Fire victim files RCMP complaint

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This article was published 22/02/2018 (2774 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Virden business owner who lost his electronics store in a fire last year has laid a formal complaint against an RCMP officer for conduct he alleges gave insurance firms reason to avoid acting on his claims.

In addition to the formal complaint, Reny Kitto’s counsel is preparing a lawsuit against his two insurance companies for their inaction in financially compensating him. He is trying to sell numerous properties to cover his debts.

“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” Kitto, 43, said on the phone from Nakusp, a village of 1,500 people in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, where he now resides. “It’s all because this officer and his outrageous lies about me and now the insurance companies, they’re just stalling and starving me out.”

Kitto’s business, Arkay Computers Ltd., succumbed to a fire that gutted three historic storefronts in Virden’s downtown last September.

Earlier this month, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP received Kitto’s complaint.

In it, Kitto alleges the insurance companies were told by a member of the Brandon major crime unit that he was unwilling to submit to a polygraph test and was unreachable.

“Both of these lies tainted the waters and gave the insurance companies reason to deny my claim,” Kitto wrote in his complaint, a copy of which was received by The Brandon Sun. Kitto said he requested a polygraph test from the beginning to prove his innocence.

The test was eventually conducted late last year, Kitto said.

In the month since, he said the same police officer, who The Brandon Sun is declining to name because the allegations are unproven, is refusing to release the results. The officer told the insurance companies the findings are “inconclusive,” Kitto heard from one of the firms.

As such, the insurers are refusing to pay him until police finish investigating, Kitto said. (One firm gave him $30,000 to cover some merchandise)

RCMP spokesperson Tara Seel said police could not speak about Kitto’s complaint since the investigation is ongoing.

In terms of the fire, no arrests have been made. Seel could not speak to specifics on that investigation, either, only to say police believe the blaze was deliberately set.

While he awaits a resolution, Kitto is “on the edge of financial ruin,” his complaint read.

“I have everything in my life up for sale and hopefully I can last long enough that insurance will finally help, but it is a huge unknown,” he said.

According to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, an investigator will be assigned to the complaint. RCMP may ask Kitto to consider an “informal resolution,” regarded as an agreement, or an investigation would be conducted.

Kitto is trying to sell the computer repair shop and electronics store he opened in 2016 in Nakusp with his girlfriend.

He left his son Jake in charge of the Virden location, also called Arkay Computers, when he moved to B.C.

Both stores were authorized dealers of The Source.

“I was so excited when we started this other store,” Reny said. “We had two stores, it was awesome, it was such a good feeling, and now I’m going to lose everything.”

Altogether, he owes at least three-quarters of a million dollars due to the arson.

He has no choice but to sell the Nakusp business, on the market for $249,000.

“What’s changed recently is the bank,” Kitto said. “They called and … they want everything paid up, otherwise they’re be pursuing action to take the property and seize whatever else.”

He has no faith in the insurance system. They’re using the police’s investigation, and the reportedly “inconclusive” polygraph test, as an excuse to avoid paying up, he alleges.

He said SGI Canada, his insurer on the building, has not returned his calls in a month.

Portage Mutual Insurance, who insured the business, was waiting on satisfactory polygraph results and, if that isn’t attained, the conclusion of the police’s investigation, according to a letter sent to Kitto by an insurance adjuster. A request for comment from the insurer was not returned Wednesday.

SGI Canada spokesperson Jennifer Rathwell could not comment on a specific customer or claim, citing privacy.

Speaking generally, she said if any customer were being investigated for arson, “SGI Canada, or any insurer for that matter, would first need to wait for the conclusion of that investigation.”

A Winnipeg insurance lawyer, who agreed to speak on background, had never heard of a polygraph demand in order to move forward with a claim, but that didn’t mean the requirement isn’t admissible, he said.

Kitto believes the police officer is “dead set that I hired somebody” to set the fire, he said.

He had no reason to set the building ablaze because his business was “very profitable,” he said. He estimates he’s losing $150,000 in profit a year.

As reported last September, firefighters initially went to Kitto’s electronics store the night before the fire because the electrical wiring shorted out.

It left the place without functioning alarms, said Kitto, who told The Sun his son and an electrician were planning to reconnect the power and make repairs the next morning, on Saturday.

“It seems really weird that I would line all that up if I’m going to hire someone to go back in there and burn it.”

At 5:45 a.m. on Sept. 23, Virden RCMP responded to the structure fire, which started in the electronics store on Seventh Avenue and spread to a neighbouring building with two other storefronts. The brick-veneer buildings were decimated by the blaze.

Total damage is estimated at $2 million.

Kitto believes the 19-year-old man accused of burning the abandoned Ross Consolidated School, in the surrounding municipality, less than 24 hours after the downtown fire, is responsible for both. Police have not said if the two incidents are related.

In addition to the Nakusp electronics store, Kitto is selling a home and commercial property in Pipestone and vacant land outside Virden.

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