RCMP dashcam video shows officer tackling, punching Chief Allan Adam during arrest

Charles Rusnell, Jennie Russell · CBC News RCMP dashcam footage of the March arrest of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam shows an arriving officer jump-tackling the chief to the ground without warning, punching him in the head and putting him in a chokehold.

In the nearly 12-minute video obtained by CBC News, an agitated Adam swears repeatedly at the police officers, accuses the RCMP of harassing him and removes his jacket while appearing ready to fight one of the officers after RCMP pulled behind his idling truck outside a Fort McMurray, Alta., casino early in the morning of March 10. RCMP had noticed Adam’s licence plate had expired.

“F--king leave us alone!” Adam shouts at an RCMP officer, moments after he pulled up behind his idling truck in the parking lot with the cruiser’s lights flashing. “Don’t f--king stop behind us like you’re f-king watching us.”

At one point, Adam tells an officer to tell his sergeant that “Chief Adam f--king tells you, ‘I’m tired of being harassed by the RCMP.’” The officer, who is still in his vehicle at that point, repeatedly tells Adam to return to his vehicle and that he will talk to him in a minute. “You and I are going to have a f--king problem, right here, right f--king now,” Adam tells the officer.

Investigation launched after northern Alberta chief accuses RCMP of assault

Adam appears to become increasingly agitated and at one point storms past the rear of his truck while removing his jacket. A few moments later, he assumed a fighting stance while his wife appeared to try to calm him. The video shows the officer briefly grabbing Adam’s wife as she stands at the rear passenger side door of the truck. Adam yells at the officer to not touch his wife.

About seven minutes into the incident, behind Adam’s truck, the officer tries to grab Adam’s left arm in what appears to be an attempt to arrest him.

At that moment, another officer runs up and jump-tackles Adam to the ground. The second officer punches Adam in the head as he continues to struggle and a few seconds later places him in a chokehold.

“F--k you, don’t resist arrest!” the officer yells, along with, “Don’t resist! Don’t resist!” Adam’s face is bloody as officers lead him to their vehicle.

‘I struck the male’

An affidavit filed in court along with the video quotes the notes of Const. Simon Seguin. “I charged at the male [Adam] with the intention of bringing him to the ground,” Seguin wrote in his notes.

“I struck the male as he tried to come up,” Seguin later wrote. “He turned on his right side. I struck him using my right hand on his right side of the face.

“I wrapped my hand [left arm] around his jaw and started squeezing.”

Seguin said at one point, “I then wound up placing my left knee on the back of the male’s head and ‘cranked’ the male’s left arm up.” “The male [Adam] was complaining of police brutality.”

Chief alleges officers assaulted him Adam, through his lawyer Brian Beresh, declined an interview request. An RCMP spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Beresh entered the video into the public court file Thursday as part of a motion seeking to have charges against Adam stayed. The RCMP had rejected Beresh’s call to publicly release it. The RCMP said they could not release it because it is evidence in the criminal case against Adam.

In an interview Thursday, Beresh said there is no way senior RCMP officers, after viewing the dashcam video, should have concluded the officers’ actions were appropriate. “This was a false arrest; there was no basis for it, and it was excessive force used,” he said. “We reject that totally. We will let the public look at the video and make a determination.” At a news conference on June 6, Adam alleged Wood Buffalo RCMP officers assaulted him in a Fort McMurray, Alta., parking lot in March. (Jamie Malbeuf/CBC) Beresh said he thinks Adam’s behaviour leading up to the arrest was “a reaction to the systemic racism that his people have suffered for a long time, and that is a part of what agitated him.”

“He, as the leader, feels that he has to stand up and make the statement,” Beresh said. “If you’re bothering me as the leader, what is happening to those people that have no voice?”

The incident occurred at about 2 a.m. MT on March 10 after Adam, his wife Freda Courtoreille and their niece left a casino in downtown Fort McMurray.

Adam said a police vehicle pulled up behind his truck while he was moving a child seat. He said he asked the officer why police were harassing him and told him who he was, and he said he told the officer he would raise the matter with his superior.

Adam said he made his way back into his truck where his wife was at the wheel, and that he told her that they weren’t allowed to go anywhere. He said she put the truck into