City police to review incident
“It looks like cop number four knee drops him with full weight of their body on that one knee,” contends Carmel Crowchild, who said she visited the RPS on Monday to make a complaint about the incident.
After the skirmish, officers then lift the individual off the ground, but he appears to have trouble standing.
Next he’s put into a police cruiser, but subsequently, when the door is opened, slumps out of the cruiser and onto the ground while police appear to search him.
An ambulance later arrives and the man is placed onto a stretcher by police and paramedics, and loaded onto the ambulance.
The date and time stamp on the security footage reads Dec. 13 at 1:48 a.m.
RPS spokesperson Elizabeth Popowich said the department initially learned of the video from Facebook, and made its professional standards section aware of it and the potential for a public complaint.
“Anytime there is a concern expressed about our members’ actions or conduct, we are obligated to notify the (provincial) Public Complaints Commission,” she said, adding that has also been done.
The incident will also be reviewed by the RPS use of force board, with oversight from the Saskatchewan Police Commission.
“Speaking in general, now, it is important for the public to understand that police officers can use force to effect an arrest, but the force applied has to be reasonable and justified,” she added in an email.
“The officer has to explain exactly what he/she did and why. That will be the point of the investigation: what happened, who did what and why.”
Crowchild said she doesn’t know the man being arrested, but added the video terrified her and made her sick to her stomach.
“I’m still not sitting good with it. I’ve cried many tears over it, and I just want the family of that young man to know that they’re not alone in this struggle. That somebody out there is hearing and is concerned for their son,” Crowchild said in an interview Monday.
The video, which is approximately 20 minutes long, was uploaded to Youtube and posted to the Regina Community Watch Facebook page, indicating it was filmed in the Washington Park neighbourhood.
The person who uploaded the video declined to comment Monday when contacted via Facebook.
In a separate but related video recorded seconds earlier from a different angle, the same man can be seen walking by parked cars and trying to keep low to the ground as he carries something.
He walks out of frame, and once a police cruiser enters the street, he runs back into frame as officers give chase.
The second, simultaneously recorded video shows the police tackling the man.
Crowchild was concerned by the man’s physical state after being tackled, noting that he seemed “wobbly” and was not moving when police and EMS picked him up and put him onto the stretcher.
“He looked lifeless to me,” she added.
Because an investigation is underway, Popowich said the RPS is limited in what more can be said at this point, including who the man is or why officers were chasing him.
“I can’t get into the specifics such as what led up to what is seen on the video. It’ll be up to the investigation to determine that,” said Popowich.
Crowchild wanted the man to know that the incident was captured on camera and hopes he will come forward.
“I’d like him to know that there is evidence here to support what happened to him, and I’d like to encourage him to speak is truth, that his story is going to be heard,” she said.