An off-duty Port Moody police officer who allegedly punched a man several times in the face and stomped on him outside a Coquitlam bar did not commit assault, according to the province’s police oversight body.
The decision — released July 15 — describes an incident which occurred around 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 23, 2019, when several people were leaving a Coquitlam pub.
The Independent Investigations Office of BC (IIO) decision cites statements from six officers and three civilians that said they either witnessed the altercation between the off-duty officer and the man, identified in the ruling as AP, or were nearby when it happened.
“I wouldn’t say [AP] was hammered, but he was almost getting to that point,” said the injured man’s girlfriend.
AP’s girlfriend described an unprovoked attack from the off-duty Port Moody police officer — referred to as SO, or Subject Officer.
Witnesses agree AP was walking down the sidewalk without a shirt when he crossed paths with SO and two other off-duty officers. One witness recalled the off-duty officer in question yelling something like “Where’s your shirt?” before they both began striking each other.
AP’s girlfriend, who was reportedly highly intoxicated at the time, described SO repeatedly punching and “stomping” on AP’s chest and face, while another witness described the off-duty officer initially “lunging” at AP.
But the other off-duty officers painted a different picture, in which AP took a fighting stance and began throwing punches at SO. That’s when SO gave AP a “one-two jab,” according to one of the off-duty officers, before both ended up in a “grappling match” where the shirtless man went down to the ground and the off-duty cop put his foot down towards his chest to hold him down.
Chief civilian director Ronald J. MacDonald writes in the decision that both off-duty officers who witnessed the incident “told IIO investigators that they could not see what SO did in the interaction, even though they were standing very close by and looking in the direction of the incident, suggesting they should have been able to see most, if not all, of what happened.”
Due to conflicting testimony and a lack of available evidence, the IIO decision found it was not possible to be sure what happened, but that “it seems unlikely that any of the officers would have had any motivation to attack AP, a large intoxicated man, and more likely that the blows that SO struck were struck in self-defence.”
