The trial for two Vancouver police officers charged with assault over an off-duty incident at a Yaletown bar has been adjourned so lawyers can prepare their closing submissions. In the meantime, CTV News has obtained CCTV footage from inside Isabelle’s, the Hamilton Street nightclub where a handful of officers were celebrating the VPD Gang Crime Unit Christmas party when the alleged assaults took place. The videos, which were submitted as exhibits in the case, depict three physical interactions between two of the officers and a pair of patrons. The first one takes place inside a small hallway at the club that leads to several individual bathrooms. Const. Brian Hunt can be seen in the video grabbing a man by the arm and shoving him through the open doorway back into the main area of the club. Testifying in his own defense last week, Hunt told the court he stepped in because he thought the customer was being confrontational with a staff member in the hallway and had potentially even touched the employee. A second alleged victim testified the man Hunt grabbed had been looking for his wife who was possibly sick in one of the bathrooms. The man told the court his friend had been talking to the staff member about his wife when Hunt grabbed and shoved him. On cross-examination, Crown prosecutor Tyler Gloux suggested to Hunt that the reason he acted the way he did was because he thought the man was attempting to cut the line. Hunt denied that was true. Neither Hunt’s alleged victim nor any bar staff testified at the trial. Moments after the first physical interaction, Const. Josh Wong joined his friend Hunt in the confined bathroom hallway and the two briefly spoke. At the same time, Hunt’s alleged victim returned to the area and as he got close, Hunt reached out with his right hand and grabbed the man, who he claimed had challenged him to fight. Crown presented a photograph of the man’s neck with some discolouration – allegedly from where Hunt had grabbed him. After seeing Hunt grab the man, the video shows Wong grab Hunt’s arm and remove it as Hunt stumbles backwards. The second alleged victim, who is friends with the first, was also standing right there when the physical contact occurred. He told the court he put his hands between those involved in an effort to diffuse the situation. Testifying in his own defence, Wong said he didn’t want anyone to fight and was also trying to deescalate the interaction. But Wong said at one point the second alleged victim grabbed his left arm while simultaneously “locking up” Wong’s right arm. A moment later, a different camera captures the two of them tumbling through the open doorway into the main area of the club. The customer wound up on the ground with Wong standing over him. In his testimony, the man said the fall left him with a large bump on his head and a bruise on his torso. Wong said he used the man’s momentum against him when he shoved him – and that he wanted to stop the altercation before it escalated. “It was on the back of my mind that there was a possibility that these gentlemen had a weapon. I also didn’t know how many people were in their party in total,” he told the court. “In my experience, stopping or ending something immediately or as fast as possible is the best measure.” While the man is seated on the ground holding his head, the video shows Wong shoving him towards the ground a second time. Wong told the court he had consumed between nine and 11 alcoholic drinks that night. Hunt testified that he had 10 drinks, which included some beer, some mixed vodka drinks and one shot. In cross examination, Gloux asked Hunt if his intoxication affected his ability to make a sound judgement of what was happening. “It’s possible,” Hunt replied. He also agreed he would not have been in a position to be on duty as a police officer because of his intoxicated state. No date has yet been set for closing submissions. Once the criminal proceedings wrap up in this case, the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner will conduct its own investigation under the Police Act. Wong is also one of seven VPD officers at the centre of an OPCC public hearing into the beating death of Myles Gray in August of 2015. That matter has been adjourned until the fall.
