Victoria Police Kicking Suspects While They're Down

**kellyhound** · #1 ● 04-05-2010, 11:04 AM

A second man seen in a video being kicked by a Victoria police officer on a downtown street last weekend said he is suing the department for assault and breach of his Charter rights.

Harpinder Kang, 23, is the man on the ground in the foreground at the start of the 56-second video, shot by passerby Mike Morellato of Vancouver at 12:30 a.m. on Sunday last week.

It appears one or more officers are trying to arrest Kang when an officer in a yellow jacket approaches and kicks him twice.

Another man, Tyler Archer, 19, was also kicked by the yellow-jacketed officer while he was being arrested; he is seen in the second half of the video, being arrested on a grassy median.

In an interview yesterday, Kang said he didn’t know the group of young men, aged 19 to 27, who apparently had been fighting on Store Street outside Market Square that night.

He and his girlfriend had decided to leave a lineup to get into the Social Club when they happened upon the fight.

He said he was drawn into the melee when his girlfriend was pushed.

Victoria police say that when they arrived on scene, the brawl had seriously injured one man, who has yet to be identified, and that the officers were trying to stop the violence by arresting everyone involved.

The yellow-jacketed officer, who was the acting sargeant that night, is now the subject of both a criminal investigation by the Vancouver police department and an internal Victoria police investigation.

A nine-year veteran of the force, he has been reassigned to administrative duties.

Both Archer and Kang have retained lawyer Richard Neary, who represented Willow Kinloch who was awarded $60,000 by a jury after the teenager sued the city and police for tethering her in cells for hours in 2005.

Yesterday, Kang said he’s in pain from the kicks and his knee is bruised and reddened from being pushed down onto the cement.

“[I’ve] never, never in my life” had anything like that happen, he said, adding that he had been pepper-sprayed and was being compliant when the officer kicked him.

“This is a young man without a criminal record, who hadn’t had a drink and had done nothing wrong,” Neary said.

He said Archer and Kang weren’t charged with anything and were released after police officers took down their names.