Items

• Woman assaulted during wellness check

  **The account below is a community submission to the Archive. It has been anonymized to protect the identity of the person(s) and agency involved. This account is a personal reflection based on lived experience and opinions. All incidents are allegations not proven in a court of law, and the Archive does not investigate the veracity of reported incidents.** On May 23 around 1:30 pm, I had walked from my home to a park bench while experiencing an autistic meltdown. My partner was worried about me and called the police, with the understanding that they would send a crisis intervention team paired with an AHS mental health specialist to assess the situation and ensure my safety. A screenshot of the PACT (Police and Crisis Response Team) policy from their website is attached. I texted [my partner] with my exact GPS coordinates. There were other witnesses there that can attest to me sitting/lying peacefully (though crying) on the park bench. [My partner] came and found me. We embraced. She consoled me. And she told me I’d have to talk to the police before we went home. I said “I don’t want to talk to the police” (bad experiences, go figure). When the male officer who had just came into my field of vision said my “boyfriend” was pretty worried about me, I responded “not my boyfriend” (as she is trans). IMMEDIATELY both officers had their hands on me (the female officer from behind on my left (I hadn’t even seen her), and the male officer right in my face. I didn’t recall until later that in this moment I screamed. The same blood curdling scream I’ve let out when assaulted previously. I left my body. I wasn’t there. I was again a powerless child in the vice grip of my abusive father. The male officer then slapped me in the face. From there they were dragging me, tackling me, trying to restrain me, threatening to taze me, and never telling me why. [My partner], who had made the call in the first place, was BEGGING them to stop, asking them why they were escalating, pleaded with them to stop. The male officer then threatened to taze her and put her in a choke hold and dragged her away from me. We tried telling them I’m autistic (I am). They laughed and called me a “fucking retard”. I submitted and let them tackle me to the ground and cuff me. 4 officers had me pinned and I couldn’t breathe. I am a 5’5” average frame woman. They dragged me across the grass to the cop car. One of my shoes fell off and they slammed me against the side of the car and kicked my legs open to pat me down for weapons before tossing me in the back of the car where I could see my partner lying on the ground having a panic attack. The officers then proceeded to tell me repeatedly that I didn’t know how lucky I was that they didn’t “punch me out” in the face. And they mocked [my partner] for calling the police for “help” and then refusing said “help”. They kept me in cuffs for 4 hours. I spent 2.5 in the waiting room at the hospital. I was not permitted any water until [my partner] happened to find me there and asked the staff and police attending to me if she could get me some. I had asked for water repeatedly and the cops refused. I had literally had a psychiatrist appointment earlier that day and she swapped my meds for the following day because my Vyvanse was preventing me from eating and drinking. I was on the tail end of an autistic meltdown after regulating myself with a walk when the police tackled me, beat me, berated me, and then denied me basic human rights like water and even a phone call. (Since I wasn’t under arrest, they didn’t need to give me a call). They told [my partner] once she got to the hospital that the reason I was in cuffs is because under the Mental Health Act, they “can”. Again… forgetting that the EPS has the PACT policy in place. How could the cops justify holding me under the Mental Health Act when they didn’t follow the procedure to ensure they weren’t violating that very act? The cops were not wearing body cams in spite of there province mandating their use in 2023: I was told this was a “pilot”—in other words, they’ve had a mandate for 2 years to get body cams on cops and still haven’t. Why is there no publicly register for police officers? I cannot look up these MFers last names nor badge numbers to confirm their status. As far as I know there’s zero transparency for cops with black marks on their records. Who watches the watchman. Pictures enclosed of my bruising."
• Organizer Testimonial: The Unhoused Woman

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** I was trying to think of like some other like cases of police violence that we've kind of been like, a bit more proximal to. And one of the ones was just like, there was a old woman who, I think now she is like in hospice care, but she was staying in a tent, kind of like by the train tracks south of white Ave. And it was really quite obvious that, like everybody in this situation, really wanted to get her into housing, even the cops and like the cops who were involved were always like, trying to be you. Like, as as good as they could be, but like, at a certain point they just, they're like, we, we have to do our job. And like, we have to, like, kick this woman out of her tent and move her somewhere else. And they even acknowledged how, just, like, pointlessly Sisyphean, this was because they were like, we will. We need to move you from this spot. I We will take your belongings in the back of the police car and move you to somewhere else that we think people are less likely to complain about because, like, we can't get you into housing right now. Everyone can recognize this like old lady who is like sick and clearly needs help, should not be on the street, but also, they got the complaint, they have to move her. And so it's just like, even when they were being nice, even when it's like, yes, we're gonna pick up all your belongings, we're gonna help you move them to a new spot, it's still just like, you just didn't have to move her, though, like, there's even when they're, like, trying to engage their humanity. It's just like their job is to be bastards and to do violence. And that one really, like, stuck out at me again, similar to that other case, where it's like they took someone's tent, put it back together and put it underneath a tree. It's like all of this is totally pointless. There's no reason other than like our desire to be cruel, right? This has to happen.
• Organizer Testimonial: Public Bathrooms and Lack of Access

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** We're here on like, Whyte Ave, and there's businesses that are always just like, all these homeless people, like peeing on the back of our stores, breaking our windows, causing a scene, and it's like, and how much of that, though, is because it's like, you know, how many times can you be told, No, you can't go to the bathroom here before you break like, I think about that all the time that you know we have the privilege of being able to go in to private to do our business. This is like, sometimes we just can't. And, yeah, and it's just like, how many, how many little, tiny indignities could you suffer before you were like, fuck you. And I think a lot of people actually have a pretty short fuse for that. And like in my day job, I interact with public quite frequently. And it's staggering how many people have like, freak outs every, every single day. But they have their freak outs at home, or they're, you know, they're freaking out, but they have enough money that they can get in their car and drive away once things get heated, like they don't have to have these crises in public. And so no one really notices or cares, but someone has a crisis in public, and suddenly they're getting thrown into the concrete face first by a police officer and. It's just like this ridiculous double standard, and from a harm reduction perspective, it really doesn't need to exist. Like one of the campaigns that we had a few years ago was like potties, not police that think about how much better our communities would be, especially like white Avenue downtown, if we had public bathrooms everywhere. Like, how much less conflict would there be if people weren't being turned away from businesses all the time? If they weren't, like, forced to take a poop behind a dumpster because they wanted, just like, any kind of privacy whatsoever, our streets would be way safer. Like, people would be like, much nicer to one another, and it would also be nice even for just like everybody else, but it's not provided. One of my favorite little things that I found in the archives is that in 1921 the city council passed like a little like construction passed a budget item to build a public rest house on Jasper avenue of 100 bathroom stalls. This was in like 19 the 1920s the population of Edmonton was like 10,000 people. But the what they identified was that there were lots of people who are just now getting cars, and like driving into Jasper, Ave from outlying communities, and they didn't have anywhere to go to the bathroom, and so they said, We will build a rest house so that all of these people coming into Edmonton, and like anyone who is just like coming to Jasper, ave to do their shopping, has some of that they can go to the bathroom, and they don't have to bother a shopkeeper to use the bathroom in the Back or something like that, if the shops even happened at the time. And like, we don't have that many public bathrooms in the entire city of Edmonton in 2025 like, there is not 100 stalls of public bathrooms in the entire city. And 100 years ago, we had that many on Jasper Avenue alone. Yeah. And it's just like, It's little things like that where you're like, This is what would make our community safer. This is what would reduce tension, what would reduce anger, what would make people, just like, have a nicer time being in public with one another. I think about that sometimes too, because like, conflict does happen when we're doing street outreach, and a lot of that conflict happens because there is, like, it happens over the use of public space that it's like, there are people who just, like, want to be here for some other purpose, and then there are people who are forced to live here in public and like, of course, that's going to cause friction. Like, if you had someone who had to walk through your house every day in order to, like, get to work, you would also probably be pretty pissed, like it would feel like a violation and and so it's like we are forcing people to navigate those just like constant small level conflicts and constant small level frustrations, and those build up over time, and then they explode. And you don't need a police officer to prevent that from happening. A police officer is going to attend way too late when all of those little frustrations have already built up and now someone is freaking out in public. And from a harm reduction perspective, what if instead, we just didn't have all those frustrations like, what if, instead of people having to deal with someone smoking meth on the train. We had adequate amount of supervised consumption sites for inhalation, which we have literally zero of in the city. There's nowhere that you can do supervised consumption of inhalation drugs. Does not exist. And so people are like, why are people using on the train? Where else is there? Where else is there to go? And it's like, and then again, so the police officer has to attend and get this person who is just trying to survive in public to go somewhere else. And like, that's yet another frustration is that it's like, once again, like, Oh, great. Someone has called the cops on me for just fucking trying to have a normal day and building up more and more of those little like points of anger and frustration between people who are housed people are unhoused.
• Organizer Testimonial: The Tactical Unit at Camp Pekiwewin

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** One of the really, like, interesting moments of just like, the way that police interact with our communities was also at Camp Pekiwewin, which was a large homeless encampment down in the river valley, and prayer and relief camp. And one night, someone got sucker punched, someone called the cops, but every police officer in the city apparently was maintaining the exclusion zone around the Rogers place arena because the Oilers were playing, and this was like height of the pandemic. And so the only unit that could respond to the sucker punch was apparently the tactical unit. So that's who they send down to camp. They roll up in like an APC, they all get out of the van in their like military uniforms, and they stand around doing fuck all, except intimidating people and making it difficult for our, like, Med Team to go and, like, you know, care for this person who had been sucker punched. Because, like, the cops are trying to, like, maintain a cordon before the ambulance shows up, but there's, like, no ambulance in sight. They're nowhere. And like, the person doesn't really need an ambulance. They they were punched. They're a little bit out of it. But like, this is something that can be responded to by like, a nurse. But it just like it was such a bizarre, just like, exercise of force, and just like, it's utterly pointless, and yeah, that was the excuse that we got when we asked the police. It's like, Why the fuck did tactical show up? And they were like, yeah, it was the only unit that was available. Like, who knows if that's true, right? Who knows? But, like, either way, like, it was, it was terrifying. Like, people were really freaked out to have, you know, guys in military combat fatigues, you know, tromping through camp, and you just, like, why are you here? Totally unnecessary, yeah, but it's like, but this is, this is this is how, like, the standard operating procedure works, that it's like, you know, if there is a call that is involving violence, like police need to respond before ambulance can arrive, and like, that doesn't always end up being, like a proportional response. This is what happens with, like, that bureaucratic style of violence, where it's just like, oh yeah, we have to follow the rules. And so some cop has got to go out to attend this thing, even though there's like, it's not like there's an ongoing fight, it's not as though there is like a chronic case of violence in the area. It's just like there was one very brief altercation, and then the result of that is a dozen tactical right? The challenge is that the functional role of police is to make societal problems invisible. And that really stands out when it comes to harm reduction, because it's like, there's this mentality that we need to stop drugs and, like, punish people who use drugs, but it the drug war has been lost, like, very decisively, it is obvious, I think, at this point that, like, you can't police your way out of drug use, at least not without, like, concentration camps filled with people whose only crime is, like being moderate, like unmedicated and trying to, like self soothe with narcotics. Like the the extent of destruction that you would need to do in in our communities to like police out of drug use is just like, comically absurd, and they're trying to do it down in the states, like fuck. And so the so the impact of policing, then, is just to make it invisible, is to push it out of areas where, like, nice people from the suburbs show up and, like, they don't really care if something is happening in, you know, corner of downtown where you don't get a lot of tourists, and you don't get a lot of, like, white collar professionals, and yeah, people from st Albert and yeah. And the impact is and but like that, process is not easy. It's not, you know, pleasant or kind. It ends up just being pointlessly cruel, where you have people who are just trying to survive, just getting constantly pushed around, and it makes things harder. Like it's one of the things that we really notice. And like, you can tell when someone's camp is hungry, because they'll come to outreach, and they will be miserable, and they will have so much less with and because they're having to completely rebuild their life, because, you know, a police officer came through and threw all of their stuff in a dumpster. And it's like, when we think about, when I think about that as someone who, like, owns a home, it's like, yeah, like, imagine if just like, every week someone came through my apartment and threw out everything and changed the lock and I had to, like, figure out how to get back in, right? It'd just be this absolutely catastrophic destruction of someone's life. But because they're forced to live on public land. Somehow this is okay. And I think that's been one of the, like, really noticeable things about encampments and sweeps and stuff like that, is that it's like we see police roaming through Chinatown, like trying to push out all the encampments, but they're pushing them out. They're not getting them off the street, they're not getting them into housing. They end up in Kingsway, and they end up downtown, and they end up in the river valley. And so then the, you know, the police crackdown ends. They say, mission accomplished. Put up the big banner, and then within a few weeks, all the encampments are back in Chinatown. There's been a really interesting there was a really interesting demonstration by the Vancouver drug users union. And I think that's what the acronym stands for. They started to actually, like, build the city saying, like, this is the value of all of people's belongings that were destroyed in a suite. And it's staggering. It's like hundreds of dollars of people's lives that are just being like routinely destroyed. And we think about the same thing too... like, we think about that as well. Like, one of the things that we really like to give out when we have the money is we buy bulk tents and we give them out to people. And it's like, that is, you know, a pretty big outlay of money. Like, if we give out, I think at one point we had about, like, 10 or 15 tents we were able to bring out about a month. It's like $600 of like, little two person tents, and realizing that it's like, yeah, we give them out one week, and then two weeks later we're giving them out to the same person, because the police trashed the tent. When we think about that from like, How much money do we end up? Because people talk about, you know, the nonprofit industrial complex, just like, spends money on stuff, it doesn't matter, and how much of that is that we are spending money on stuff just to have it destroyed by the police, that it's like we are spending money to restabilize people's lives that are being destabilized by some other public service. It's, it's just like, this game of, like, whack a mole, and we're kind of happy to, kind of like, do that, sort of like, yeah, like, we spend money for EPs to destroy it, and that's fine. And but like, they could not, yeah, they could, like, help us make sure that, like, people's lives are actually getting back together, that we can give them, you know, a good tent, some like fire, safe ways of heating up their like, where they're staying. We can give them, like, food and clothes that they are actually able to, like, store and maintain and eat. And it's like, how much less conflict would there be in our communities if, like, we just provided those things for people.
• Organizer Testimonial: Person in Crisis on Whyte Avenue

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** But we have also encountered police violence like here directly as we were doing our work, one of the examples, and this one is actually on videotape as well, like it was featured in the very beginning of the safer for all documentary that was released recently put out by the John Humphrey center. And so we were here doing street outreach, and there was someone who was in crisis in the alleyways along white Ave, and they're very well known to the community. Everyone kind of knows this person and knows that, like, if they're not on their meds, or if they're having a bad day, they can be loud and, you know, difficult, but they're not a threat to anyone, like they have never hurt anyone, and they're just loud and sometimes wander out into the road, which is not the end of the world, right? And so, you know, three, one or two on one had been called, and like they tried to help, didn't want any help. Ambulance and fire arrived. Try to help, but, you know, they're not having a medical emergency. They're just having a bad day. And so they also, you know, they don't want to be incarcerated, in the sense of, like, they don't be dragged into the back of an ambulance and sedated, like it's just not something they're looking to do. And so they tell the ambulance drivers to fuck off. You know, they're aggressive and loud, but not violent. And I'm there watching all of this going on, and I'm like, There's no threat that this person poses. They just want to be left alone, and people are just not leaving them alone. And so we try to, like, intervene, and just try to be like, hey. Like, I will, like, you know, stand between, like, talk to people as you do as, like, a nice, white collar professional to other professionals. But someone calls the cops, and the cops arrive and they're just like, This person is causing a disturbance. Immediately tackle them to the ground and pull out, but do not deploy a taser, put this person in cuffs, and then start to, like, march them into a police van, and the person tries to, like, wiggle out, and the response from the police officers is to cut out their legs and slam them face first into the concrete in cuffs, like completely unprovoked, completely unnecessary violence, right? And and I was very glad that it's like we were here in the park at the time to, like, get that on video and make sure that it was recorded. But yeah, still just, like, really sticks out to me is like, one of the rare cases where it's like, oh, yeah, this like, firsthand experience of police violence as we're just, like, trying to be out here giving out food, yeah? And that's like, on the street in broad daylight, yeah, yeah. That's with cameras. Out that's with it was funny at the time we had, I think, about eight med students from the inner city health elective who were there also
• Organizer Testimonial: The Amber Alert on Whyte Avenue

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** I'm very glad that no actual violence happened. But as someone who owns firearms and knows how to operate them. This really stood out to me as just like one of the most fucking scary things that I've seen a cop do in a while. There we were here doing street outreach, and there was an Amber Alert that had gone in, a kid had gone missing, and they thought that he had been abducted on a school bus. So police were basically going around the city, pulling over every single school bus trying to find this kid, and so they pull over a school bus over here by the funeral home near White Ave and the cops board the bus from the back through the emergency door with his car being drawn and pointed straight forward into the bus A where there are children at B pointed straight down gateway Boulevard towards the next act and meet patios, which were full at the time. And I was just sitting there watching this police officer draw a carbine to serve an Amber Alert full of a bus full of children in front of patios. And I was like, if they had fired that firearm, there is no chance in hell they would have hit their intended target. And there are hundreds of people who would have been in line of fire like this was such an absolutely stunningly reckless thing to do, and yet, these are the people that we are supposed to trust with with guns and firearms like these are who keep our community safe, but like, the very first rule of firearms is, do not point them at anything you are not willing to destroy. Right? The next act, patio should not be destroyed. Children should not be destroyed. It was the most deranged thing I have seen a police officer do, just like, casually, like this wasn't a high stress environment. There were no like, this wasn't like a known kidnapping. There was no notice that the kidnapper was armed. This was just straight, we are looking for a missing child on a school bus, and the response to this is, like, firearms drawn. Absolutely fucking insane. I was just like, I mean, they don't, they don't under they don't know how to do.
• Organizer Testimonial: Encampment Destruction

  **The following is an excerpt from a larger testimonial provided by an Edmonton harm reduction community organizer. It has been automatically transcribed using Otter.ai and anonymized. It has not been independently investigated and all incidents described therein are alleged. ** Story 1: Encampment Destruction So one of the things that's interesting about doing street outreach is that we do have, like, I do have some experience with police violence, and most of it ends up being secondhand. And so one of the things that we hear about, often from people who are unhoused, is just like the way that police destroy encampments, and like the damage that this does to people's lives. And one of the things that, I think is really one of the incidents that really stands out to me was there was a guy who was camping down in the river valley, and he was camped out in the same place for three weeks, and just about every week, the police would come through and they would destroy all of his belongings. And you know, EPS always maintains you know, they don't slash tents and yada yada yada. And it's like, yeah, maybe they're not going through with a knife and literally slashing tents, but they're throwing them in the back of dumpsters like they're they're just putting them immediately into dump trucks like there's no no care given for people's belongings and people who are doing this to survive. But there was one incident that really, like, emphasized how just, like, pointless and cruel that practices. Because there was one day that his camp was taken down, and the, you know, the crew that attended it, took down his tent, put it back in the bag, and left it under a tree for him. And so when he came back his his camp had been cleared out, but his tent was still there, and so he was able to take it and move on somewhere else. And like, that incident just like, like, was a really, like, poignant note for me, of being like, this is all totally unnecessary. Like, all of the violence that gets done when encampments get cleared out is pointless. Like, we could just respect people's belongings and respect that they were trying to survive outside and recognizing that it's like, yeah, encampments have problems and pose risks, but like, there's no need to do it in like, just, like, pointlessly cruel way that it's done. So it's like, kind of funny, like, talking about, like, police violence. And it's like, what about if, like, the police weren't violent, like, with this, like, weird little opportunity to just be like, what if we had a bit of decency when we're dealing with the homeless?
• Harm Reduction Organizer Testimonial Recorded Summer 2025

  Transcript/recording of an interview with a community organizer in harm reduction on their experience of policing in Edmonton and its impact on unhoused and other populations. *Transcript has been lightly edited for anonymization - the opinions in the interview are those of the organizer and allegations of violence have not been independently verified.*
• Aggressive Search of Community Agency

  **The account below is a community submission to the Archive. It has been anonymized to protect the identity of the person(s) and agency involved. This account is a personal reflection based on lived experience and opinions. All incidents are allegations not proven in a court of law, and the Archive does not investigate the veracity of reported incidents.** On May 26, 2025, at approximately 3:37 PM, [staff member], the [position], was outside the [downtown community agency] building with youth and another staff member when two uniformed Edmonton Police Service (EPS) officers approached the entrance. [Staff member], following what had been communicated from the beginning of [their] employment as [agency]’s standing “no police inside the building” policy (designed to maintain a trauma-informed, low-barrier space), gently attempted to intercept the officers. [Staff member] greeted them calmly with a smile and offered to bring out a frontline worker to speak with them, per protocol. Before [staff member] could finish speaking, one of the officers grabbed [their] arms and pushed [them] aside, nearly knocking [them] down. [They] began bruising immediately and was left visibly distressed. The same officer proceeded to threaten [staff member] and three other frontline staff members with arrest, accusing them of “obstructing justice.” He claimed they were in “hot pursuit” of an armed suspect allegedly inside the building. However, neither officer had their weapons drawn, and the search was brief and careless, with no clear urgency or safety precautions in place. No one on staff had witnessed the alleged suspect acting aggressively or violently, and no weapons were seen.
• Police obstruction of Narcan administration

  **The account below is a community submission to the Archive. This account is a personal reflection based on lived experience and opinions. All incidents are allegations not proven in a court of law, and the Archive does not investigate the veracity of reported incidents.** It wasn't your typical police violence, but in the face of the opioid epidemic, I feel this story is important. My name will remain anonymous, but I am an Indigenous two-spirit person in my early 20's. I work in an emergency response capacity (non- police, EMS or fire) and have a decent amount of medical training for my job. I can't say what I do, or I'll loose my job but let's just say my job has something to do with water safety. I have a decent amount of medical training. I was attending Edmonton's drag fest with my Auntie and we were walking back to the festival after getting dinner. I looked up past the statue of our colonizer, Winston churchill and saw the torsos of police crowded around *something* - I decided to go and investigate . My suspicions were correct, there was a mid- forties indigenous man actively experiencing a drug poisoning. He was blue. He was making the snoring sounds. I stated my name and certifications and let the officers know I would now be assisting this person. I asked if they had initiated EMS, which thankfully they had but they had only provided one dose of intranasal naloxone nearly 5 minutes prior and were not engaging in any other resuscitation efforts. I threw my gloves on and began preparing an IM naloxone injection while encouraging the man to take breaths and placing him in a position where it would be easier for him to breathe. The officers attempted to stop me from performing my efforts, stated I was "heated" and needed to "calm down" , told me they "dealt with this everyday" and that narcan takes 5 minutes to work. (First of all, so do I and no, no it doesn't, the intervals are 2 minutes between doses ) . The officers proceeded to continue to verbally harrass me until Edmonton Fire arrived on scene. They then, tried to get my name to write a report, I refused as per my rights. I don't think people realize. These officers aren't here to help. They really aren't. They are here to commit genocide. Police services across Canada are trained using IDF protocol. The goal of every police force is STILL to wipe out Indigenous people. These officers weren't unintentionally unhelpful. They WANTED this man to die.
• Hostile interaction with EPS

  **The account below is a community submission to the Archive. It has been anonymized to protect the identity of the person(s) and agency involved. This account is a personal reflection based on lived experience and opinions. All incidents are allegations not proven in a court of law, and the Archive does not investigate the veracity of reported incidents.** so i was hanging out at the library, and i was on my way to an appointment. i am crossing the road and i see a cop car. to preface; i do hate police. i have talked to several homeless people about their experiences with police slashing their tents and stealing their possessions and harassing them. i have previously witnessed (circa 2019-2021, sometime around then) two police officers frogmarching a guy off the LRT for sleeping peacefully, bothering no one. they were using excessive force and they didnt tell him what he had done wrong. to make a long story short, i hate cops for intimidating our community, showing up late and escalating situations, being a drain on taxpayer money, coming in from rich suburbs to harass the most vulnerable members of our community in the urban core, voluntarily choosing to uphold a institution founded in slave-catching, and aiding and abetting and concealing the murder of mathios arkangelo and countless other people of colour. anyways i was walking from the library, and i see a cop car, and for all the above reasons, i decide to flip it off. i just stand there, middle finger extended, on the corner with the weston hotel, at the cop car. i have headphones on so i didnt hear when they flashed the sirens at me, but i sure as hell did notice when they illegally pulled across two lanes of traffic on 100st and parked blocking the intersection between the westin hotel and the library. a tiny little cop came out of the drivers seat- she mustve been around 5'3" to 5'6", mid 30s, blonde hair up in a ponytail with a claw clip, and the thing i remember most- Crazy green blue eyes. they reminded me of the eyes in the posts of israeli soldiers- violently indignant, sure of her power and how she was abusing it, and willing to escalate the situation to any extent. she approached already speaking, her hand on her taser on her belt. i took down my headphones and said "what?" she said "thats stunting, thats a 250$ ticket, you're distracting a driver and you could've caused us to crash and kill someone" i said "i assumed our esteemed officers were better drivers than that" before i remembered the cardinal rule of police interactions: shut the fuck up. she tried to get me to elaborate on that several times, saying things like "you think this is funny" and "you can't treat us this way" she came within 3 feet of me, and then i think she noticed that im 6foot and roughly double her size. when i later recounted this event to my friends we were all pretty sure that this would'nt've happened to able bodied man, and if i had been a person of colour or visibly unhoused things would've gone way way worse. to be clear, i am afab and white and i use a walker. anyways. by this point her partner had come out- 5'6-5'8", male, salt and pepper hair in a goodclips crew cut, late 40s to early 50s, and the kind of red that i speculate is a result of alcohol abuse, although i couldnt say for sure as i was wearing a mask so i couldnt smell his breath, and he stayed 2 feet to 5 feet away from me at all times. anyway. tiny blondie gets in the passenger seat of the car and says im being detained, asks if im happy and this was worth it. i just stay silent. she asks me for information such as my name and home address, and before i give her the answer i ask "am i legally required to give you this information?" to which she responds yes, with increasing frustration. her partner is standing in front of me so i just keep eye contact with him, trying to pour every ounce of loathing and pity and contempt i have into the eye contact. he tries to get me to speak several times "do you have a problem with police? what did we do to you? why are you fingering us?" he keeps referring to flipping him off as "fingering" which is honestly so surreal and out of touch, like, he called it fingering them like 15 times. it was insane. i said nothing except when i was answering the questions of the lady cop about my full name and address. she accused me of lying about my last name before finding it in their database. i was scared as hell- no hostile group should know my full name and address. i was worried they were gonna come harass my roommates or stalk me or break in or something. i have experience being scared though, so i kept my face completely neutral and glared daggers into the male cop ahead of me. he kept talking, of course, making moralistic arguements as to why showing my displeasure with police is fundamentally wrong and bad. i didnt respond. he called me "creepy" three times because i didnt respond and kept holding eye contact. i resisted the urge to tell him that its very telling he thinks my right to silence is creepy. i won the staring contest by the way, he looked away first. he chastised me for several more minutes while the lady cop put in a call to her supervisor on her phone. after a long time, they said i was free to go, but they didnt seem pleased. i unfortunately was too overwhelmed by the insanity of the situation to ask for either of their names and badge numbers, or their licence plate. i later learned that i wasnt getting a ticket, and that that was a unlawful detention, as flipping off police isnt a crime or a ticketable offense, and was ruled a god given right by a quebecois judge. i was paranoid as hell for the next week, terrified they would show up to my house. the worst part is that i wanted to insult them, to make them feel the way i know they make everyone around them feel- on edge, disheartened, violated, insulted, but you cant because they will straight up just arrest and kill you. theyre bullies who you cant fight back against. and im angry as hell about it. i know my experience was comparatively mild especially as compared to the experiences i've heard of homeless native people in edmonton, but it was still unlawful intimidation and detention, and it still shook me and made me viscerally mad. police do not protect us. police show up 3hrs late and shoot your neighbour's dog. police deserve to feel as unsafe and uncomfortable as they make everyone around them feel. they renounce being a community member worthy of compassion by wearing a uniform that allows them to do whatever cruelty benefits capitalism and the state, and they do not deserve to go two feet without being flipped off, glared at, yelled at, refused services, and treated as the worst kind of scum, because they are. they are.
• Man dies during transport to the Edmonton Remand Centre

  At 11:52 a.m. on Oct 26, 2015, an EPS transport van with 6 people on board left the EPS Detention Management Unit (DMU) en route to the Edmonton Remand Centre. The 46 year old, Kenneth Shymkiw, was "yelling and kicking while being placed into the Police Service transport van" (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, 2015). During the car ride, the officers noted that Shymkiw had quieted down and stopped the vehicle to find him unresponsive and in medical distress. CPR was performed and Shymkiw was transported by EMS to the hospital where he was declared to be deceased. Post autopsy, it was determined that the cause of death was a "hyperadrenergic state (high adrenaline) due to an acute schizophrenic psychosis" (Report to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Public Fatality Inquiry, 2020).
• Man dies after being tasered by police

  At 11:30 pm on Dec 7, 2015, EPS responded to a 911 call at an Edmonton residence, 120 Ave & 58 St. In the home, they observed a 49-year old man who was agitated and armed with a knife; the man's teenage son was there and had been heard calling for help during the confrontation (ASIRT 2015, 2017). The man's behavior was perceived as erratic and threatening (ASIRT reports), three officers discharged their conducted energy weapons, or Tasers, and the man was restrained and disarmed, additional units were called in by the police, recognizing the urgency of the situation. "Two minutes and 55 seconds later" he went into medical distress, officers performed first aid until EMS arrived (Edmonton Journal, 2017). The man was pronounced dead at the hospital. ASIRT opened an investigation in 2015. In 2017, they released their findings, which indicated that although the use of Tasers contributed to the cause of death, ASIRT concluded that the officers were acting appropriately given the circumstances. The chief medical examiner found the man died of “excited delirium syndrome” related to methamphetamine toxicity, ASIRT said. The struggle with police was considered “a significant contributory condition” in the death" (Edmonton Journal, 2017). **Archive note: the term 'excited delirium syndrome' has no clinical validation and is disproportionately used to describe men of colour who die in interactions with police. Several medical associations, including the American Psychological Association, have called for its discontinuation, see https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/7769e617-ee6a-4a89-829f-4fc71d831ce0/Position-Use-of-Term-Excited-Delirium.pdf . However, EPS continues to frequently use this term, usually to describe people who die after being tasered.**
• Suspect tasered by Edmonton Police officer experienced collapsed lung

  Edmonton Police officers were dispatched on October 22, 2016 at approximately 8:33 p.m. to the area of Fox Drive and Fort Edmonton Park Road in response to a 911 call. A shirtless man attempted to flee from multiple officers and a helicopter, falling down an embankment before being captured with the use of a taser and police dog. One deceased individual was found in the area during the search, with the fleeing man being designated as suspect. Emergency medical services on the scene determined the man had a collapsed lung, for which he was taken to hospital. The victim in the incident, Connor James Miller, was later charged and convicted with manslaughter for the murder of his friend Christopher Fawcett in the river valley that evening. On a toxicology screen, he was found positive for LSD.
• Indigenous man fatally shot by officer in Glenwood

  Kinling Robin Fire, 39, was fatally wounded by EPS officers on March 30, 2011. The events took place in the Edmonton neighbourhood of Glenwood, shortly before midnight. EPS officers Const. Brent Fox and Const. Brendan Power were dispatched to locate a Fire, who was believed to be suicidal. The officers also received a report of suspected impaired driver, who turned out to be Fire. Relatives of Fire reported that he was distraught after an argument with his ex-girlfriend and that he had consumed a bottle of prescription sleeping medication. Fire was found by the officers driving his car near a west-end apartment building at 155th Street and 100th Avenue. When Fire did not exit the vehicle or respond to Power, Power broke the driver’s side window with his baton and unlocked, then opened the driver’s side door. Fire exited the car, angry, and began moving toward Power while holding a metal bar. Fire continued to approach Power and Power fired two shots, hitting Fire in the chest. After handcuffing Fire, EPS administered medical services on the scene and Fire was transported to the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, where he was pronounced dead around 4:00 am on Thursday, March 31, 2011. The results of an ASIRT investigation were released on July 24, 2012, stating that the actions of the officer were justified, and no charges would be filed. A report into the fatality inquiry by was released in 2015, coming to the same conclusion as ASIRT. In 2017, the family of Fire applied a judicial review, calling for a new inquiry into the events of March 30, 2011. Fire’s sister, Wanda Bearboy, reports that despite numerous calls to Alberta Justice requesting information about the inquiry, Bearboy was not included in the process or informed of her rights, like the ability to call witnesses or ask for an adjournment.
• Woman sexually assaulted by constable while he was on duty

  A 24-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by EPS officer Hunter Robinz while in uniform and on duty. He was charged for breach of trust in allegedly attempting to communicate with women crime victims and seeking sexual relationships with them. There was a second breach of trust related to his using Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) and Edmonton Police Reporting and Occurrence System (EPROS) databases between 2018 and 2019 for reasons unrelated to police investigations. ASIRT charged Const. Robinz with sexual assault, unauthorized use of computer database and two separate counts of breach of trust.
• Victim accuses officer of negligent operation of motor vehicle that caused loss of child and left disabled another child

  On June 2, 2001 Constable Brander crashed broadside into the victim’s car as it turned left across police car’s path. As a result of the crash, Carlos Ramirez’s grandson Giovanni was killed, his grandson Jonathon was seriously injured, and his daughter Gloria were injured. Constable Brander and his partner Jean Guy were assigned general police duties including enforcement of traffic laws. They were on the way to confirm a service address for arrest warrant on an individual section of Edmonton. At 127th street they have decided to try and catch and stop two racing vehicles. Brander was driving. Officer accelerated as he wanted to catch up to speeding vehicles to get into a position to get their license numbers and stop them. He estimated his speed at 110 km/hr and no more that 120 km/hr. constable Brander was found not guilty on all accounts.
• Victim files complaint that police assaulted and removed him from home

  The victim, 50-years old man born with cerebral palsy has been tasered and incarcerated for not complying with terms of lease agreement and outstanding warrants (confirmed my Canadian Police Information Center (CPIC)). Based on authority of “Order of Possession” nine officers entered residence of the victim. While in search area victim was not co-operative and physically resisted officers who wanted to conduct a strip search. One of officers held victim while another officer tasered (at least three times) him. Then victim was detained. The victim appeals written decision of A/Chief of Police EPS dated September 20, 2005. This decision dismissed all allegations made by the victim in his written complaint of August 19, 2003, where he alleges misconduct by nine EPS officers: unlawfully evicting victim from his residence and string searching; tasering visitor at the residence of victim; unlawfully assaulting victim including assault with a weapon and not providing access to medical services when requested and required. Decision: Board affirmed decision of the Chief of Police to dismiss the allegations against nine officers.
• Person in custody experiences physical violence from police.

  On December 28, 2013 victim attended Edmonton Oilers hockey game at Recall Place and later was arrested and detained by the Edmonton Police Service (EPS). The victim submitted Statement of claim that he was not informed of reasons for his arrest and detention at Rexall Place by any of respondents along with unlawful and unnecessary exercise of authority, force, insubordination, and neglect of duty. Further, it is alleged that victim was not immediately advised of his Charter rights upon arrival at Downtown Division, and that he wasn’t provided opportunity to speak to counsel until approximately three hours after his arrest. The timing of completion of the investigation was such that it was completed and forwarded to counsel for review before the letter from the appellant’s counsel dated August 6, 2015 was received by PSB. The suggested importance of the transcript was not flagged by appellant’s counsel and a copy was not provided to PSB or the Chief. There is no evidence on the record of lack of transparency or that the or the Chief deliberately ignored information in the trial transcript that was decisive of an important issue. The Board concluded that the investigation conducted by the Chief was reasonable and not tainted or compromised.
• Victim suffers injuries during police arrest.

  The victim alleges that on June 29, 2011, Constable Bradley Pearce and Constable Derek McIntyre caused bodily harm while arresting him for violating his parole. Tam Nguyen, a case worker at Independence Apartments halfway house testified he saw officers dragging victim up the stairs and Const. Pearce strike the parolee in the head with an open hand. The victim received three stitches to his head and suffered two black eyes and a swollen cheek. Because initial prosecutor proceeded summarily rather than by indictment in provincial docket court, the judge declared a mistrial.
• Woman receives inappropriate, sexually explicit text messages from an officer who had previously arrested her

  In 2011, Officer Butchike arrested a woman in relation to a fraud investigation. Between late July and September 18th of that year, he was accused of sending sexually explicit and inappropriate text messages to the woman that were unrelated to his investigation. A complaint was launched by the woman in late 2011, and Butchike was charged with insubordination as well as discreditable conduct, with a deceit charge later added for his handling of the resulting EPS Professional Standards Investigation. Butchike quit his job with EPS in May 2014 just minutes before his disciplinary hearing was due to begin.
• 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.
• Indigenous youth shot and killed by officer

  On February 5th, 2011, Constable Redlick and several other officers were dispatched to a robbery call. At the scene, there was a confrontation between officers and a 17 year old Indigenous boy. Officers claim that the teen carried a knife and a baseball bat, and charged toward Redlick, yelling "you're going to have to shoot me". No physical contact or altercation had yet been made with the victim when Redlick shot him three times from what he judged to be around three meters away. He died soon after on the operating table. Family and friends on the Cold Lake First Nation say that he was a troubled boy and struggled with alcohol addiction but didn't deserve to die. A fatality inquiry report released in August 2014 ruled that Redlick's actions were justified because the officers at the scene were faced with lethal force. An investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team also found Redlick's actions justified in December of 2011. The teen's family sued police, alleging that Redlick's testimony contained contradictions and fabrications. The teen's father hired a lawyer that asserted an Indigenous investigator should have been hired to look into the case.
• Youth victim cooperates with arrest, officer tases him despite cooperation

  On April 3, 2004, a 21 year old man was followed by police in a car chase through North Edmonton. He was stopped with spike belts and got out of the car at a run. Soon he surrendered and dropped on his stomach to the ground. He was approached by six officers, including Constable Wasylyshen, who kicked him in the head. A knee was placed on his back holding him down, bloodying his face. He was then tasered multiple times by several officers.While attempting to handcuff him, Wasylyshen broke and injured fingers on the victim's hand. At a cross-examination after the event, the court found Wasylyshen to have displayed a disturbing arrogance and an unwillingness to confront his mistakes. In a 2012 disciplinary hearing, Wasylyshen was found guilty of two counts of unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority and insubordination.
• Victim endures extensive delay of justice and lingering mental anguish when officer fails to lay charges against sexual violence perpetrator as directed

  A series of delays and poor communication with regards to handling sexual assault charges caused considerable distress to a victim who had been sexually abused by both her father and brother. On December 30, 2009, Officer Dahl completed an arrest report detailing the arrest of a man for multiple crimes against his sister, including sexual assault. He also forwarded information to the Delta Police Department regarding laying charges against the victim's father for historic sexual assaults that had previously been dismissed with no charges. In early 2010, the Delta Police Department returned the file to Dahl, stating that Crown approval was needed before they could proceed. The documents were forwarded to the Edmonton Crown Prosecutor's office in May of 2010. On November 2, 2011, Officer Dahl was forwarded a letter from the Crown recommending charges of sexual interference and sexual assault against the victim's father. The letter included instructions for Dahl to notify the Crown when the charges were laid and initial court date. In 2013 Dahl appeared at the Assistant Chief Crown Prosecutor's office without appointment, announcing that he had never laid the charges as instructed. The victim had phoned him to inquire and he realized his mistake. Dahl was then subject to an EPS investigation on allegations of Neglect of Duty. Investigators contacted the victim who expressed frustration with the process for taking so long and preventing her from moving on with her life due to the trial hanging over her. She was also angered by the fact that her father had developed severe dementia and would be unlikely to be held accountable for his actions due to the delays. During a disciplinary hearing in 2015, the allegations were proven to be true. He was given an 80 hour suspension without pay.