Witness video shows WPS officer kick suspect while down By: Ryan Thorpe Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 11, 2020 Last Modified: 9:44 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 11, 2020 Updates

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This article was published 10/06/2020 (1562 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As outrage over police brutality sparks mounting continent-wide demands to defund law enforcement, a video has surfaced of a Winnipeg police officer repeatedly kicking a suspect who appears to be restrained on the ground during an arrest Thursday.

The incident comes less than a week after roughly 15,000 Winnipeggers rallied at the Manitoba Legislative Building for the Justice 4 Black Lives march, in solidarity with global protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

At the beginning of the video — shot by a nearby witness, running slightly longer than one minute — three Winnipeg Police Service officers can be seen trying to arrest a male suspect.

One of the officers twice knees the man. Soon after, as two officers have the man face-down on the ground and a third stands nearby, a fourth comes into view and twice kicks the suspect in the upper body.

Police then appear to fire a Taser at the suspect, who audibly groans.

In total, the video shows five WPS officers in the immediate vicinity of the suspect.

The video was first released on social media by Winnipeg Police Cause Harm, a local abolitionist group that’s been leading the charge against alleged misconduct by WPS officers in recent months.

WPCH released the video at 3:15 p.m. Within 30 minutes, the WPS issued a news release detailing the alleged events leading up to the incident captured on video.

In a written statement, the WPS said it responded at 7:45 a.m. to reports of a man with a gun near the Centennial Concert Hall (555 Main St.).

A review of a WPS social media account shows the service did not issue a public alert about a man armed with a gun at the time.

The suspect — who police said “appeared to be on methamphetamine” — is alleged to have broken into the concert hall and destroyed property, before being confronted by security and leaving. Bystanders pointed out the suspect, who was allegedly brandishing a handgun, to responding officers as they arrived on scene.

“While struggling with officers, a knife and a heavy bar were located on the male. The male was taken into custody without any injuries. Officers recovered the handgun at the scene.”
– WPS news release

“He discarded the handgun but refused to comply with the officer’s demands to get on the ground. He assaulted one of the officers, but was forced to the ground. Officers struggled in their attempts to place the male in handcuffs,” the WPS news release reads.

“While struggling with officers, a knife and a heavy bar were located on the male. The male was taken into custody without any injuries. Officers recovered the handgun at the scene.”

On June 2, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and WPS Chief Danny Smyth held a joint news conference in response to the killing of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, and subsequent Black Lives Matter marches throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Smyth and Bowman both drew distinctions between policing tactics in the United States and Canada, with Smyth saying officers on his force strive to treat people with dignity and respect.

University of Winnipeg criminologist Kevin Walby, who has studied police use-of-force protocols in Canada, said the video would undermine that message — if it had been taken seriously by Winnipeggers in the first place.

“I think a lot of people already understood that press conference as rhetorical, as a way to save face and boost the legitimacy of Winnipeg police after the shooting deaths of Eisha Hudson, Jason Collins and Stewart Andrews at the beginning of the pandemic, as well as the killing of Machuar Madut last year,” Walby said.

“I think that… was something of a publicity stunt.”

“I think that… was something of a publicity stunt.”
– University of Winnipeg criminologist Kevin Walby on the June 2 press conference by the mayor and chief of police.

Hudson, Collins and Andrews — all identified as Indigenous people — were shot to death by WPS officers within a 10-day period in April; Hudson was 16 years old.

Madut, 43, a South Sudanese man, was shot to death by police in February 2019.

Walby described Thursday’s video as an example of “completely unwarranted” use of force by Winnipeg police.

“You have an officer lay the boot to the guy when he’s already incapacitated. You’ve got another officer come in and step on him like a piece of trash when he’s already incapacitated,” Walby said.

“The person is no longer moving by the end of the video… This is exactly the kind of grotesque police violence that people are out in the streets protesting against.”

“The person is no longer moving by the end of the video… This is exactly the kind of grotesque police violence that people are out in the streets protesting against.”
– University of Winnipeg criminologist Kevin Walby

Walby also said police appeared to violate two longstanding rules regarding use of force: the “1+1 rule” and “time-distance ratio.” The first states officers may only escalate up the use-of-force continuum in accordance with the threat level they face; the second revolves around the amount of time and distance that can pass before a suspect is no longer considered an active threat.

“People have been saying (such abuse is) happening here. People who are Indigenous and Black are saying it is happening here, and this is now a visualization of those experiences,” Walby said.

In a voicemail left with a Free Press reporter, a WPS spokesman said he was “disgusted” with media questions on whether the actions of the officers were in line with their training.

An email sent to the Free Press by police Thursday night disputed that the man was restrained when kicked by another officer. “Officers were attempting to subdue or restrain the male when it occurred,” it reads.

The suspect, a 33-year-old man, has been charged with 10 criminal offences, including three counts of possessing a weapon, one count of assaulting a police officer and one count of resisting a police officer.

He’s been detained in custody.

In a departure from past practice in cases where an individual has been charged with a criminal offence, police did not disclose the name of the accused, thereby preventing media from confirming if a racial dimension may have been at play in the incident.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe

Ryan Thorpe
Reporter

Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head.

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