Officers who were tipped before woman’s murder lose bid to stop investigation

VANCOUVER – Two Vancouver police officers have lost their attempt to block an external investigation into allegations they were neglectful when they decided not to warn a pregnant woman her life was in danger in the days before she was murdered.

Det. Const. Craig Bentley and Staff Sgt. John Grywinski were working on the region’s integrated gang task force in 2005 when Bentley received a tip that someone was plotting to kill 21-year-old Tasha Rosette.

Bentley told Grywinski, his supervisor, but the pair decided not to warn Rosette, who was found stabbed to death in her apartment in Surrey, B.C., five days later.

Rosette’s boyfriend, Amjad Khan, who was named in the tip, and his accomplice Naim Mohammed Saghir were later convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

The Vancouver Police Department dismissed complaints about the officers’ conduct after an external investigation by the RCMP, but the province’s police complaints commissioner ordered an external force take a second look at the case.

Bentley and Grywinski asked the B.C. Supreme Court to stop that renewed investigation, but the court rejected their case in a ruling issued this week.