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No answers on arrest outside gas station
Video appears to show RCMP officer striking a man resisting as police try to cuff him

Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, September 25, 2015

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Months after an outside police force looked into the actions of Yellowknife RCMP during a March arrest caught on video appearing to show an officer striking a man in the head, the public still doesn't know the results of the investigation.

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An RCMP officer appears to strike a man on the head who was resisting arrest outside the Shell gas station March 27, as shown in this screen shot from a video by John Louison. - screen capture courtesy of John Louison

Video of a March 27 arrest outside the Shell gas station shows a man face down on the ground as an RCMP officer attempts to place him in handcuffs. The man is clearly resisting the officers. One RCMP officer apparently then quickly strikes the man in the head with his right hand while another presses down on the man's head with his left knee.

After the video was posted online, Yellowknife RCMP asked the Lethbridge Regional Police Service in Alberta to conduct an external investigation into the actions of the officer.

RCMP also began an internal code of conduct investigation. Const. Elenore Sturko, the Yellowknife RCMP spokesperson, said at the time that an officer was placed on administrative duty. His name has not been released.

Yellowknifer has sought an update on the external investigation.

Kristen Harding, a Lethbridge police spokeswoman, said in mid-July that its investigation had wrapped up and the file was forwarded to the Crown prosecutors office in the territory for review. There was no elaboration on what the review determined.

Because the Public Prosecution Services of Canada (PPSC) in the NWT works closely with Yellowknife RCMP, Sandra Aitken said the file was handed off for a prosecutor in the Yukon to review.

Without a file number, Yellowknifer was unable to get an update for several months.

In early September, Noel Sinclair with the Yukon PPSC responded to another request for an update.

He spoke only in general terms about how a similar case would be handled by the PPSC since he's not the prosecutor assigned to the file and is not familiar with it.

"The PPSC is from time to time asked to provide a legal opinion with respect to the assessment of any given case that they want to ask about. We provide that opinion and then a decision is made within the RCMP whether or not they are going to swear an information," Sinclair said.

Swearing an information before a judge is commonly known as charging someone.

The decision on whether someone ought to be charged is at the discretion of the RCMP, he said.

"It is their decision on whether to go ahead and swear charges. Sometimes they seek legal opinions on the decision to prosecute - they want to know if we would prosecute given a certain set of facts," Sinclair said.

Sturko said because the file is still with the prosecutor's office, police are not in a position to comment on what's going on with the review. She did say that the internal investigation will wrap up after the external investigation is complete.

Sturko did not respond by press time to a question about whether the officer remains on administrative duty.

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