Review board erred in strip-search case

A civilian panel has been ordered to reconsider the case against a police detective who was found guilty of excessive force for stripsearching a man after discovering him smoking marijuana in a Whyte Avenue alley in 2005.

In a decision released Friday, the Alberta Court of Appeal found the Law Enforcement Review Board erred in its 2011 decision upholding guilty verdicts against Det. Bill Allen.

In a written decision, the appeal court found the LERB panel was wrong in finding that “reasonable and probable grounds” for a search requires the probability of finding more drugs.

Allen was charged in 2007 with unnecessary use of authority in connection with the Feb. 25, 2005, incident behind the Strathcona Hotel on Whyte Avenue.

Allen and another officer were patrolling the area when they found Matt Engel in the alley smoking a marijuana cigarette. He was taken to a nearby police station, where Allen directed Engel, who was then 22, to remove his clothing for a strip search, the appeals court wrote.

Engel was later released without being charged.

A disciplinary hearing presiding officer found “there was no justification for taking him to the police station for a more intensive search,” the appeal court noted in its decision.

Allen appealed the disciplinary decision to the LERB, which upheld the guilty verdicts. That decision was in turn appealed to the province’s highest court, which heard arguments in early May.