Items

• Victim who was cooperating suffers serious injuries when officer releases police dog to attack

  The victim alleges that in 2009, Constable Dzioba pulled him over for a missing licence plate. The Statement of Claim states that the victim cooperated by getting out of the car, placing his keys on the ground, putting his hands behind his head and approaching the officer to surrender. Despite this, the victim claims that Dzioba deployed his police dog without any warning or prior instruction to the victim. The victim suffered extensive injuries as the dog bit him for several minutes, resulting in permanent injuries and muscle damage. In 2012, Dzioba was due to attend a disciplinary hearing for unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority and deceit with relation to this event. He turned in his badge and resigned the day before the hearing was meant to occur.
• Edmonton Police sued after officer allegedly kicks Indigenous youth in the head

  At about 4:15 a.m. officers responded to a trouble not known call at a home in the area of 62 Avenue and 178 Street with reports that a fight involving a weapon was taking place inside. During the search, police asked Pacey Dumas and his brother Blair, who is a year older, to step outside. Both complied. Blair was placed in handcuffs, while Pacey was ordered laid face down on the sidewalk with his hands out. Suddenly and without warning (Todd; the officer) moved swiftly to Pacey and while in motion kicked Pacey in the right side of his head with such force Pacey was immediately rendered unconscious and bleeding, After the alleged assault, Pacey was dragged by two unknown officers to a spot two houses away. It claims none of the officers who attended the scene gave Pacey medical attention.
• String of disciplinary hearings, charges and lawsuits follow 2010 EPS beating of 29-year-old man

  In January of 2010, several police officers arrived at the home of Kazimierz Kozina's parents to search for drugs, as they suspected Kozina of drug trafficking. According to Kozina, several officers including Constable Redlick told him they wanted to "beat the shit" out of him. In February 2010, Constables Jack Redlick, Jason Kemp, Craig Offin and Phil Leeman arranged a 'buy and bust' from Kozina. After Kozina sold drugs to an undercover Leeman in the front seat of a Pontiac Sunfire, Redlick and Kemp approached the vehicle, Redlick with his gun drawn, and opened the passenger door and ordered Kozina out of the vehicle. They claim that Kozina pressed himself into the seat, and as Kemp reached into the car and grabbed Kozina's clothing, he began to flail his arms. Kemp punched him twice with "full speed and power", and Redlick threw three additional punches, two at Kozina's head, in what he claims was an attempt to get Kozina out of the car. CBC News summarized their testimony of the rest of the incident - ""The fight was on immediately outside the car as well," [Kemp] said. Redlick testified, "I shove him as hard as I can with both hands straight down to the ground. Then he tries to get back on his feet. "I yell at him again to stay down. I don't want to punch him in the back of the head because it will break my hand." Instead, Redlick hit Kozina on the back of the head with an open palm. Const. Offin [another undercover officer] also entered the fray. "This is happening fairly quickly," he had testified earlier. "You just rely on your training to do what is necessary." Offin was also charged, but the charge against him was dropped when he resigned from the police service. He testified Wednesday as a witness. Offin said he delivered two strikes to Kozina's back in an attempt to control him. Kemp said he "delivered five or six short kind of rabbit jabs to his mid-section." While Kozina continued to flail on the ground, more officers ran to assist. In the confusion, Kemp said an officer punched him in the back of the head, someone else grabbed his legs by mistake, and a third officer even jumped on his shoulders and drove his head into the ground. Kemp described it as a "melee," while Offin called it a "schmozz," with "a bunch of bodies and arms going everywhere." Kemp said, "I overheard Kazimierz yelling out, 'Why are you doing this?'" Kemp said he pleaded with the suspect to just "give me your hands and we will stop." Kozina was handcuffed and led to a police car. He had to be taken to hospital that night. He suffered a fractured orbital bone that ultimately required reconstructive surgery, plus cuts, bruises and a spinal injury." (CBC News, June 3, 2016). A witness, EPS officer Derek Huff, later estimated that between 15-20 punches were thrown once Kozina was handcuffed on the ground, and described Kozina's condition saying His face was a great big giant black ball & of blood and bruising, said Huff. It looked like he had a gotten into a full head-on collision and smashed his head into a steering wheel. (CBC News, Sept 27, 2013) Huff claimed that Kemp's injury, which Kemp blamed on Kozina and used as justification for his use of force, was a result of a mislaid punch from another officer. Kozina launched a formal complaint against the officers involved in 2010, which was dismissed by Chief Mike Boyd later that year. Kozina appealed to the Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB), which required the new Chief Rod Knecht to re-examine the allegations. Knecht sent the matter to a disciplinary hearing, which dismissed Police Act charges against the officers in July 2016. The presiding officer in that review, retired Court of Queen's Bench judge Mel Binder, described Constable Redlick in glowing terms - "Const. Redlick struck me as a solid, street-smart, hard-nosed but fair police officer, with basic common sense, who would tell it as it is and who would call a spade a spade" (CBC News, July 21, 2016), a statement that Kozina's lawyer Tom Engel noted was particularly problematic. In the same hearing, two other EPS officers (one of whom Kozina accused of participating in the assault) testified that they "didn't recall" seeing Huff at the scene of the incident, and claimed that Kozina was resisting the arrest, justifying Redlick and Kemp's actions. Kozina again appealed this decision to LERB, which upheld the it. As of 2021, he is seeking a judicial review of the decision. A separate ASIRT investigation concluded in 2014 with no charges against the officers. Kozina filed a lawsuit in September 2015 for $1 million in damages for physical and psychological injuries that affected his ability to work. Kozina's lawsuit alleged that police attempted to cover up the incident and failed to disclose brutality allegations that were made by a witness (a former EPS officer) to CBC in 2013. That officer, Derek Huff, told CBC that he repeatedly reported his concerns about the arrest and how it was characterized in the arresting officers' reports, resulting in mistreatment from his fellow officers for breaking the "code of silence" (Edmonton Journal, Sept 27, 2019). In June 2012 Huff went to the deputy chief and wrote a formal complaint, which was sent to ASIRT, triggering an investigation. The Edmonton Sun reported that the handling of the incident led to the transfer of several constables, a staff sergeant and a superintendent (Edmonton Sun, Sept 30, 2013). Huff resigned from the force in February 2013 and filed a lawsuit against the City of Edmonton and EPS, along with the current and former police chiefs and several officers and supervisors, claiming that following his whistleblowing on the incident he was harassed by other EPS staff to the point it affected his mental health and a diagnosis of PTSD; the lawsuit was dropped in November 2014. CBC News reported in 2016 that Huff was facing two criminal charges for uttering death threats against Redlick and Kemp in an email to another officer, but the Archive team has yet to locate information about the outcome of that case. Kozina pled guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance and obstruction of a peace officer on Oct. 25, 2011, but later submitted an appeal on the basis that Huff's information had not been disclosed. The Court of Appeal set aside his guilty plea and quashed his conviction on July 14, 2015.
• Suspect violently assaulted during arrest near Alberta Legislature

  A violent arrest caught on camera in 2019 led to an assault charge being laid against EPS officer Dylan Awid. Police officers gave chase to a truck they identified as stolen on the evening of June 11, 2019, with an EPS helicopter tracking the vehicle to an apartment building parking lot near the Alberta Legislature building. Police vehicles converged on the scene and boxed the truck in after it rammed vehicles to the rear and front in an attempt to escape. When the truck came to a halt, one officer exited the passenger side of the nearest police SUV and approached the car. As the driver, Kyle Parkhurst, opened the door and climbed out of the vehicle, the officer kicked the door against him, then struck him in the head with his gun. Parkhurst then fell to the ground, at which point he was kicked and punched multiple times; police also confirmed that he was Tasered twice during the arrest. One officer, later identified as Constable Dylan Awid, kicked Parkhurst multiple times before pulling him to his feet while handcuffed and slamming his head into a brick wall. He struck Parkhurst in the head with his elbow, then while walking him towards the police cruiser, violently shoved him up against it. Security camera footage of the incident shows officers appearing to re-enact the violence of the arrest after Parkhurst has been placed in custody. Experts interviewed by CBC about the footage indicated that an officer who appeared to deliberately walk away from the scene once the assault began appeared to be a sergeant; none of the many officers at the scene appear to attempt to intervene. Parkhurst's lawyer claims that after being taken into custody, his requests to see a doctor were denied and his injuries were never photographed, and asserts that his blood-soaked shirt was covered with a sweater when his mug shot photo was taken. EPS claims that Parkhurst was assessed by a parademic at the police station and his injuries were deemed minor. He stated that his mouth filled with blood for several hours after the incident, he suffered headaches and migranes several weeks after the incident, and had no memory of being thrown against the wall. He was not assessed by a doctor until two weeks later, when a lawyer acting for his grandmother filed a written complaint. In a subsequent legal filing Parkhurst stated he submitted dozens of written requests for medical treatment for severe headaches, numbness, and tingling in his legs and torso, as well as mental health issues, but was only seen by a doctor once. Some media reporting on the incident described it as "methamphetamine-fueled" but it is not clear when/whether Parkhurst was tested for substances. EPS appears to have been reluctant to provide information to the media following the incident. They announced their Professional Standards Branch would investigate after bystander videos of the incident were released online, but did not disclose to the media that they were also initiating a criminal investigation, which was discovered by CBC News when they spoke to the provincial director of law enforcement, Bill Sweeney, about why EPS was permitted to internally investigate an alleged assault on a prisoner. The day after CBC ran the July 9 story about the internal investigation, it was handed over to ASIRT (the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team). Reporters were later able to ascertain that Constable Awid had been removed from active duty sometime after the incident. In October 2021, ASIRT determined that Awid should be charged for the violence that occurred after Parkhurst was handcuffed, and on October 7, 2021 he was charged with one count of assault. The charge against Awid was stayed on November 8, 2021; the Edmonton Journal reported "a spokesperson for Albertas Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General told Postmedia that Alberta Crown Prosecution Services (ACPS) standard for prosecution is higher than that of the police, and that its possible for a case to meet one standard, but fail to meet a more onerous standard at higher levels of the justice system. In this case, an ACPS prosecutor reviewed the investigation and surrounding circumstances and concluded that the charges did not meet our standard for prosecution, the statement said" (Edmonton Journal, November 16, 2021). No reason was given by the ministry or the Crown for why this decision was made. Parkhurst was originally charged with nine offences, eventually reduced to four to which he pled guilty - possession of stolen property over $5,000; dangerous operation of a motor vehicle; driving while disqualified; and breach of recognizance. In August 2021 Parkhurst filed a lawsuit against Awid and six other police officers including Police Chief Dale McFee, Alberta Health Services, and the Alberta government, for $100,000. The Archive team will update this incident as the lawsuit proceeds and more information about the dropped charges becomes available.