Cop caught on camera pushing disabled woman

He should've shielded his gun with his hand and turn his body away from her.
This is clearly a frustrated cop that walks around as if he owns the streets.

On the other hand having walked trough such areas myself on occasion you start to classify everyone as a potential threat or drug addict/homeless/drunk...

Doesn't justify the officers action though.

They were blocking nearly the entire sidewalk, taking up as much room as possible. Eventually, someone was going to bump into them, since neither had any inclination to move out of the way whatsoever.

It had to be a disabled person, of course, who obviously isn't blessed enough to have the proper mobility required to move out of the way of three arrogant and overweight (they were waddling like penguins ) cops, blocking the whole sidewalk.

He should have been suspended, at the very least. It's not often that you see such a display of arrogance and public intimidation. I mean, really, taking up the entire sidewalk in a seriously congested public walkway?

And why is it that all cops have this mentality that everyone is out to kill them? Seriously? Even in remote, rural areas, people that I've known personally will assume that "everyone is out to get them" and everyone is a potential "cop killer". I live in New England, in a rather small rural mill-town. It takes all but 2 minutes to drive through this area, and I've known cops who think like this. They're so paranoid of everything.

I know this is Vancouver, supposedly, and that it's an urban area (somewhat), but this isn't Detroit or Baltimore. The likelihood of someone snatching a beat-walking cop's gun on the sidewalk is... well, it's more than unlikely.

In most other scenarios, anyone who thinks like this would be considered a paranoid schizophrenic, on the grounds that they perceive every living soul as a possible "threat" to their person. No, I'm not joking. Some of you LEO's need to grow the heck up.

[edit on 24-7-2010 by SyphonX]

This is time for as many of us, especially the citizens of vancouver to email, write, show up and prtest in peson to the local governement buildings, for this lame and weak cops actions. he lokos like a big guy, and pushed down a crippled woman what a man of men he is
it loks like, when he shoved her down, he is pointing at her and says somkething too her..i wonder what he said too her, that would be interesting.

Originally posted by no special characters
On the other hand having walked trough such areas myself on occasion you start to classify everyone as a potential threat or drug addict/homeless/drunk...

True, but should you or any other civilian decide they have the right to push people onto the pavement, because you wanted to walk down the sidewalk with no regard to others, you would probably have been arrested, and at the very least reported.

I dare anyone to walk down the street with 2 heavyset friends and go ahead and block the whole sidewalk, pushing anyone to the ground that doesn't get out of your way. It's not behavior that's expected of any law abiding or decent people, let alone, behavior expected of a cop that doesn't even reside in a high-crime area at all.

I really don't think there's any way the police officer can worm his way out of this one - the woman clearly has a disability and doesn't look under the influence. And if she had touched his belt as some people are saying could've happened, why didn't he proceed to arrest her if he thought she was any real threat? And then when she was on the floor and he could clearly see she had a disability, why did he just walk away without giving her any assistance? That animal should've been suspended at the very least.

he's only sorry that he got caught.

Originally posted by p51mustang
he's only sorry that he got caught.

Aren't they always?

I went looking for more news reports on YouTube and found many more videos from previous incidents that "claim" to be police brutality in Vancouver. If you feel the need look them up but I mainly saw drunk people fighting, resisting arrest and doing other stupid stuff that will result in you having your behind handed to you by the police.

No additional reports that I could find regarding this incident.

However, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association has taken on the cause:
BC CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION

Look when you have three fat cops who havn't eaten anything in the past hour and they are heading for the bun shop ..... keep outa the way !


As somebody else said the area looks kind of shady, the sort of place which if you were a disabled lady you would likely need the protection of police from time to time. You would regard police as friends.

As the saying goes "who needs enemies when you have friends like these"

The cop needs training on how to behave.

Good cops are not scared!
.When you walk like this towards poeple, if you're scared you see everybody defiyng you. You know like a paronoid...Some cops are not evaluated well enough and should not be on the street.

Cops exist solely to enforce the will of the government, if the government is corrupt so are the cops. ALL cops are corrupt, the one guy who was polite to you one time protects every other corrupt cop and be realistic, the next time he may not be so polite, maybe your 12 year old kid put up a lemonade stand. Cops are not decent people, they are an embarrassment to decent people.

reply to post by EyeHeartBigfoot


I read the full article that you linked, and the only thing I have to say is that I've never read so much doublespeak since I last read 1984. I came away from the linked article thinking... wtf did they just say? I couldn't tell anything until after a second reading. Anyway.... thanks for the post!

Everyday we see this; thug cops pushing people around like the cowards they are. When are we, as a society, going to see that cops are no longer our uncles, friends, fellow church members, but a bunch of paid thugs working for private security (cities and counties are corporations, thus cops are private security) AGAINST OUR INTERESTS? When are we going to say enough is enough and do something about it?

Note: no paid blogger cops writing in to apologize for or justify their sleeze cohorts doing atrocities to the citizens who pay them for protection.

I am not anti police or government yet Canada and its government are increasingly becoming a NAZI style police state.

As one who has been on the inside circle once or twice the attitude that I have observed among the police is scary to say the least.

For one unless you fall in, lock 'n step, you will be ostracized by the Canadian police. It reminds me of high school bullies hanging out together except with "uniforms" and SOP for behavior.

I have heard a number of times around the police, RCMP and Civic that "..we can do whatever we want to do..". And the actions of the Canadian police forces show this behavior in its everyday activities.

Now to be fair not all police are conformists. Most are. The very idea of uniform creates conformity.

In Canada we have numerous examples of insane brutality.

1. North BC a young Caucasian male was shot in the back of the head while in his cell, in handcuffs. Officer was afraid he might lose his job but he was exonerated.

2. Vancouver airport tazered a Polish immigrant killing him in the airport.

3. A officer involved in the Vancouver airport murder later killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, left the scene of the accident, returned without being charged.

4. A Saskatoon man, first nation, was dropped off to freeze to death by two officers in 40 below weather..his body was found days later.

5. A young first nation man was shot in Winnipeg...no weapons on the young 16 year old male.

etc etc....

To be fair the poplace that are "policed" are much worse then our police as they seem to live like animals...killing and stealing, stabbing each other...insanity faced by our police.

So it is a cluster-fudge.

I have come to term this dysfunction as the unnamed civil war in Canada as tensions mount over the crazy crap we have going on.

The women pushed by the police in the video is innocent. Something needs to be done to these cops who are nothing more then criminals in uniform.

But how does a law abiding citizen react to this chaos?

First we must recognize the deep need for law and order.

Second we need to, as law abiding citizens, call out the police and force them to comply to law.

I think justice would be best served here, if they could take this particular cop, tie him in a chair, in a room with the cerebral palsy woman. Give the woman a taser, and let her go to town for at least 5 minutes.

How's that sound?

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
Okay. Read all three stories. Watched the video a few times. Looks damning but without knowing exactly what words were exchanged, it's hard to tell exactly how heinous or not heinous it was.

"I was walking home and I reached my hand up because I was trying to get through … but the tall guy pushed me down because they thought I was grabbing their gun because I touched the belt," she said.

If she touched his belt and he thought she was going after his gun, he would be obligated to try to prevent that. He had no way of knowing she had a disability, and may have thought she was drunk or drugged. Her speech, through no fault of her own, iis a bit garbled. Unless the officer knew her personally, he had no way of knowing what the situation was there.

As to her saying that she said excuse me and explained her disability in the few brief seconds before impact, again, she may not have been as clear as she thought she was being.

The two other officers stood back to see how it would develop. The officer who did the pushing did stop and did speak to her, and his body language showed concern. Even as he walked away he looked back twice, as if to say, are you sure? And the other woman rushing to help her was nice, and it also may have been better that another woman was helping her up and making sure she was okay than the male officer putting his hands on her further.

For all we know, she might have been embarrassed and said, it's okay, I'm fine, go away, or words to that effect, probably never intending to pursue it further until someone approached her or talked her into it.

Not saying this is what happened, but it well could be an alternate scenario to the one where people are immediately horrified and assume the worst.

Thing here again is that there is simply too much we didn't hear and don't know from this brief glimpse, and what the woman said afterward didn't really elaborate on it all that much. Maybe her attorneys told her not to say too much while the investigation was open.

Gut feel says this was and unfortunate unraveling of events and misunderstanding. Let's see if the investigation elaborates on it further.

[Go ahead...call me a cop lover and a cop apologist...I can take it!]

Gang signs?

[edit on 7/23/2010 by ~Lucidity]

Lucidity to the rescue!!! Can police do anything at all that you will not defend? If they punch kittens and kick babies will you twist it so they were in the right? Seems like it......

I don't like knee-jerk reactions.

I don't like jumping to conclusions.

And I don't like bad cops...


These are the words of the woman as quoted by media reports in the links;

There is no dialogue in the video, so it's impossible to say what
prompted the push. But the woman, Sandy, says she didn't do a thing.
"I was walking home and I reached my hand up because I was trying to
get through … but the tall guy pushed me down because they thought I
was grabbing their gun because I touched the belt," Sandy told CBC.
Cerebral palsy affects people's muscles and motor functions, causing
spasms and involuntary movements. Sandy said she asked the officers
to let her get through. "I asked them, 'Excuse me, please,' and I told
them three times [that] I have a disability … and [after I fell] they
walked away like nothing happened."

She is either "mis-recalling" the event, or lying. I am going to give her the
benefit of doubt in this instance...

After watching the video several times, there is no way possible this
woman had the time to state "Excuse me please, I am disabled, I am
disabled, I am disabled," before the push happened.

At best, she said "Excuse me please," and then she was pushed.

I expect the rest of the conversation took place while she was on the
ground--the "I am disabled" part, and the cop's reference to thinking
she was going for his gun (to cover his @ss).

Now to give the cop benefit of doubt. This is a slum area and in the video
you see homeless people on the sidewalk. The cop's excuse that he thought
she may have been reaching for his gun is a plausible one. In fact it would
have been enough to clear him if not for the video...

The video shows a distracted cop, unwilling to move to let a woman pass,
and when she doesn't move for him, she gets pushed.

This is the kind of officer that abuses his authority. In my experience
(and I have been arrested about 15 times, and had encounters with
police maybe another 30 times) about 1 out of 5 cops like to abuse
their authority. They are type that enjoy letting you know they have
the upper hand and you had better tow the line they personally set...
OR ELSE.

These type of cops are on a power trip....And this cop is one of them.


[edit on 24-7-2010 by rival]

Originally posted by elcapitano75
I think justice would be best served here, if they could take this particular cop, tie him in a chair, in a room with the cerebral palsy woman. Give the woman a taser, and let her go to town for at least 5 minutes.

How's that sound?

I would say 90 seconds would be fair. But if her arm had broken I would
go with 15 minutes, or until the officer passed out, whichever comes first.

But sounds fair to me...

You guys think being nice and passive is going to end this?? NOPE! Its not just a few bad coins but MOST are bad coins. However MOST cops are smart enough to not do this in front of the DASH CAM!!!!! Internal Affairs doesnt work it has proven to be corrupt and NOT EFFECETIVE! WE the people have to be more drastic. What ever say Im inciting violence or watever but our system is NOT stopping this garbage that happens everyday in EVERY state!

The best part is his superiors didnt even find this video disturbing enough to lay him off he is still working til the 6mos investigation is finished. We should ALL be ashamed! If I did this at any JOB I would be fired immediately especially with being on CAMERA!!!! Anyone else find this SICK!?!?!?!?!?

[edit on 24-7-2010 by Interfacer]

Originally posted by defcon5
The officer committed Battery on a civilian, and he is still on the job pending an investigation? Why is he not behind bars pending an investigation like any normal civilian would be. As a matter of fact, as he is a police officer, is armed, and should know the law better then anyone else, his charges should be ramped up to the next higher level of Aggravated Battery.

Because of their union of course. If not on duty with pay, he'd be off on paid suspension. That's how it works. He's not been charged with anything.... yet.

That said, look at the area:

The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is known as "Canada's poorest postal code".

The area is noted for a high incidence of poverty, drug use, sex trade, crime, as well as a history of community activism.[3] Hastings and Cordova Streets were once the core shopping district in the city,[4][5][6][7] many of the retail shops that flourished until the early 1980s are now gone.

en.wikipedia.org...

The OP's source even said that special training is needed to work in this area. My question is why was a rookie patrolling this area? Damn poor management imo.

Try the cop for assault, if he is found guilty...
Sentence him to do the appropriate time in the appropriate facility. Televise the vid on the news to the inmates just before he arrives, and then televise the result to every cadet at the police academy.