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Posted with permission from the sender who wants his story known.

Hello Charlie,

The dissatisfaction I have for not making an effort to publicize this sooner is unbearable now; but the absurdity in how I was attacked by Vancouverpolice makes me no less obliged to do so. My complacency is shameful to admit to you, but if you have advice that would help me incriminate the bastards most effectively, it would be greatly appreciated. Legal action is in process, but the incident happened on January 3rd, 2009.

The most notable bit of evidence I have been sitting on must be the two 15-second video clips I received of their assault, from a complete stranger’s cell phone! At the very least, I cannot wait any longer to publicize these in any way possible. You are free to intervene with this part, if you wish, and I will gladly send them to you.

Actually, the footage itself, and my actions that prompted this awesome stranger to film it, will show how strongly I feel about announcing when someone is doing wrong. That’s what makes this so regretful about waiting this long, and it is seriously wearing on my every day mood for not taking action.

That being said, let me tell where I am at so far, and please keep in mind I still have no idea how to handle this. After the shock wore off, with my huge black eyes, I called a few local newspapers and CBC about this. All of them were interested, mostly if I took legal action though. So, a friend that works for one of these newspapers put me in contact with a non-profit legal firm, called PivotLegal.com.

Legal Action:

I now have a case filed against the City of Vancouver through Pivot Legal, and after I presented them with the all evidence, they seem optimistic. I have reservations with any lawyer, but am somewhat content with them representing me on a contingency basis, mostly because the first two lawyers I contacted basically laughed me off. Still, my case has been passed through 3 lawyers now at Pivot, and they have been very evasive to me about my case.

The last development is we have received a Statement of Defense from the City, which is complete bullshit, and she was to ‘prepare a list of documents and moving forward.’ All three lawyers I met with mentioned this will probably be a Supreme Court case, and that we could also file a Civil Suit at a later date. I have also had nerve conduction tests done on my wrists periodically, from the handcuffs. Sound familiar? Otherwise, there are no other chronic injuries.

She is now waiting for me to sign the Contingency Form Agreement, which I am also reluctant about, but must act on this soon. The first line says ‘I authorize Pivot Legal to take any legal proceedings they consider appropriate to enforce my claim’. That makes my naïve mind wary, especially with them taking 30% of any amount recovered. This really is not about the money. Part of me would rather stuff it down their throats, actually. But, I do not want to be found in contempt of court over my lawyers actions either. Nor do I want to interfere with my objective for taking this legal action, to publicize this.

My intention is not to ask for legal advice here, but I thought this would be relevant.

Details of Incident

Most interesting is how this event even took place. It’s hard to be brief:
I flew into Vancouver that day, after spending Christmas with my family in Ontario. I met up with 5 others early that evening at a restaurant downtown. After maybe 3 drinks, we left to go elsewhere. We playfully were tossing snowballs at each other along the way; but when the downtown bar crowd got denser, the snowballs ended.
I never go to bars in this area, so I had no clue where we were going. The snowballs are not relevant other than it explaining why I was across the street from the others.
I crossed the street to meet my friends in line when I saw them stop. It was 11:30pm, and the street was jammed with people, like any usual Saturday night. Everybody J-walks on this street too, especially on this night, so I thought nothing of it, until I saw three cops approaching me immediately.
I thought it was strange how determined they looked, and I have many close acquaintances who are cops, so I thought I would diffuse the situation by being friendly ‘Hey guys, not sure if you saw us tossing snowballs back there (even though they didn’t), but I assure you we’re just getting in line here. There were groups of people on both sides of the street at this point.
The cops surrounded me and drilled me with questions, and asked for my ID. They learned I was new to the Province. I obliged and even joked ‘all right, but all I have with me is my Ontario license, hope that’ll do.’ The cop in charge quickly grabs it from my hands and hands the card behind him, with a big grin on his face too.
The junior cop comes rushing back and announces to the public ‘I see you are still on a conditional sentence order for assault causing bodily harm’. I said ‘That is bullshit, and you know it, that was over years ago.’ He smiles and immediately hands me back my license.

[Sidenote: In 2000, I made an extremely uncharacteristic decision. After an emotional conversation with an acquaintance about his niece being molested by his sister’s ex-boyfriend, and after many drinks, my best friend and I foolishly took a detour in walking home to visit the house where he knew this man was living. It was hardly a premeditated, but when he approached the door, we both rushed in and beat him up with our fists. The cops showed up in record time, and we were arrested and charged with Home Invasion. I had never been arrested prior to this.
The news was devastating to my family. My name and address were on the front page of our local newspaper that Monday morning when I was released, under the heading ‘Home Invasion’. For three years they kept me on strict conditions before it finally made it to court. It was a big struggle not to tell everyone around me the truth about what took place, but I was also trying to get off on a delay argument. Being a child molester does not justify my actions, but it seems to gain more sympathy than what people read in the paper.
The detectives had put the reason together by the next morning, in the interrogation, and knew it was an isolated incident. In fact, three years later, after I expressed in court how wrong it was to the man I did this to, they expressed their respect and support of me. Plus, I come from a small city, where everyone knows my family and I are good people. Case in point, my arresting officer I’ve known for years and was dating, and now married to, my ex-girlfriend. She’s crazy though, so not to worry. I got the minimum sentence, 15 months house arrest. I was 25.
After I was charged 3 years earlier, I went back to school to get my degree. So, I was on strict conditions and then house arrest for my entire 4 years at University. I think I paid my dues and I would never do something like that again.]

Back to this police assault- after the cop came back with my ID and broadcasted this former charge, the cop in charge asked me to leave the scene. I opposed his decision but the most I said was ‘this is bullshit, but fine I’m leaving.’
This is when things moved quickly. My friends approached me after I walked maybe ten feet from the scene, and decided they would also leave with me. At that moment, we decided to head in the other direction. Immediately, the cop in charge, again with a big grin, runs over and viciously places the cuffs on my wrists. I did not resist one bit, and the only words I kept repeating at this point were ‘why are you arresting me’ and ‘what is your badge number’.
Every cop had their badges covered with florescent road vests. There was no response, and this is when I got scared. I yelled out to the crowd ‘I’m being arrested for nothing’. At this point, the stranger began filming across the street, but not before my cuffed arms were held behind my back while 2-3 other cops ran over and repeatedly pounded on my face. Unfortunately, the video only captures the beat-down that followed. In the video, I’m still yelling ‘No reason! No reason!’ while I was face down in the snow, with 3 of them on top of me.
The second 15-second clip is shot from the same side of the street. You can see how far I was dragged around between. You see them pick me up and slam my motionless body on my stomach. You see one of the 3 cops stab at me repeatedly with something he seemed to put in his back pocket as he quickly retreats. You here the stranger filming narrating ‘Hey, that’s not fair, all you guys were punching him in the face while he was already in handcuffs!’ His girlfriend too you can hear, and even she got a punch to the face afterwards, when the cop missed my friend for defending me. He unbelievably just laughed it off.
I was really scared down there, and seriously felt tortured. They were punching me, stepping on my ankles, and the one hero cop was relentlessly forcing my arm into a pretzel hold. At that point, I was very winded, but begging for them to stop. ‘You’ve had enough Todd?’ I recall. I could barely stand. Again, I asked for badge numbers over and over, to no avail.
They stuffed me in the paddy wagon and joy ridded for about 20 minutes before taking me to what I thought was jail. Nope, they parked the van and left me for another 20. They took me out when they came back, only for me to realize I was not at jail, I was in some underground parking lot. My wrists were killing me at this point, but all they wanted to do is threaten me.
Finally, they take me to jail. I was at least another 2 hours with the cuffs on, standing in a really small room. Three others were dropped off and all were processed before me. All of them were starting trouble with me too, but I stayed quiet. The last one went from tough guy to weeping like a little boy, seconds after they pulled him in the next room. That was fucking scary.
Finally, I could not take the pain so I knocked on the door with my foot. The cop comes to the window ‘oh, I see your last name is French, so I guess you’ll have to wait a little longer.’ He slammed the window latch and came back 20 minutes later. He was very scary, and I knew he just did something really bad to the last guy, so I kept quiet.
The jail conditions were terrible. About 8 of us were in one small room, all trying to claim a spot to sleep. One guy puked, so they brought us to another room. We were back in the same room soon after, only to have the floor we were sleeping on soaking wet. I begged to use the washroom, but no response. I was mad, so I pissed in the one floor drain, almost over someone’s head.
A couple hours later, guys started talking and asking why my eyes were bulging so much.
I was convinced it was from the pavement or ice during the ground beating. That’s how traumatic there punches were to me. It took a friend days later to remind me what really happened.
At 5am I was released, in the worst part of Vancouver, with 2 black eyes and freezing cold in my wet clothes. Mixed in the bag with my stuff was a ticket for J-Walking and Intoxicated in Public. Unbelievable.

A week later, I returned to the same scene at the same time, looking for any of the officers while it was still fresh in my mind. Luckily, the only one I saw was the cop in charge, the one that held my arms behind my back for the others to hit me. While he was talking to 2 other cops, I approached him very closely, so he could get a good look at my black eyes. I had my cell phone camera in one hand and a black marker in the other. He was obviously surprised. I politely asked again for his badge number and name. He finally, but reluctantly gave them to me. I had to call the station to find out his first name.

The video clips I have are fairly low quality, but still revealing. I also have 5-7 witnesses, pictures of my black eyes afterwards, and the stranger also took pictures of the license plates of the cop cars at the scene.

I am anxious to publicize this in any way I can, and certainly plan to contact other media sources. Nonetheless, I know you are far from Canada, but your opinion is very valuable to me, and would love to hear from you if you have feedback about taking this further most effectively. Let me know if you wish to see the footage and/or the pictures.

You have been a great influence to me, and I am sorry for taking this long to take action. I think it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said “a time comes when silence is betrayal.’ That sounds about right.

Sincerely,
Todd J