Ottawa Officer Suspended for Probing Link Between Children’s Death and COVID-19 Vaccines Ordered to Return to Work

A close-up of an Ottawa Police officer’s badge in Ottawa on April 28, 2022. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

An Ottawa police officer who faced internal discreditable conduct charges has been ordered to return to work after she was suspended for undertaking unauthorized investigations to look into the possible connections between the deaths of nine children and their parents’ COVID-19 vaccination statuses.

In an Oct. 11 internal hearing of the Ottawa Police Service (OPS), Helen Grus was told that she was no longer suspended, though she is to return to work under certain restrictions and conditions, according to Donald Best, an independent journalist and former detective with the Toronto police.

Grus is a detective with the Ottawa Police Service’s (OPS) sexual assault and child abuse unit, which is mandated to investigate child abuse and neglect.

Between June 2020 and January 2022, Grus allegedly “self-initiated an unauthorized project” to probe into the death cases of nine children, when she had “no investigative role/responsibility, and failed to then record your involvement or findings in the files,” said a notice of disciplinary hearing issued by the OPS professional standards unit.

The notice also said that on Jan. 30, 2022, Grus allegedly contacted the father of a deceased infant to inquire about its mother’s vaccination status, without the lead detective’s knowledge.

Grus had been placed on suspension with pay since February.

Defence lawyer Bath-Sheba van den Berg has requested that the restrictions and conditions imposed on her client be negotiated and put in writing prior to her return to duty. A meeting to discuss the terms will be arranged for a later date, reported Best.

The Epoch Times reached out to van den Berg for comment but didn’t hear back.

Grus’s next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6, 2022.

Concerns About Mandates

Grus was previously suspended without pay in January 2022 when she refused to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status in defiance of the OPS, which mandated all employees be vaccinated by Jan. 31, according to several media reports.

In a September 2021 email to her colleagues, which was obtained by Best, Grus also expressed concerns about the harms of the government’s lockdown measures, the silencing of medical professionals, and vaccine safety.

“This past year and a half has been challenging for everyone,” Grus wrote. “Watching news releases each day I fell back on my investigative skills directing me to seek out the source information in attempts to corroborate the doom and gloom of each day’s news reports on COVID-19 deaths, cases, prevention, transmission etc.”

“I do have serious concerns with the worldwide silencing of doctors, virologists, biologists, pharmacists, psychologists etc.”

She raised several questions regarding the OPS vaccination mandate, including whether OPS will “take full legal and financial liability for any injuries, adverse effects and/or death occurring to members following the receipt of any EUA vaccine potentially mandated.”

“I do not wish to be insubordinate. I do not wish to be accommodated,” Grus said in her email, but noted that the “strong-arm approach” of requiring employees to be vaccinated or otherwise face consequences like being placed on leave without pay, disciplinary measures, and dismissal has “caused great stress” to members of the OPS.