Oliver North
Junior Member
So, my girlfriend's brother and father are really into old cars, and fix them up (her father actually runs the autoshow in Winnipeg, which focuses on old cars and bikes, really awesome).
So, the brother was out driving one of these old cars, when he was stopped by an officer. The officer came to his window and said he thought the tires were too large, and he was going to measure them. The brother, wanting to see this, decided to get out of the car and watch the officer.
Obviously, anyone who follows this kind of thing knows what happened next, as the police tend to expect you to stay nicely in your vehicle (even though there is no law stating you must, and in this instance the officer didn't even ask him to). As soon as her brother got out of the car, the officer pointed his gun at him and arrested him for assaulting an officer. Additionally, he was fined for his tires being too large (this statute had actually been overturned earlier that month) and having an illegal modification to the hood (he didn't actually, the officer just measured wrong).
As it happens, my girlfriend's father knows the officer's supervisor personally, and went to talk to him. It turns out the officer is facing at least 3 other civil suits for wrongful arrest in situations where the officer arrested them for assaulting an officer for no reason.
Ok, so flashback to March. Her father is running the car portion of the autoshow, his associate the bike part. Without warning, Winnipeg SWAT bursts through the door and arrests the associate. As it turns out, one of the bikes on display belonged to a member of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Gang. The associate had no affiliation to the gang whatsoever, the gang member was not on the premise and there were no phone calls or anything to the people running the show, you know, to ask if they could just come take the bike or anything like that, just the SWAT team bursting into a busy convention center. Guess who the officer in charge of this was?
So, the issue is, even if the supervisor wanted to do something about this officer (and it appears he does, he has encouraged the brother and father to file complaints and civil actions), his hands are almost entirely tied by the unions and a lack of solid evidence that would hold up in a criminal prosecution. It is, in fact, very difficult to have an officer reprimanded even when the bureaucracy wants to have it done.
In most cases, supervisors cover for officers who cover for eachother, making justice that much harder to attain.