RCMP officer AcquittedConst. cleared on assault charge.
An incident involving a local RCMP officer has officials begging for the placement of surveillance cameras in Cochrane RCMP jail cells.
On Monday, June 13, [a constable] from the Cochrane detachment was found not guilty of assault on a prisoner during an arrest.
[the constable] was charged last November on a single count of common assault when a member of the detachment felt that his actions were not acceptable during the suspect’s arrest last year.“Simply put, the victim in this case was not the complainant. The complainant was actually one of our own members who witnessed [the constable’s] actions, felt they were wrong, lodged a complaint and an investigation was done,” said Cochrane RCMP Sgt. Mike McTaggart.
Although the victim was summoned to court twice, he did not attend the June 13 hearing.
“The crown decided that there should be sufficient evidence without the victim testifying and decided to proceed with the trial,” said McTaggart.
“Our (RCMP) members that were present during the incident testified, but in the end the judge determined that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict. He could not be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the incident that took place was not consensual between [the constable] and the victim.
On the day of the July, 2004 incident, [the constable] arrested the victin in Morley.
“In a nutshell, [the constable] legally arrsted the fellow… he was verbally abusive, and somewhat combative when he was in the back of the police vehicle being brought back from Morley,” said McTaggart.
“When they arrived at the office he was still verbally combative but once he did get out of the vehicle, apparrently he did settle down.
“As they were walking into the building, there was an altercation in which the victim was struck twice in the face by [the constable’s] (fists).”
According to McTaggart an internal investigation is still being conducted to see if there should be any discuplinary actions taken upon [the constable].
“There is still an internal (investigation). Even though he was found not guilty by the provincial court, there is still an internal process that he has to go through.”
McTaggart said that they would use this incident as “fuel” to the argument of camera placement within the detachmnet.
“We’ve been lobbying for cameras in our cells for some time now. Unfortunately there is just no money for that, but certainly cameras would assist in a lot of these incidents. Where a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth, I guess, $10,000,” he said