Ottawa police officer found guilty of assault gets conditional discharge
An Ottawa police officer who was found guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend in December 2017 has been sentenced to two years' probation and given a conditional discharge by a Quebec judge.
Const. Carl Keenan was convicted in August of one count of assault causing bodily harm by Court of Quebec Justice Anouk Desaulniers.
The sentencing decision, rendered on Oct. 16, also ordered Keenan to pay a $2,500 fine within six months. After his two-year probation period, with no additional incidents, Keenan would be spared a criminal record with the discharge.
Keenan has been suspended with pay by the Ottawa Police Service since he was charged by MRC des Collines police in 2017.
The judge found Keenan and the woman had been together for about six months and that “theirs was a dysfunctional relationship, marked by distrust and frequent arguments.”
The couple had rented a yurt in Gatineau Park for a weekend in December 2017 but argued or avoided each other nearly the whole time.
At one point, after returning from a nearby yurt where she sought refuge, the woman started recording her interactions with Keenan on her cellphone.
That video, which was evidence at trial, showed Keenan “push the complainant while gathering his belongings to leave the yurt.”
First, he told her he wanted to break up with her and accused her of cheating on him. When the woman asked him to wait until the next day so he wouldn't “freeze to death” by walking more than an hour away to get his car, he refused to stay and continued to insult her, the judge found.
The woman tried to get him to stay. Keenan then “pushed (her) once on the hip, telling her `Get away from me, get lost, get out of my space,'” the sentencing decision reads.
When the woman “once more touched his face lightly,” he pushed her again which “sent the complainant flying against the bed.”
The woman lost consciousness after hitting her head on the bed frame. Keenan slapped her face, insulted her and accused her of being drunk while trying to rouse her. Before she regained consciousness, he grabbed her cellphone. Once the woman regained consciousness, they fought over the phone.
The judge found the video clearly showed the “power imbalance” between Keenan and the woman. The woman attempted to defuse the situation while Keenan was “clearly seething with anger” and insulted the woman “using vulgar and offensive language.
“She hit him in the face and the accused admittedly responded by hitting her on the jaw and shoulder.”
The judge found the incident inside the yurt and Keenan's pushing the woman into a snowbank constituted an assault causing bodily harm.
Keenan is expected to face an internal police disciplinary hearing.