NATALIE DAVIS

Have you ever recorded a police-related incident on your phone?

There seems to be some ambiguity in Canadian society about the rights and relationship between civilians and the police officers who protect them.

When someone films an incident involving police, they are oftentimes ordered to shut off their recording device or even surrender it to the officer for the data to be erased. The civilian usually complies with the officer’s request, thinking they are breaking some sort of law by filming the proceedings. In fact, they are not breaking any laws and the officer is violating the charter rights of said person.

This fact is surprising to many people and that is something that needs to change. It is imperative that members of society are aware of their rights when it comes to interacting with officers in order to minimize incidents of unfair conduct and, in extreme cases, police brutality.

According to Section 129 of the Canadian Criminal Code, any person who “resists or wilfully obstructs a public officer or peace officer in the execution of his duty or any person lawfully acting in aid of such an officer” is breaking the law. Nowhere in the Criminal Code does it state that a person cannot film a police officer performing his duties.

In fact, police officers have no privacy rights in public when executing their duties. Confirming this information flies in the face of some wayward officers’ behaviour in Canada.

In an incident on Oct. 14, 2007, Robert Dziekański died after being tasered five times by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers at the Vancouver International Airport. Dziekański was emigrating from Poland to live with his mother, Zofia Cisowski, in Kamloops, B.C.; Dziekański spoke very little English and required a translator to get through customs. He was two hours late when he finally got out of the customs hall.

Reportedly, airport officials communicated to his mother that he had missed his flight, and she subsequently returned to Kamloops. Dziekański became increasingly distraught as he could not understand what the airport officials were saying. After many hours of distress and confusion, he eventually propped open the door to the waiting area and threw a computer and small table at the windows of the room before police arrived at the scene.

An article from the CBC indicates that the tasers were administered 25 seconds after police arrived in lieu of less violent procedures or attempts to diffuse the situation. This incident sheds a grim light on Canadian policing.

We are a country that the world views as peaceable and tolerant, yet an acceptable initial reaction of an RCMP officer is the use of deadly force?

Another traveller at the airport, Paul Pritchard, caught the entire incident on his camera phone and was implored by the officers involved to hand over the device with the promise that it would be returned within 48 hours. When the phone was given back, it had a new memory card — the card containing the video was still in police possession.

Consequently, Pritchard sued the RCMP for the return of the memory card under Section 8 of the charter, unreasonable seizure of property. Pritchard won the case and was paid by CTV, CBC and Canwest News for the broadcasting rights of the disturbing footage.

Of the four officers involved in the incident, three remain on duty elsewhere in Canada and only one, Corporal Benjamin “Monty” Robinson, resigned from the force on July 20, 2012 following a separate incident concerning the death of a 21-year-old Vancouver man after a motorcycle accident.

Coincidentally, Robinson had consumed five beers prior to the vehicular accident and two shots of vodka after leaving the scene “to calm his nerves” according to the Vancouver Sun. He was charged with obstruction of justice for trying to block police investigation of the collision. Additionally, he was put on one month house arrest but received no jail time for either incident and was not charged for any crime as a result of the Dziekański incident.

The transformative hardening of a veteran police officer is a very real concern within the RCMP. In a phenomenon that started in the United States, known as the Blue Code of Silence, officers follow an unwritten rule not to expose each other’s indiscretions. This implied code of conduct has spread to Canadian police and has led some officers to conduct themselves as if they are above the law and to behave  inappropriately on duty.

One man exemplifies this perfectly. Earlier this year Jack Redlick, a former constable of the Edmonton Police Service, was handed a one year demotion — a $15,000 drop in salary —  for beating a man named George Petropoulos who had been picked up by Redlick and his partner on suspicion of a domestic incident with his mother.

On the way to the station Redlick reportedly called the man a coward and ordered his partner to turn into a high school parking lot so he could administer justice as he saw fit.

According to the police report from Petropoulos, Redlick undid his handcuffs, kicked his feet out when Petropoulos swung and then hit him several times in the lower back.

Petropoulos also stated that Redlick told him this was not the first time he had taken matters into his own hands. The incident was initially denied by Redlick, but he later admitted to his actions as “discreditable conduct” under the Police Act.

His partner is facing disciplinary action for following the Blue Code of Silence.

There are good and bad people everywhere in the world, but those people employed to protect and serve the public need to be trustworthy. Yet corruption in police forces, though unpleasant to think of, is nonetheless prevalent.

The majority of the public has a camera phone on hand at any given moment. It is a right — and perhaps even an obligation — of the people to record police as they conduct their business to prevent incidents like those aforementioned from occurring.

Hopefully there will be a time in the near future when police operate as justly as possible but, until that time, remember you have the right to peacefully film the police.

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Photo: thejustinsinner/flickr