Cover-up alleged in hearing for detective who probed COVID vax baby deaths

A police disciplinary tribunal weighing sanctions against detective Helen Grus for probing a link between COVID vaccines and infant deaths was accused of orchestrating a cover-up.

Source: Flickr

By Jason Unrau

A police disciplinary tribunal weighing sanctions against detective Helen Grus for probing a link between COVID vaccines and infant deaths was accused of orchestrating a cover-up after hearing officer Chris Renwick adjourned a penalty hearing.

The adjournment took place on Thursday, following presentation of voluminous affidavits in support of the embattled 23-year Ottawa Police Service (OPS) veteran.

“(One affidavit) contains government records…that Manitoba (government officials) in July of 2021 raised a concern that there was an increase in spontaneous abortions after the administration of (these drugs on) pregnant and breastfeeding women,” Grus’ lawyer Bath-Sheba van den Berg told Renwick.

“And that's exactly what detective Grus was looking into. There shouldn't even be a charge of discreditable conduct. There shouldn't be a penalty…the tribunal is trying to conceal evidence of criminal negligence.”

Last March, retired OPS superintendent Renwick found Grus guilty of discreditable conduct for her “unauthorized investigation” into a spate of local infant deaths that occurred in 2021 and early 2022. The deaths followed the rollout of novel COVID vaccines, which the government approved for use by pregnant women.

On Wednesday, the litigants gathered at Huntmar Drive police detachment in Stitsville for three days of submissions and testimony in a case that has spanned more than three years since Grus was charged in July of 2022 under the Police Services Act.

But this latest hearing schedule was cut short by Renwick, who sided with OPS prosecutor Jessica Barrow’s objections against proceeding until she could review dozens of reference letters and sworn affidavits, some purportedly asking that the tribunal show leniency towards Grus, others allegedly urging OPS brass to let Grus complete her investigation.

“There's like thousands of pages of documents here and I'm just at a loss as to how do I move forward in fairness to my client,” Barrow told the tribunal.

“In fact, it's not even clear that some of these people know the officer personally. And of course, if they don't then they're not in a position to give character letters.”

Barrow singled out one affidavit, provided by Natasha Gonek, which included 53 attachments contained in two large binders: “Those documents appear, at first glance, to relate to vaccine-related data and records.”

Though Renwick accepted written expert statements provided by Grus’ legal counsel during the examination phase of the tribunal – obtained from several MDs who cited serious safety concerns with the novel COVID vaccines – he denied these doctors an opportunity to provide in-person testimony. They included family physician Gregory Chan, who noted the “lack of safety information” regarding the experimental drugs and that one of his patients suffered a “chronological” stillbirth two months after receiving a COVID vaccine.

Pediatric neurology specialist Dr. Eric Payne was also prevented from testifying, but noted in his expert statement that there was a dearth of safety data on the drugs.

“Pregnant women and babies less than six months of age have been excluded from clinical trials (and) we know that the spike protein product of these genetic vaccines can circulate widely throughout one’s body, including the reproductive organs…(and) has been found to distribute through breastmilk,” he wrote, adding there was “solid scientific and medical support for (Grus’) inquiries.”

While members of the public and media who attended the truncated penalty phase hearing this week were not privy to the contents of mitigating documents presented to the tribunal in support of Grus, True North contacted Gonek, a former investigations officer with the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta.

Gonek told True North she would not speak to her affidavit as it was still before the tribunal, but said before the rollout and during the early stages of the mass vaccination campaign, documents she obtained via access-to-information indicate that government and public health officials were aware the drugs were causing harm and that there was no data for “special interest groups not included in the clinical trials… immunocompromised people, pregnant women, breastfeeding children.”

“They knew (covid vaccines) were showing harm and meeting on these issues very early in February 2021–anaphylaxis was actually one of the big adverse events– and in March of 2021 there's a record of decisions that are just damning in relation to the sheer volume they were seeing in jurisdictions across Canada, especially in British Columbia,” Gonek said of discussions in pan-Canadian vaccine ‘working groups’ that included not only members of the National Advisory Council on Immunization, but RCMP and National Defence.

“These (meetings) all start to line up where the public wasn't being informed of this but discussions (between) people who were decision makers and had the knowledge had occurred. It was their duty to stop these things. They were not doing it.”

In a pandemic career trajectory analogous to Grus’, who was suspended with pay from OPS in January 2022 for refusing to disclose her COVID vaccine status, Gonek said she was let go from the nurses’ college for the same reason.

“I’m one of those,” she said.

Gonek has previously testified about her findings at the National Citizens Inquiry, a publicly funded commission aimed at examining Canada’s response to COVID, and in 2024, she produced a report that Edmonton Police Service knew the novel vaccines were causing harm among its ranks, yet went ahead with a vaccine mandate anyways.

Grus has previously testified that then-OPS chief Peter Sloly and other high-ranking police members were also made aware that Ottawa police members suffered from post-vaccine injuries in December 2021. Grus also testified that criminal negligence could be at play, given public health officials and lawmakers had heralded the COVID injections as safe and effective.

Grus and her legal counsel, however, did score a victory during this week’s hearing as Renwick rejected an anonymous victim impact statement which urged the tribunal to terminate the detective for alleged privacy breaches related to accusations the tribunal found had no merit: that Grus accessed infant death case files without permission.

Before Renwick’s victim-impact-statement decision, Barrow told the tribunal that the prosecution was not recommending termination; rather, her OPS client was seeking a 24-month demotion from 1^st class to 2^nd class constable. Evidence presented at the tribunal indicated that Grus was a stellar investigator with an impeccable record and was being considered for promotion to sergeant.

It remains undetermined when the penalty phase portion of Grus’ disciplinary hearing will resume.