DIDN’T TRY TO ESCAPE COP: WHYTE REVELLER
EDMONTON JOURNAL
Under arrest, hands tied behind her back, Kristin Wilson was being herded toward a bus during wild celebrations on Whyte Avenue 18 months ago when she heard someone say, “Get on the f…ing bus.”
“I turned around and said, ‘F… you,’ ” Wilson testified Tuesday at a police disciplinary hearing where the officer who arrested her faces two charges.
She said she turned toward the officer on her left and felt his grip on her arm tightening. She said she never tried to get away or spit at the officer.
The next thing she remembers, Wilson said, is the officer’s black glove coming at her face. She closed her eyes.
Moments later on the bus, she said, “I remember a girl crying, and everyone was chained to the posts. I had blood running down myface and I was crying.
“(The next morning) I just laid in bed. I couldn’t even move.”
Edmonton Const. Shane Connor faces two internal charges of misconduct for using inappropriate force and profane language while arresting Wilson. Connor has denied both charges. In 2006, Calgary-based Crown prosecutors determined there was no evidence for criminal charges to be laid against the officer.
Wilson, now 21 and mother to a fivemonth-old child, has returned to live in British Columbia.
She is suing the Edmonton Police Service for more than $6 million.
Testifying against Connor on Tuesday, Wilson said that on the evening of June 17, 2006, she and two friends watched the Edmonton Oilers play the Carolina Hurricanes on television.
Wilson, from Vernon, B.C., was new to Edmonton and had only been to bustling Whyte Avenue once, to go shopping.
As the Oilers closed in on a Game 6 win that would put them one victory from taking the 2006 Stanley Cup, Wilson and her friends decided to head to the street party that had drawn thousands.
“We went down to Whyte Avenue to watch the last goal,” she said Tuesday. “I knew it was Whyte Avenue and I knew how busy it was going to be, no tolerance.”
Wilson said she wasn’t intoxicated when she and friends went to the avenue, or when they wrapped up their evening at a bar and headed outside to find a taxi.
“There were lots of people on the street watching the hockey game, lots of people in the bars. The streets were packed,” she said.
One of her two friends was pushed off a sidewalk onto the road, she said.
Police have said they were keeping revellers off the roads in an attempt to prevent trouble from starting.
Wilson’s friend was arrested. Wilson said she asked police where she could pick her friend up later. She stepped off the sidewalk herself, and after a warning was taken into custody.
Her wrists were zip-tagged behind her back and two officers led her to a bus being used to take those under arrest to the Granite Curling Club for processing.
Tucker Miller was with Wilson that night. On Tuesday, he testified that he didn’t see Wilson being thrown to the ground. He remembered Wilson got angry when police officers wouldn’t tell them where their friend was being taken.
“She didn’t lose her temper all that bad. Yeah, she swore,” he said.
Miller said he and their female friend drank more than Wilson throughout the evening.
Hours later, he found Wilson on Jasper Avenue, where she had been released by police. “Her face was all scuffed up, she had blood on her shirt and her shoes,” he said. “She was pretty upset. She was crying.”
Photographer Jimmy Jeong took pictures of Connor and Wilson during the arrest. The last of a series of images showed her bleeding, wearing a brown T-shirt that reads, “The best way to behave is not to.”
Paramedic Doug Sparks said Tuesday he remembered seeing Wilson when she was in custody at the curling club early on June 18.
“There were lots of people with bumps and scrapes. I don’t remember anything too dramatic,” he said.
Sparks said Wilson had a small cut inside her lower lip, and didn’t complain of any other injuries. He said she did not want to go to a hospital.
“We just assessed quickly, asked a couple questions. She really didn’t want much to do with us at all,” he said.
“She was emotionally upset, I recall. She was sitting on the floor with everybody else, restrained.”
Police estimate 30,000 people were on Whyte Avenue after the hockey game on June 17, 2006. Nearly 400 were taken into custody, only two of whom later faced criminal charges.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Ian Atkins, based out of Halifax, is presiding over Connor’s case.