The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) officer who punched a man multiple times during an arrest in 2023 shouldn’t be charged with an offence, Alberta’s police watchdog said. On Tuesday, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team released a 21-page report detailing the investigation of an interaction caught on video between an officer and an 18-year-old man in February 2023. In the video, an officer is seen repeatedly punching the man as two officers attempt to arrest him. ASIRT concluded that seven punches were thrown by the officer in a “reasonable action of self-defence” after the man attempted to punch the officer first. The report includes interviews from the man who was punched, the officer who punched him and another officer who witnessed the fight and helped in the final arrest. On Feb. 22, 2023, just before midnight, the two EPS officers driving an unmarked car spotted a driver who they both reported to be “speeding eastbound … ignoring speed bumps and failing to brake.” The man pulled into his apartment building’s parking area, which had five cameras ASIRT used to piece together what happened. That video, which circulated social media sites like Reddit, shows the man pulling into a parking spot and an unmarked police car with one headlight out pulling in behind the man’s car. The police car didn’t have its emergency lights on. The video then shows the man stepping out of his vehicle and walking toward the police car, at times gesturing. At this point, the ASIRT interviews report different accounts of what went down. The man who was arrested exercised his right to not interview with ASIRT until just over a year afterwards. His charges of obstructing and assaulting an officer were withdrawn in 2024. In his interview, the man said he was out buying firewood when he noticed an unmarked police car with one headlight out. He said he was driving normally and at “around the posted speed limit of 50 kilometres per hour.” Both the witnessing officer and the officer who punched the man told ASIRT that the man was going around 80 kilometres per hour. Both officers reported that the man was “confrontational” and “yelling profanities.” The man said he was told he was not under arrest and was walking away before the officer pulled him back. He said that his injuries included a concussion, marks on his face, cuts from the handcuffs, pain in his left shoulder and post-traumatic stress disorder. ASIRT’s final decision was that the officer’s use of force was justified and that “there are no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed.”
