EDMONTON SUN
An Edmonton teen is suing city police for $145,000 over a 2005 stun-gun incident that he says cost him his job and his graduation from high school.
Ahmed Halat, 19, alleges an officer abused his authority when he shot the teen with a stun gun outside Queen Elizabeth high school in north Edmonton on Oct. 31, 2005.
“I was a kid at the time,” Halat said. “They were taking advantage of what they can do as a cop.”
The incident began as a simple traffic stop, when Const. Sam Najmeddine pulled Halat over for allegedly driving through a flashing crosswalk, the teen said. At one point, Halat started to cross the street, at which point Najmeddine yelled at him to get back. He claims the officer then pulled out a stun gun and shot him twice without warning, leaving him on the ground with a concussion.
Besides Najmeddine, the lawsuit also names former police chief Darryl da Costa, who in a statement of defence denies Halat suffered any injury. Da Costa also alleges that, if the teen was in fact hurt, he brought on his problems himself by disobeying Najmeddine and “acting in a belligerent and aggressive manner.”
The lawsuit also names another officer, Const. Robert Furlong, for allegedly abusing him during an earlier incident on Sept. 27, 2005. Halat claims he was a target for police, something he believes began after Najmeddine overheard him a year prior making disparaging remarks about cops at a north-end transit station.
So far, police have opted not to lay criminal charges against the officers but are looking into whether to charge them with internal disciplinary offences. None of Halat’s allegations have been proven in court.
Since the two incidents, Halat says he suffered mistreatment at school, leading him to drop out. He also claims his boss at his part-time job asked him to leave after hearing about his problems with police. He admits he’s had small run-ins with authorities in the past but insists he didn’t deserve what police did.
“I wasn’t the best kid but (I did) nothing as bad as the way they were treating me,” he said.