VPD officer faces assault charge linked to 2019 arrest

A Vancouver police officer has been charged with assault following an arrest near Strathcona Park.

According to the B.C. Prosecution Service, Simrit Roycombough was charged with one count of assault contrary to Section 266 of the Criminal Code of Canada on Thursday.

Roycombough is due to appear in court on June 27.

The incident occurred on June 9, 2019, when Roycombough was on duty, the prosecution service said. The charge was approved by a Crown prosecutor with no prior or current connection with Roycombough.

In 2016, Roycombough was given a chief constable's commendation after placing his life on the line during a high-risk arrest in December 2014.

Roycombough and another officer arrested a man who had carjacked a vehicle in Surrey after stabbing a convenience store worker. The pair had crashed their vehicle into a suspect's car after fearing the suspect would run someone over. They then got out of the wrecked cruiser and chased the man into a sawmill, where they made an arrest over top of an operating sawmill.

“The struggle to make an arrest would move over the top of a wood chipper and the spiked belt moving lumber toward it. A fall onto either would result in certain death,” the citation read.

According to the Independent Investigations Office, which examines cases where a person is killed or seriously injured during an interaction with police, a man who was walking near Vancouver's Strathcona Park on June 9, 2019, was seriously injured while being tackled to the ground and arrested by a Vancouver police officer.