specific police agencies.