Charges dropped against people arrested by Officer 728

Serge Lavoie, Rudi Occhietti and Simon Page pose for a photo outside a police station on Oct. 12, 2012. Charges against the trio, and a fourth person, were dropped in March 2013. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)

Charges have finally been dropped against four people arrested last October by Stefanie Trudeau, aka Officer 728.

Serge Lavoie, Simon Page, Karen Molina and Rudi Occhietti were charged with a slew of offences, including assault a police officer, after an incident that appeared to have been provoked by police.

It began on Oct. 2, 2012, when Occhietti was standing in a doorway at the bottom of a flight of stairs with a beer in his hand.

Officer Trudeau approached Occhietti and demanded his identification. When he refused, Trudeau arrested him, and when friends inside the apartment objected Trudeau forced her way inside and put one resident in a headlock.

The bizarre brawl ended with dozens of police officers on the scene and four people under arrest for assault and intimidating a police officer.

However much of the incident was recorded by cellphones, including a profane conversation that Trudeau had with her supervisors.

The public outcry after the videos were released, and showing how Trudeau had apparently provoked the incident resulted in charges against the four being first suspended in October 2012, and now dropped entirely.

The suspended officer was also subject to death threats, especially when it appeared she had tried to convince other officers to fabricate evidence and testimony.

Trudeau has been subject to multiple ethics complaints in the past, including after she was filmed pepper spraying a crowd of bystanders during a protest.

She was suspended with pay in October, and in February a judge ordered her to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Police conducted an internal investigation of her conduct last fall and handed the file to Crown prosecutors, who have yet to make any decision about the case.