Grieving mother says she was harassed by supporters of Ottawa police Det. Helen Grus

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Grus and her lawyer emerged from the sentencing hearing on Aug. 18 and told supporters they would appeal both the guilty finding and the demotion. In an email, van den Berg confirmed they are appealing the decision and penalty to the Ontario Police Arbitration and Adjudication Commission.

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According to the decision, she accessed the confidential case files of nine child and infant death cases in which she had no investigative role or responsibility, and did not record her involvement in accessing the files. She was also accused of interfering in an investigation of an infant death, without the lead detective’s knowledge or authorization, by contacting the father of the deceased baby in January 2022 to inquire about the COVID vaccination status of the child’s mother.

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Her defence lawyer argued that Grus was “using her police discretion to fulfill her duties to protect the public,” and she did not access the files for personal reasons or share her findings in the public realm.

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The defence stated that Grus had “noticed a doubling or tripling of infant deaths” during the pandemic and “saw it as her duty” to investigate what she believed was criminal negligence on the part of the federal government.

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She followed along with the disciplinary proceedings by logging in anonymously to the hearings, which were initially held online.

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She was unable to attend one of the hearings, and so her mother logged in to observe in her place, inadvertently using her professional email address, which was visible to other attendees in the online forum. The woman’s mother worked at the time for a public health agency.

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“Some of Ms. Grus’s supporters saw her in attendance, baselessly believing she was attending as a representative of a public health agency, and began concocting a ludicrous theory that my family, perhaps in accordance with government health agencies, was somehow involved in a plot to silence Ms. Grus,” the woman wrote.

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The Grus case had fueled a fierce public divide and attracted international attention due to its connection to mandatory vaccine policies during the pandemic era.

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Supporters of Grus believed the officer was being penalized “for using her police discretion to expose a public safety concern,” in Renwick’s words.

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Some of those supporters concocted their own theories about the connection between the grieving woman and her mother’s professional affiliation.

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“And these supporters of Ms. Grus were not content to remain quiet. On the contrary, they were loud, very loud,” the woman wrote. “Soon they had discovered my identity and began harassing me and my family. I would receive messages telling me that I had killed my daughter.”

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One prominent supporter published a lengthy blog post claiming, without evidence. that public health officials had “influenced” Ottawa police in penalizing Grus.

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The same blog published the names of the grieving woman, her mother and her deceased daughter alongside family photos of the baby girl lifted from a tribute posted to social media.