71-YEAR-OLD CLAIMS POLICE ASSAULTED HIM

Says He Was Taking Painkiller When Officers Pulled Him From His Car

VANCOUVER - A 71-year-old Surrey man has sworn a private prosecution
claiming he was assaulted by two Vancouver police officers last Sept. 4.

A senior criminal lawyer and former Crown counsel, Howard Rubin, will
handle the prosecution on behalf of Robert (Woody) Woodward, a retired
steelworker.

The case, which alleges a charge of assault causing bodily harm, is
scheduled to be heard in Vancouver provincial court on Monday.

In an interview Friday, Woodward said the officers -- Ryley Swanson
and J. Whittaker -- threw him up against a wall and caused cuts to his
left hand and right shoulder and opened stomach scars from previous
surgery.

He said the incident occurred when he was having a coffee in his car
in front of the West Hotel in the Downtown Eastside and was taking
Tylenol 3 pills, which he is prescribed to ease chronic pain in his
back, which was crushed in an industrial accident over 30 years ago.

His spinal injury was so severe he was paralysed from the waist down
for 12 years but taught himself to walk again, he said.

"I'm just taking them [the Tylenol pills] and wham -- I'm against the
wall," he recalled of the incident. The impact knocked his false teeth
out, he added.

The officers pulled him out of the car, he said, slammed him against
the wall and yelled, "Spit it out."

Once the officers saw it was just Tylenol he had put in his mouth --
he also showed the officers his prescription -- they took off the
handcuffs and released him, he said.

"One said he was sorry," Woodward recalled. "The other one, the macho
man, didn't change his expression."

He said he asked for the officers' names and badge numbers but was
told: "It's none of your business."

He filed a police complaint the day of the incident and asked the
sergeant who took his complaint for the names and badge numbers of the
officers.

"All he said is he would get in touch with them," Woodward
recalled.

Recently, unable to identify the officers, he turned to the Pivot
Legal Society for help.

John Richardson, executive-director of Pivot, said Woodward tried six
times to obtain the names of the officers. Pivot obtained the names
Jan. 10, he said, and learned that Whittaker resigned from the force
Dec. 3.

Woodward said all he really wanted was a written apology and someone
to pay for his watch, which was broken during the incident.

Vancouver police Constable Anne Drennan said Woodward had not filed a
formal complaint with police. She said Woodward met the sergeant who
supervised the two officers and he discussed the matter with Woodward,
who said he wanted an apology.

Drennan said the officers ran into Woodward the next day and
apologized to him. Woodward denies that happened.

Richardson said the officer taking Woodward's complaint had a duty to
inform him about the formal complaint process, which requires filling
out a "Form 1" complaint.

"It's their job to show him the form," he said, adding he showed the
form to Woodward, who said the officer never showed him the formal
complaint form.