Victim takes responsibility by complaining
January 11, 2008

To the editor:

This letter is in response to a letter published Jan. 4: Taser Victim Should Take Responsibility.

I find it hard to believe that someone who wasn’t a witness to what happened could be so opinionated and appear so angry. Normally I wouldn’t bother to reply to something like this, but more than one person finds something fishy about this letter. If it was you who wrote it, Mr. Brown, please take a deep breath.

First of all, Mr. Brown, you are naively assuming that what you heard in the press about what the investigation had found, was true. I can assure you that it was whitewash and PR spin. Parts of it were so outrageously false that there was not even a grain of truth to it. I guess if you did the things that this particular constable did you would hardly want to admit it or be honest about it.

We had expected that the police investigation would be somewhat biased. We did not expect that it would be so absolutely falsified. Not that we weren’t warned that this would happen. Apparently in the end, the truth goes out the window and they protect each other. We thought that was a cynical point of view. We were naïve at first, too. Boy, were we shocked by what we heard in the media about what the results of the investigation were! That was Friday and it went to all the media across the country.

People who know me were as outraged as I was. We received a number of phone calls encouraging us to not let this go or let them get away with it. Sometimes silence is an admission of quilt. We had no choice but to take action. So we took responsibility. To people I don’t know, my name has been defamed and it will always be connected to the false allegations in that report.

Here are some examples:

The truth: I was tasered two times while in the car. After the second one, I was completely dazed. My wife said that when I was finally let out of the car I swooned and staggered from the effects of the Taser. The version given to the press was totally false.

The truth: I never hit a police officer at any time. I wouldn’t have had a chance to hit him if I would have wanted to. The minute I opened the car door this constable lunged at me like a mad dog, tearing the weather stripping off the car door, the buttons off my shirt in the process. He punched me and bloodied my face. This was all in the first few seconds. I recoiled in horror and tried to shield myself in defence. This was called resisting arrest.

Immediately he said: “I’ll Taser him!” Before he did so, not after, he was warned by my wife of a stroke I had, but he went ahead anyway. To add insult to injury I was charged with assaulting a police officer. I guess this type of cover-up tactic is used a lot.

While I was being viciously attacked, my wife tried to tell the other officer the very things Mr. Solinsky proclaimed in the article, headlined In the Line of Fire, in the Capital News on Dec. 9. That was, that there were more civilized means than violence and the belligerent yelling on the street for dealing with things. For this she was mocked and threatened with being charged with obstruction by the other constable. If only Mr. Solinsky could see what some of his “trainees” are doing on the ground. None of what he advocated in the article was applied in this case.

I suggest Mr. Brown spend a couple of hours in front of the lab on Leon, a one-way street. Observe how constantly people come and go, dropping off and picking up people at this spot. Seniors’ buses drop off and pick up seniors for lab tests there all the time. Canada Post and couriers stop and go there as well.

There is no loading zone. No one has ever been stopped for double parking or even heard of someone who has (we have checked) for obvious reasons. Why was I? Did this constable have a childish vendetta? I know why and can easily prove it.

I had stopped, not parked, to pick up my wife who came out immediately. Suddenly, I am belligerently told that I was double parking and had my flashers on. I have a delivery license and was told by parking personnel to always have the flashers on so we would not get a ticket.

I was never told to move. This constable was not concerned about blocking traffic!

I did not argue with him.

The last thing I wanted was an argument with this guy. I said to him that I was picking up my wife and that she was on her way out. He repeated what he had said and immediately threatened that he would give me a ticket even when he saw her coming to the car.

He had not begun to write a ticket or even had the ticket book in his hand. When it was pointed out politely and tactfully by my wife, who was in the car by that time, that people were being picked up and dropped off here all the time, the officer in question pointed at her and yelled out. “Madam I am going to arrest you for obstructing a peace officer!” (His exact words.)

It sounds unbelievable but it’s true. One would think we were in Nazi Germany and were dealing with the Gestapo. That’s when I lost it and drove off. I later apologized for that.

Of course one reason he assaulted me a few minutes later was because I had left him standing in the middle of the street.

Mr. Brown’s comments about me being impaired and how that affects how I act to authority are way out of line.

They are an insult to anyone with a handicap as well as to seniors in general. For example, many older people have hearing problems to some extent. The other incident with this constable, in May, was triggered by me not having heard something.

It was followed by the rude, obnoxious and cocky behaviour of this cop and his partner. That’s what got it off the rails. There is a very credible witness to this. In that incident I finally got fed up because in the end I could not even make out what he was saying. All he would have had to do was use a professional, civilized approach.

Where we came from RCMP officers did not act like that and I have always respected them. From whatever armchair Mr. Brown is sitting, he is not a judge of how or to what extent someone’s handicap affects them in situations in spite of what was said in the press. What happened has left us changed, with a lot of questions.

One day we experienced something that we would have thought couldn’t happen in Canada. How could a constable be brazen enough to do what he did, unless he has gotten away with a lot of stuff before? We were told he had a history of incidents yet he was allowed to carry a Taser.

Why is this not properly addressed? Why does Kelowna have the highest rate of incidents per officer in B.C.? It only takes a few to give the police force a bad name.

How is it that officers can hide so much under the magic word, “combative?” That is, unless there is a video to prove it, or it is challenged in court. Why is there no mandatory drug testing for constables? Of course the question everyone asks is why do they investigate themselves?

Believe me I would be the last person on earth to be put on display. I don’t enjoy it one single bit. However, as so many people have said, this kind of out-of-control action, with such an absolute abuse of power and authority, has got to come to a halt otherwise more innocent people can be hurt.

When you try to protect yourself from getting hurt from an aggressive, vicious attack, you are now labelled as “combative.” Everyone has the right to defend themselves, so far, in this country.

There is never a need or reason to place someone’s life at risk over any road, or parking incident whether it is a minor, or even a major one. It just is not worth it. The RCMP are being paid, out of our tax dollars, to protect us, and not to terrorize us. We should not have to be afraid of them.

If I had run away from this and simply “let it go” what happens to others in the future, especially seniors? How many people who don’t have a voice have been assaulted and falsely charged? Evil continues when good people do nothing about it. Doing something about it is “taking responsibility.”

John Peters, Kelowna

This article above was found in the Kelowna Capital News