Outside police service to review arrest on video

Chief says decision made in response to concerns about policing

WATERLOO REGION — The Waterloo Regional Police Service is asking an outside police service to conduct a review of how officers handled the arrest of a 38year-old Kitchener man on Sunday morning.

The arrest of the Black man was captured on video and has been widely shared on social media.

Other members of the local Somali community say the man arrested experienced unnecessary force at the hands of police.

At the Police Services Board meeting Wednesday, Chief Bryan Larkin addressed the incident and told board members every use of force is reviewed by multiple levels of the service.

This particular arrest was flagged to undergo an additional review by an external police service. The decision was made in response to heightened concerns around policing, Larkin said. Over the past month there have been calls across the country to defund police services and review issues of systemic anti-Black racism within levels of government and police forces.

“This is around building trust. It’s around ensuring that our community has confidence in policing,” Larkin said about the review.

The arrest came nearly an hour after the man was pulled over in a traffic stop. A field development officer and a new recruit who was undergoing training were parked in a private lot reviewing their notes when the vehicle returned and came up behind the cruiser.

The officers reported seeing flashes of light and hearing what sounded like gunshots, so they drove off while calling for backup. “The officers believed that they were under attack, that shots were fired at them,” Larkin said.

Police later said the sounds may have been fireworks. No gun was found after the arrest.

In a video of the arrest, officers are seen pulling the man out of the car and bringing him to the ground.

One part of the video seems to show an officer hitting the man while he’s on the ground. As this is happening, people who know the man were across the street

filming and calling out, “Stop beating him.” More than 10 officers were seen around the vehicle.

“This was a dynamic, complex situation,” Larkin said, recognizing that for many who watch this video, it will be traumatizing.

“Our commitment is to connect with the Somalian community and to continue open dialogue.”

Larkin said after the arrest the man was taken to hospital for a wellness check and to have two probes from a conductive energy weapon used on him removed.

He said the Special Investigations Unit is not investigating because the injuries did not meet the SIU’s threshold.

After watching a video of the arrest, Kitchener Centre MPP Laura Mae Lindo posted a statement on Twitter calling for an independent investigation into the arrest, and for the officer who is seen hitting the man to be suspended, pending the outcome of the review.

Larkin said the officer will not be suspended.

Lindo said the fact that another police service will be investigating isn’t good enough. She’s calling for an investigation that takes place outside of the policing system. “We’ve been here before,” she said. “We know that historically when police investigate their own, they investigate to justify what has transpired.”

Lindo has been in contact with the man’s family. He was released from police custody Wednesday, she said. He faces a charge of dangerous driving.

The MPP said she’s heard from many constituents concerned with what looks like an officer punching the man while he’s on the ground in the video. They also question why police responded this way if they were aware the man had a mental illness.

“What we witnessed was an escalation, not a de-escalation,” she said.

The regional police service does have an IMPACT (Integrated Mobile Police and Crisis Team), trained to respond to mental health calls, but they weren’t available when this call came in.

Police told The Record earlier this week that this call started out as a traffic stop. It wasn’t initially identified as a mental health call.

The police service tasked to review the arrest has not yet been identified.