An Airdrie RCMP officer has been cleared by ASIRT after using force to subdue an uncooperative suspect in Linden.
According to ASIRT, the incident took place on June 30, 2020.
Just before midnight on that day, the officer involved in the incident was at a residence near Linden investigating a threats complaint. The subject of the complaint was a man in a white Chevrolet truck. The man had said he was watching the complainant and referred to the complainant’s residence. While they were at the residence, a man drove by in a light-coloured truck. The officers on the scene thought it might be the white truck from their complaint, so the officer involved in the incident drove after the truck and stopped it. At 11:45 p.m., the suspect male stopped his truck, which was a silver Ford, inside of Linden. The man immediately got out of his truck and walked toward the officer’s police vehicle. He walked close enough to the driver’s side of the vehicle to be out of view for the vehicle’s front camera
According to ASIRT, the officer told the man repeatedly to return to his vehicle and the man refused to obey the officer’s orders. The officer then told the man he was being arrested for obstruction.
At 11:47 p.m, the officer reached out to grab the man’s left arm. The man pulled his arm up and away from the officer. The officer then placed both hands on the man’s shoulder area and pushed him back, turning him slightly. The officer then put one arm around the man’s neck from behind and appeared to pull the man to the ground as they left the camera’s field of view.
When other officers arrived on the scene a few minutes later, they found the officer still engaged in the arrest and assisted the officer in cuffing the man and putting him into the vehicle.
The officers then requested emergency medical services (EMS), who arrived a short time later. Paramedics found that the man had a small cut on the bridge of his nose, but no other injuries. He did not complain of pain and, after cleaning and covering his cut, there was no further need for care. Both paramedics thought that the man was belligerent and had been consuming alcohol.
The man was initially charged with impaired driving, refusing a breath demand, and two counts of obstructing a police officer from this incident. The charges were withdrawn on June 17, 2021
ASIRT followed up with the man after his arrest, and he told investigators that he was driving home from a friend’s residence when stopped by the officer. He got out and approached the officer, who told him to get back into his vehicle. The man said he refused repeatedly and told the officer that he did not respect him. He told the RCMP that he was “pissed off.”
The man was unsure what happened next but thought that the officer may have hit him. He was then on the ground and bleeding. There was a struggle to get cuffs on him and two other officers arrived.
According to what the man told police, his injuries were a scratched cornea, a cut above his left eyebrow, damage to the cartilage in his nose, and numbness in the right side of his face. However, the man refused to provide medical records to ASIRT or to be further interviewed by ASIRT.
According to the officer’s statement, he said that he stopped the man to determine if he was the subject of the complaint at the nearby residence. The man exited his vehicle and was yelling, “You don’t have the right to pull me over. You’re a member of a corrupt government. I don’t respect you.”
The officer said he told him to go back to his vehicle multiple times, and the man was close to him and “in his face.”
The man continued to yell at the officer and the officer said he was unable to get any information from the man as a result. He then decided to arrest the man for obstruction. He told the man he was under arrest and to turn around, but the man refused. The officer then tried to grab his arm but the man pulled away, so the officer wrestled him to the ground. The man was trying to get up, so the officer said he delivered three or four punches to the man’s head to distract him, and the man started to bleed.
ASIRT admitted it had a difficult time substantiating all the facts in the case due to the lack of cooperation from the man, and the fact the man provided no medical records to establish the extent of his injuries.
Given this, ASIRT said it relied on camera and recorder evidence in conjunction with the paramedic’s report to determine its conclusion that the officer was justified in the use of force in this instance.
“The (officer) was justified in a minor use of force to overcome this resistance and arrest him,” says ASIRT. “As a result, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed.”