Much of the incompetent violence that an overwhelmed Gatineau police force officer administered on a black man on a bicycle with a bicycle helmet happened before I was able to turn the camera on!
The bicyclist then had still his bike between his legs, while the first police officer was talking down on him with his arm extended, approaching from the left, the southern side of where the cyclist was, with no visible effort to achieve verbal consent while the suspect was protesting and fighting the altercation immediately. To my great shock the officer proceeded to patronize the suspect by touching his arm. The only thing I understood was the bicyclist yelling “ Laisse-moi”, and “laisse mon bicycle”. Later on a supervisor explained to me that the bicyclist was accused of stealing the bike. I pointed out to him that I found it really odd that man should have ridden that bike with a bicycle helmet. By the time my camera was recording his helmet was already off his head.
I got two things (while recording) wrong – The car that arrived first is the car on the left side – the car behind that car arrived third, not 2nd as mentioned – When I counted the cars, 4 cruisers were visible, the fifth car is the car of the supervisor which was parked on private property to my left from where I was standing.
I also want to make a point in saying that the supervisor who is visible trying to intimidate me telling me not to show the scene and not to implicate myself and not approach the scene four times came back asked me where I was living – that was after I gave him my business card with my name on it and invited the conversation after initially declining to show that I was about building relationships with the police and I respected the police very much in fact my opinion was that without lawful policing the state is just anarchy – the supervisor checked me in the database and I confirmed his findings – we exchanged a few positions which he claimed was the reason he came back to talk to me so he was making sure that I understood the position of the police and why they arrested the bicyclist at all – He shared with me that it was alleged that the suspect had stolen the bike he rode – I pointed out to the supervisor how odd it was that The suspect should wear a bicycle helmet – I also shared information with him that in my eyes this person had obviously mental issues as he was not surrendering to arrest and defending himself and fighting back – The officer expressed that he thought my words were well chosen when I said this man was unpredictable – He did not agree when I said he should’ve never been cornered and the situation should have been de-escalated instead of alone trying to arrest this suspect and slamming him into the house wall.
The other thing I need to correct is, it appears that there was only one officer separating the man from his bicycle. A second officer arrived only after the suspect got slammed into the wall of the nearby house by the first officer and received some kind of substance in his face which rendered him drooling and motionless within minutes.
I have more footage of events after this assault and the suspect ended up being wheeled off in a police cruiser after he received treatment by paramedics on the sidewalk next to an ambulance.