YOUTUBE VIDEO OF APD TAKEDOWN

Amateur footage gets more than 20,000 hits in 24 hours since
announcement: Full investigation of excessive force now underway

Amateur video footage on the popular YouTube website of two Abbotsford
police officers arresting three alleged drug traffickers on Oct. 9 has
led to an investigation into the use of force during the takedown.

Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich requested the Professional Standards
Section to alert the office of the Public Complaints Commissioner to
review the use of force aspect of the incident after an officer
involved in the arrests brought the footage to the department's
attention on Oct. 17.

The footage starts off out-of-focus, and then sharpens to reveal an
Abbotsford police officer holding his gun on two men lying on the ground.

The officer's voice can be clearly heard ordering the two suspects to
stay down and not move.

The video shows one suspect continuing to move erratically and being
stomped by the member.

It is unclear how the existence of the video came to the officer's
attention.

The incident occurred around 1 p.m. on Oct. 9 in the 2500 block of
Bourquin Crescent East, after officers completed a foot patrol of
Ravine Park, known for drug dealing in the area.

Upon emerging from the park, the officers saw a drug deal taking place
in a nearby driveway and immediately took the three men involved into
custody.

Const. Ian MacDonald with the APD described the incident as
"dynamic."

"Disrupting a drug deal, two officers, three suspects and a moving
car? Pretty dynamic [I'd say]," he said.

He commended the officers for getting out of their car and walking
through the park to send a message that this is an area the police and
the community is taking back from the drug dealers.

There is more to the arrest than what is presented in the video
footage, said MacDonald, and he stressed that police compliance was
not happening in the first instance and when the parties finally
exited the vehicle it was in gear.

"They got out . . . and [the car] started to leave the
driveway.

"So now one officer has to both handcuff the passenger and stop the
car from rolling out into the street, and that's why you're left with
one officer trying to deal with the two guys on the ground . . . and
the one [suspect] is not prepared to stay still."

A 23-year-old Aldergrove man and a 20-year-old Fort Langley man face
trafficking charges stemming from the incident.

MacDonald said the video had little to no exposure, and the department
was choosing to be proactive in bringing it to the public's attention.

"We weren't going to sit back and hope that it went
away."

Arresting drug dealers is a dangerous situation, said MacDonald,
adding that neither suspect had been searched for weapons or drugs at
the time the video was shot.