Cops Caught On Camera Beating Up Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief

Footage from a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer’s dashcam shows officers beating up and arresting Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam.

CBC News has obtained a 12-minute video that shows an altercation between two officers of RCMP and Adam. The video starts with a cop talking to the driver of a GMC pickup truck. Moments later, Adam hops out of the car and begins yelling at the cop. Adam then starts walking over to where the officer is standing, takes off his jacket, and appears to square up in an attempt to fight the officer. The incident happened on March 10 around 2 a.m., when RCMP reportedly addressed Adam after seeing that his license plate was expired.

The chief claims the officer was harassing him. Another officer arrived to the scene and immediately went after the chief,  tackling him to the ground and putting him in a chokehold. “F–k you, don’t resist arrest! Don’t resist! Don’t resist!” the officer yelled. As the officers lead Adams to their squad, you can see the man’s face is bloodied. An affidavit was filed in court, along with the video. “I charged at the male [Adam] with the intention of bringing him to the ground,” Const. #SimonSeguin wrote. “I struck the male as he tried to come up. He turned on his right side. I struck him using my right hand on his right side of the face. I wrapped my hand [left arm] around his jaw and started squeezing.” He goes on to explain: “I then wound up placing my left knee on the back of the male’s head and ‘cranked’ the male’s left arm up. The male [Adam] was complaining of police brutality.”

Adam says the officers assaulted him. Acting through his lawyer, Brian Beresh, Adam declined to comment on the incident. On Thursday, Beresh submitted the video to the public court file as part of a motion to have charges against Adam stayed, according to CBC. During a Thursday interview, Beresh said there is no way RCMP officers could believe their actions were justified. “This was a false arrest; there was no basis for it, and it was excessive force used,” he said. Beresh says his client’s behavior in the incident was “a reaction to the systemic racism that his people have suffered for a long time, and that is a part of what agitated him.” “He, as the leader, feels that he has to stand up and make the statement,” Beresh said. “If you’re bothering me as the leader, what is happening to those people that have no voice?” Senior officers, after watching the video, determined that arresting officers’ actions were appropriate “and did not meet the threshold for an external investigation.”

Adam, his wife Freda Courtoreille, and their niece left a casino in downtown Fort McMurray when police pulled up from behind his truck while he was moving a child sear. Adam asked the officer why he was bothering them, and he told them who he was. Adam then told the officer that he would be notifying the officer’s superior. Adam then got back into his car, but the officer told him he couldn’t leave. When Adam put his car into drive, the officer knocked on the window.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was disheartened by the video of Adam and officers saying he promises to implement “significant, concrete and rapid measures” to deconstruct systemic racism in the police force. “We have obviously all seen and been deeply alarmed by the pictures that Chief Adam shared,” Trudeau said.