RNC officers to defend actions at hearing

An independent investigator recommended criminal charges against the two officers, but none were laid

“The first (officer) was still making the arrest of the first person. He told the other officers that there was someone inside the house to be arrested as well, either for obstruction or resisting arrest. After that I heard a lot of banging and stuff going on.” Witness

Two Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers are expected to testify at a hearing of the RNC Public Complaints Commission Friday, defending their actions related to the arrest of a Paradise man and his son in 2017.

Lawyers are expected to present video of the officers involved in an altercation with Dennis and Zackary Ball outside their home, in which it’s alleged the officers pepper-sprayed the younger man before striking him in the head and breaking out a window in the residence.

Around suppertime on Nov. 8, 2017, an RNC officer followed Dennis Ball home, alleging he had driven dangerously through an accident scene at the intersection of Topsail Road and Mcnamara Drive. Silent footage taken from Ball’s car’s dash camera and presented at the hearing Thursday showed the vehicle approaching the accident scene and doing a U-turn around it, and increasing speed while moving away.

Two tow truck operators who had been at the scene testified to having seen Ball’s vehicle approach and hearing him yell obscenities out his open window about the police officers not doing their jobs and directing traffic. One of the operators testified a family with a young child had been involved in the accident and were standing on the sidewalk.

“The father covered the child’s ears when the swearing started,” he said.

An officer yelled out to his colleague to say he was taking her vehicle to follow Ball, the man testified.

A neighbour of the Ball family told the hearing he was not long home from work that night when he noticed red and blue flashing lights pulling into the Balls’ driveway. He went to see what was going on, first from his kitchen window and then from outside, he explained. He described seeing an officer and a civilian in an altercation, arms flailing, both of them yelling and swearing while appearing to grapple with each other.

“I saw an officer exit the car. He was doing a bit of yelling and screaming and he approached a car that was in the driveway and appeared to attempt to make an arrest of a person who was near that car,” the man testified, in response to questions from lawyer Ken Mahoney, who is representing that accused officer. “It appeared that the person was not willingly going to be arrested.”

A second man — said to be Ball’s son, Zackary, then 21 — came out of the house, the neighbour said, and he was also yelling while the officer shouted at him to back away and go back inside the house. Eventually the man did go inside and more police officers showed up, the neighbour said.

“The first (officer) was still making the arrest of the first person. He told the other officers that there was someone inside the house to be arrested as well, either for obstruction or resisting arrest. After that I heard a lot of banging and stuff going on.”

An ambulance and more police cars soon arrived, the neighbour testified.

“Did you ever have any occasion to witness any other incidents occurring on that property?” Mahoney asked.

The man said he had once woken up in the middle of the night and saw a police officer in the Balls’ driveway, yelling back and forth with someone.

Representing the commission, lawyer Mark Murray questioned the tow truck operators on the accuracy of their evidence, pointing to possible inconsistencies between what they testified to remembering, what was seen on the dash camera footage and what they had told investigators. He questioned the neighbour about the details of the altercation and the words that were exchanged, as well as his view of the scene given the darkness, fences and trees.

Dennis and Zackary Ball were both arrested and spent the night in custody, charged with resisting arrest, obstructing justice and, in Dennis’s case, unlawfully causing a disturbance. The men were released with a court date and hired defence lawyer Erin Breen, who also testified Thursday. The prosecutor withdrew all the charges after he saw the dash cam footage and surveillance video captured outside the Balls’ home, she explained.

“The Balls wanted to take further action,” she said. “They wanted criminal charges (against the officers), a disciplinary complaint and a public complaint. Basically, they wanted to take every legal remedy available to them.”

Breen forwarded their complaint to RNC Chief Joe Boland, and the Ontario Provincial Police were called in to investigate. Local lawyer Gus Bruce provided independent oversight and prepared a report based on the actions of the officers — who have so far been identified in documents as B.M. and I.W. — determining they had acted unlawfully in arresting the two men, and that striking and pepperspraying Zackary and breaking the window of the home had been unjustified.

Bruce recommended charges of assault, assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement and mischief against three officers, but the Crown opted not to proceed with the charges on the grounds that the offences couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Breen said she helped Zackary file a private information with the court in 2019, alleging he had been assaulted by the male officer, but the Crown withdrew that charge after it had been issued by a judge.

RNC Public Complaints Commission adjudicator Andrew Wadden will hear from the accused officers when the hearing resumes in St. John’s Friday morning.