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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A bylaw officer accused of assaulting a 55-year-old grandmother at last year's Santa Claus parade had likely switched off his dashboard video camera and microphone long before getting into an altercation with the woman, according to the city's director of public safety.

The unnamed officer was cleared of any wrongdoing in a subsequent RCMP investigation even though a man who said he witnessed the incident was not interviewed by police, nor any of his friends who were there with him. Two bylaw vehicles equipped with video cameras were present but did not produce any video evidence, and a microphone affixed to the vest of the officer accused of trying to drag the woman from her vehicle as her two grandchildren wailed and cried had been turned off.

"For whatever reason, the video and the mic wasn't working, probably because he was at a barricade in another area," said public safety director Dennis Marchiori.

"So when he came (to the scene), he already had it all switched off. Acting so quickly, he didn't realize what was going on."

The officer no longer works with the city's municipal enforcement division, although the city insists his departure is unrelated to the incident.

According to Marchiori, the first bylaw vehicle on the scene, which had its video equipment on and working, was helping the RCMP barricade roads prior to the parade Nov. 17, and was facing and filming in the opposite direction from the incident. That officer's mic had also been switched off "when he was doing something" and therefore did not record any audio either.

The trouble began while the grandmother was trying to turn her truck around at a barricade on 51 Avenue. The back end of her vehicle had apparently struck a wooden barricade, after which the second bylaw officer arrived, and got into an argument with the driver, twice grabbing her cellphone from her hand before trying to pull her out of the vehicle while still wearing her seatbelt, according to Paul Guyot, who said he witnessed the incident with a friend, his girlfriend and his girlfriend's five-year-old child.

According to the city, dashboard cameras begin automatically recording when the emergency lights are engaged. But Guyot is doubtful the cameras on the bylaw vehicles would have captured the incident because they were facing the wrong way.

"The second (bylaw officer in his vehicle) that arrived had his lights flashing. The one already there facing exactly the opposite direction where stuff occurred, was flashing the whole time too because he was blocking the traffic from going that way," said Guyot.

The bylaw vehicles are always filming, said Marchiori, but do not record the video to a flash drive until the emergency lights are activated, with the recording starting one minute prior to the lights going on. Cameras and microphones can be deactivated manually, however, when lights are required to be flashing but no recordings are needed, such as with parades or funeral processions.

Every four or five days videos are downloaded and kept for one year if its deemed there is video worth keeping.

"If anyone wants to challenge it, go to court, we give him a copy of the disc ... and give it to the justice of the peace," said Marchiori.

Marchiori said video and audio are used primarily for officer safety as well as to acquire any information pertaining to violations of the law.

After the incident, the city created a policy that states all bylaw officers must activate their recording equipment where the situation gets volatile.

"This way, we don't get the, 'he said, she said' because no one likes that. And in the end, we're here to serve all the residents, all 20,000, as equally and fairly as possible," he said.

The RCMP have similar equipment, said Staff Sgt. Brad Kaeding, with most of the police vehicles having an in-car video system which includes an audio component.

"They're generally designed for road-side contact with the public, traffic violators or accident scenes or something like that. They're designed that they come on automatically once the emergency equipment is activated and you can shut them off manually," Kaeding said.

"If we were going to be standing at a parade directing traffic, we would probably turn them off. We wouldn't necessarily have them operating for something like that. We would have them operating for a traffic stop or coming upon a collision or something like that."

The RCMP generally keeps the discs of recordings for a period of two years.

Kaeding wouldn't comment on the investigation of the bylaw officer when asked if the RCMP might reopen it in light of the witness coming forward.

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