Realtor claiming Edmonton police used extreme pressure loses authorized battle

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Saying the plaintiff seemed to be “crusading in opposition to perceived police injustice,” a decide has dominated that Edmonton metropolis law enforcement officials dedicated no wrongdoing after they arrested a person at two Previous Strathcona bars greater than 16 years in the past.

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Jason Paul’s long-running extreme pressure lawsuit in opposition to the Edmonton Police Service led to disappointment for the native realtor, with Court docket of King’s Bench Justice Larry Ackerl ruling Oct. 20 that he believed the law enforcement officials’ accounts of what occurred over Paul’s.

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“Whereas testifying, Paul was repeatedly and unduly preoccupied with advancing his self-image reasonably than responding on to questions from counsel,” Ackerl stated within the determination. “In the course of the trial Paul … seemed to be advertising and marketing himself with a gross sales pitch he was decided to ship reasonably than devoting himself to truthfully testifying. His testimony was additionally deeply colored by his entrenched view that he was a sufferer of police injustice.”

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Paul known as the choice “devastating.”

Paul filed a $1.4 million lawsuit in opposition to the police service and several other officers in 2008, claiming they “joined in” when Paul was assaulted by a safety guard on the now-defunct Iron Horse pub. One other $20,000 lawsuit claimed Paul was wrongfully arrested at Monkey Island, a Whyte Avenue bar he owned. The trial started in April 2021 and lasted 18 days, unfold over 9 months.

In keeping with the lawsuit, Paul suffered a chipped tooth, facial bleeding and minor bruising through the June 24, 2006, arrest at Iron Horse. A doorman was later discovered responsible of assaulting Paul, then 26, and fined $1,000. Paul claimed different Iron Horse staff joined within the assault, together with Const. Wilson Quan. Paul alleged Quan was associates with the doorman, and that the officer held him down whereas others stepped on him earlier than the officer hit him within the face along with his baton.

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Paul was later charged with threatening the doorman, assaulting one other safety staffer, and assaulting Quan to withstand arrest. The fees had been withdrawn after Paul pleaded responsible to inflicting a disturbance and was sentenced to a conditional discharge with six months of probation.

Paul was arrested once more on Dec. 22, 2007, at Monkey Island when police responded to a report of a patron having been struck with a bottle. The officers arrived and, in keeping with their testimony, discovered Paul eradicating the injured man from the institution and arranging for him to be despatched to hospital, regardless of the actual fact an ambulance was on the way in which.

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Const. Richard Start stated Paul repeatedly refused to establish himself and that he was positioned beneath arrest for obstructing a police officer. Paul stated police deliberately “humiliated” him by main him by way of the bar in handcuffs. He was launched from the police station about an hour later.

Ackerl accepted that Paul suffered minor accidents in each instances, which, had he discovered any legal responsibility on the a part of police, would have merited about $5,000 in damages.

As an alternative, Ackerl stated each makes use of of pressure had been justified beneath Part 25 of the Prison Code, which covers police use of pressure. He stated the case got here all the way down to the credibility of every witness and that video of the Iron Horse incident was no assist in figuring out what occurred.

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Within the Iron Horse case, Ackerl concluded Quan acted appropriately, saying Paul was “more and more aggressive, unstable, and unpredictable.”