Edmonton Police Watch

EDMONTON JOURNAL

EDMONTON - Unsatisfied with police Chief Mike Boyd’s decision to drop an internal investigation, a local defence lawyer is taking the case to the Law Enforcement Review Board.

Tom Engel said today he does not believe the police service adequately investigated whether a group of officers wore “No Rats” T-shirts to a union meeting in 2005.

He received a letter from the chief today that indicated all lines of investigation came up with little evidence to back up the allegation.

“This is all about the code of silence,” Engel said.

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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.

EDMONTON SUN

A Calgary man has launched a $50,000 lawsuit against the Edmonton Police Service after alleging a now-retired city police officer drove into him and ran over his leg.

In a statement of claim, Kevin Graham alleges he was a “pedestrian and innocent bystander” on Whyte Avenue, between 104 Street and 105 Street, on Sept. 24, 2005, about 2:50 a.m. when he stopped to watch an incident involving two unknown cops and an unknown person.

Then “suddenly and without warning of any kind” a police cruiser driven by Sgt. Michael Crustolo hit Graham, “knocked him over with the front bumper and then ran over his leg and foot,” says the statement of claim, which was filed in Court of Queen’s Bench on Sept. 20.

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CBC News

A man who claims he was Tasered more than two dozen times by Edmonton police told a provincial review board Tuesday that officers ignored his requests for medical attention.

Craig Williamson told the Law Enforcement Review Board in Edmonton that on the day he was evicted from a rooming house in April 2002, officers took him into the hallway and used the stun gun on him.

“My belly blew out like a pregnant woman,” Williamson recalled.

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EDMONTON JOURNAL

EDMONTON — Alberta’s justice department has decided it is “not in the public interest” for the Crown to charge an Edmonton police officer who admitted to committing forgery while he was on probation for assaulting his wife and breaching a no-contact order.

Justice officials have also decided there is no need to explain why it wasn’t in the public interest to charge Const. Scott Mugford.

Since December 2004, the Edmonton Journal has repeatedly requested an explanation from Alberta Justice for why Mugford was not charged in the forgery case. The department finally responded this week.

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EDMONTON SUN

It was cocaine, and not a police stun gun, that killed an Edmonton man on Christmas Eve two years ago, a fatality inquiry heard yesterday.

As the hearing opened, Dr. Bernard Bannach, the province’s assistant chief medical examiner, reiterated his earlier conclusion that 33-year-old Alesandro Fiacco died of a cocaine overdose and not from four shots from a stun gun on Dec. 24, 2005.

Fiacco was hit with the controversial shock weapon after police were called to deal with him as he wandered into traffic near 113 Street and 76 Avenue that day. He died in an ambulance several minutes later, and relatives have since complained police should have done more to help him as he stammered in a drug-induced state rather than shooting him with the stun gun. At the time, Fiacco believed bees were attacking him, according to witness accounts.

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