Vancouver police officer charged with assault for allegedly kicking man outdoors jail

A Vancouver police officer has been criminally charged over an incident the place he allegedly kicked an Indigenous man outdoors the Cordova road jail final yr.

The BC Prosecution Service confirmed Wednesday that Const. Riley Emerson Robert Wiens had been charged with one rely of assault over the March 20, 2021 incident.

World Information has beforehand reported that incident was reportedly captured on a number of safety cameras.

Sources stated the alleged sufferer was a person in his 50s who had been been jailed for a number of hours on an allegation of public intoxication.

The alleged sufferer had phrases with a VPD officer who was returning to his car when the officer kicked him within the chest, sending him backward right into a pole, sources advised World Information.

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The person struck his head and fell to the bottom, and the officer drove away together with his companion with out offering help, sources advised World Information.

A lady on the bus cease throughout the road got here to the person’s support, and seeing that his head was bleeding, referred to as 911, Sources stated. He was taken to hospital by ambulance.

A spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Division stated Wiens had been positioned on non-operational duties, and {that a} separate Police Act investigation had been suspended pending the result of the legal case. The VPD stated it couldn’t remark additional whereas the matter was earlier than the courts.

Wiens was awarded a Chief Constable’s Quotation final yr for an incident in 2020 when he and 15 different officers suffered smoke inhalation whereas evacuating residents from an condo constructing the place a person with a knife and chain barricaded himself inside and commenced lighting gadgets on hearth.

Wiens is scheduled for a primary court docket look on Aug. 15.

— with recordsdata from Catherine Urquhart