Canadian Mac Forums at ehMac banner

Kelowna Cop kicks Man in the face

4K views 31 replies 18 participants last post by  z2000000 
#1 ·
#3 ·
Police in B.C. in general have gotten a bad reputation in the recent pass with a string of police misconduct incidents involving the RCMP, specifically. Irregardless of what that man was being arrested for, he is entitled to be treated fairly and humanely, and not to be kicked in the face for seemingly no reason. Based on that video, from what I can see, the suspect was no real threat to a trained, armed and armoured officer.

I'm a big supporter of our police services, but I'm no supporter of officers who engage in misconduct or abuse their position. That is all.
 
#5 ·
I know, he should be suspended with a beating.

groovetube,

The cop isn't judge, jury and legislator. Because the guy has a criminal past (he has never been convicted of anything, only charged), the cop does not have the competency to determine that he is guilty and then determine the consequence (kicked in the teeth).

That cop fundamentally undermines the entire procedure of law. His ONLY competence under the law is to detain people with cause and collect evidence.
 
#9 ·
Officers like this one do considerable damage to the public perception of police. Police advocates correctly state that such officers are statistically relatively rare - say, for the sake of arguement one in ten or twenty thousand. In anyones estimation this is rare and police advocates say that these cases get disproportionate press coverage.

However if you are pulled over on 'a dark and stormy night' your mind is not really thinking that the odds of a bad cop are 1:20,000. Your question is more likely is this guy a good cop or a bad cop - there are two possible outcomes. This is a case of likelyhoods which the mind interprets as 50:50........
 
#12 ·
I'm reviving this thread because, as usual, the mainstream media never follows up on stories like this. I'm a member of CSSA-CILA and this was in their latest bulletin:

RCMP APOLOGIZE TO MAN KICKED IN THE FACE: A Kelowna, B.C., man kicked in the face by an RCMP officer had the charge against him stayed and a senior Mountie has apologized to him for the way he was treated. Buddy Tavares was arrested Jan. 7 in Kelowna for firing shots at a golf course where he is employed, he says, to scare away geese using blanks. RCMP Const. Geoff Mantler was suspended from duty over allegations of police brutality in connection to the arrest, which was caught on video and showed what appears to be an unprovoked boot to Tavares' face. A charge of assault causing bodily harm has been recommended by Abbotsford police and has yet to be approved by the Crown. In court Monday, the Crown stayed the charge of careless use of a firearm against Tavares because there was no evidence.
Emphasis in red mine.
 
#13 ·
This fine example of Copdom at its worst should be sharing a cell with the TO cop who brutalized the 50 YO woman trying to cross the street to her home during the G20 fiasco.

Sadly neither of them is likely to get even a mild slap on the wrist.

Police thuggery may be appropriate for Nazi Germany, The Soviet Union, or even the South Side of Chicago. It should not be tolerated in Canada.
 
#15 ·
From the quote above:

"A charge of assault causing bodily harm has been recommended by Abbotsford police and has yet to be approved by the Crown."

Makes one wonder what they're waiting for....no?
 
#22 ·
Personal opinion here but it seems to me if we want to keep thugs out of our police forces we have to fire the thugs that do get hired.

OTH if his record has indeed been exemplary and you will not fire him, have the cop spend all of his free time for the next year doing free maintenance at a local park. Kelowna has dandy that will more than tax his ability to keep up. This at least would give him and others incentive to learn to control their thuggish tendencies.
 
#24 ·
Not condoning what he did at all, I find it quite disgusting.

I will however say though, that in general, being a police officer, especially on certain beats, is not like a regular job at all. It's not like you're serving pizza, or doing paperwork at a desk, and then all of a sudden, you boot someone in the head.

Police work can involve lots of physical confrontations, often with the worst that society has to offer in terms of violent behaviour.

You get in that situation, you're blood is pumping, the adrenalin is going, and there is also genuine fear for your life. Split second decisions have to be made, with force.

I don't doubt that in some instances, mistakes are made where an officer does not have ill-intent or is out to harm people, but that they make a split second mistake that may or may not involve the officers fear for his/her life. Definitely there needs to be corrective behaviour, but I don't think in all instances, the cop should be outright fired.

This example seems pretty cut and dry that it was way, way out of line and cop should be let go from the force.
 
#25 ·
Cops are also trained to deal with physical elements in such situations. It is in no way defensible what he did, particularly because the guy was not fighting back and the cop had back up right there.
 
#27 ·
That was a terrible kick; opened him right up. What the video doesn't contain is context. Although, I can't see what he did to deserve it, I can't see that he did something to deserve as he appears to be compliant.

What seems wierd is how the guy is standing there video taping without question. Wouldn't the cops stop him from taping, or tell him to leave? Struck me as odd.

If this cop is guilty, he should spend time in jail.
 
#31 ·
I would never advise for anyone to try to intervene against a cop - if you witness a cop engaging in misconduct, report them, film them, whatever - but don't intervene physically. Doing so could get yourself arrested and charged with serious offences (assaulting a peace officer, etc).
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top