City officer put on leave as arrest violence probed
Video shows Indigenous suspect on ground being repeatedly struck
A Saskatoon police officer has been placed on leave after video was posted online of several officers arresting an Indigenous man who was pinned to the ground and struggling.
The video shows one of the officers straddling the man and repeatedly punching him.
The Indigenous Joint Action Coalition, a Saskatoon advocacy group, released the six-minute29-second video on Monday and called for all the officers to be fired. The group says the video shows an arrest that happened Saturday afternoon in the Nutana neighbourhood.
The video shows a police officer sitting on a man and punching him while he struggles. The officer repeatedly tells the man to stop resisting and to stop grabbing at the officer’s legs, arms and radio. The man on the ground can be heard crying out and asking the officer not to shoot him.
The officer tells the man he isn’t going to shoot him. Eventually, the man is surrounded by eight officers. A Taser is used on the man. The video shows other officers striking the man before he is subdued.
In a written statement, Saskatoon police said an officer involved in the incident has been placed on leave until an initial review of his use of force is completed.
Police noted “not all of the interaction is recorded on the posted video,” but say they are treating it as a “critical and serious incident.” The Public Complaints Commission will be responsible for an independent investigation, police said.
Eleanore Sunchild of Sunchild Law said the man seen being punched by officers is her client, 27-year-old Evan Penner. Penner was ultimately arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer, disarming a peace officer, mischief and possession of a controlled substance.
Saskatoon Police say Penner sustained “non-life threatening” injuries to his face and was assessed by paramedics at the scene and observed by the on-duty paramedic in detention.
Sunchild said Penner also sustained an injury to his arm, but is doing well given the circumstances. The extent of his injuries has yet to be determined.
She said Penner wants his story made public.
“He hopes that this will enlighten people as to the injustice and inhumane treatment that Indigenous people have been subjected to at the hands of the police services across Canada,” Sunchild said.
Saskatoon police say part of the independent investigation will look at the effects of addictions and related mental health issues present during the incident.
“I recognize this incident was a traumatic event for our community, for those involved and for those who witnessed it,” Police Chief Troy Cooper said in a statement.
“Whenever force is used we are accountable and I want to assure the public that this is being taken seriously and we will do our utmost to be open and transparent as the investigation unfolds.”
Frank Collins, who shot the video, said he was in the neighbourhood when he heard a commotion coming from a backyard.
“I poked my head over the fence to see what was happening. (A police officer) was on top of the gentleman, with a kind of knee into his back, trying to wrestle his arms out so he could put handcuffs on, and the person on the bottom was resisting, did not want to be arrested, was calling out that he was being hurt,” Collins said.
Collins said he started filming the encounter on his cellphone after he saw the police officer punch the man and pepper spray him.
Collins said he was disturbed by the police behaviour and shared his video with the Indigenous Joint Action Committee, Black Lives Matter YXE and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations so they could help him disseminate it.
“I think that people have it in their heads that this doesn’t happen here, that this is something that happens down in the United States, that this isn’t a problem we have in Canada,” Collins said. “We need to address and we can’t do that if people aren’t aware it’s happening, and people won’t be aware it’s happening if a) it’s not videoed and b) that that video is not shared publicly for people to see.”
Erica Violet Lee, who is part of the Indigenous Joint Action Coalition, attended Penner’s first court appearance Monday morning. She says police aren’t designed, trained or capable of handling calls about distressed people.
“So often as we’ve seen in the case of Black and Indigenous people, (it) escalates to the point where suddenly the person being victimized is cast as the aggressor, which is obviously, when you look at that video, not the case,” Lee said.
In a media release issued Saturday, Saskatoon police said officers responded to a complaint about a suspicious person in the 500 block of 11th Street East that day around 2 p.m. Police said officers encountered a 27-year-old man that had allegedly caused damage to property.
“The officer attempted to take the man into custody however he resisted and attempted to disarm the officer,” the release said. According to police, the officer used pepper spray, which was ineffective, and then struggled to take the man into custody for several minutes prior to other officers arriving. A Taser — also known as a conducted energy weapon — was used, but was ineffective, and police were eventually able to take the man into custody, the statement said.
Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark posted a statement to Facebook saying the video raised “real concerns” for him relating to the use of force and “emphasizes the ongoing challenges that we have been talking about for some time about the need for responders, other than police, to attend situations where addictions or mental health issues are at the core.”
Clark said he wants to see resources and supports to form a “coordinated continuum of care,” and noted this would require partnership with the province.