Edmonton officer charged after Indigenous man violently kneed during arrest

An Edmonton police officer has been charged with assault following a violent August 2019 arrest, captured on video, in which an officer walks up to an Indigenous man under arrest and drives his knee into the prone man's back.

Edmonton Police Service said in a news release Tuesday that Const. Michael Partington, a four-year member, has been charged with assault in the incident involving Elliot McLeod. Partington has been removed from duty without pay. 

In an exclusive interview with CBC News late Monday afternoon, McLeod said the officers subsequently took him down a side street and assaulted him twice while he was handcuffed, at one point with a bag over his head.

"After he arrested me, throwing me into his cop car, he dragged me out of that cop [vehicle] twice while I was in cuffs and assaulted me," McLeod said on a phone interview from the Edmonton Remand Centre. "This is what I am trying to get justice for."

The eight-and-a-half minute interview abruptly ended when prisoners were ordered back into their cells.

Court records show McLeod, 33, has a lengthy criminal record and is in custody awaiting trial after being charged in a second-degree murder case earlier this year.

A video of his arrest last August, which was taken by a bystander and shared on social media earlier this month, shows him lying still and face down on the sidewalk. A police officer appears to hold McLeod's arms behind his back.

'Do not run from the police'

A second officer then walks up and suddenly drops, driving his knee into McLeod's upper back. McLeod screams in pain and begs the officers to stop.

"Do not run from the police," one officer shouts at him. "Did you think I wouldn't catch you?"

In a news release Tuesday, EPS said the charge follows an investigation by its professional standards branch that began after they received a copy of the video in late August 2019.

The professional standards branch "concluded that the level of force described in the police report was not consistent with the force observed in the video" and referred the investigation to Crown prosecutors in late March.

The release said the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service recommended a criminal charge be laid against Partington on June 12 — less than a week after the arrest video circulated online.

In the interview, McLeod said he was riding his bike on an inner-city street when the police vehicle pulled up beside him. He said he stopped, and they asked for his name but refused to tell him why. He said he gave a false name and then took off on his bike.

"They pulled right up on the curb, right in front of the path, like right up on the sidewalk," McLeod said.

"I had to swerve to dodge; I didn't want to run into his [vehicle]. So I kind of swerved and flew off my bike."

In the video, McLeod's bike can be seen lying near the sidewalk as officers arrest him.

"I wasn't resisting arrest either because I know better than that," he said. "He is right there, he has got me, I'm not going to try and fight him. That is only going to result in me getting, well, beat up."

Man says officers beat him twice

McLeod told CBC News the officers threw him into the back of the cruiser and took him down a side street where he said they sat for what he estimated was an hour. He said they were trying to figure out what to charge him with. He said he had not had any previous dealings with them.

He alleged the officers dragged him out of the vehicle twice and beat him. He said the first time, one of the officers claimed he had spit at them and they put a "spit bag" over his head. A spit bag stops a prisoner from spitting or biting.

"I was pretty angry about this," McLeod said. "I was honestly really scared. I didn't know what to do.

"I ended up kind of getting mad in the back seat and I think I kicked the door," he said. "And they dragged me out. I remember this pretty good, honestly, because it was really scary, like not knowing where the next shot was going to come from, you know, I mean because I couldn't see.

"I remember him dragging me up on my feet the second and last time they assaulted me. At that time I remember being up against a cop [vehicle] and just closing my eyes and trying to brace, just like I said, I didn't know where the next shot was going to come from, right."

In a previous interview with CBC News, McLeod's father said his son is a member of Bigstone Cree Nation, west of Fort McMurray, Alta. Terry McLeod said Elliot is kind and compassionate but started having problems with drugs and alcohol. He said his son became homeless after moving to Edmonton a few years ago.

He said his son told him about the arrest and being injured by police, but he didn't provide much detail. The father was recovering from surgery and his son told him he would tell him about it later.

"He came in there with a bruised head, black eyes, cuts on his head," Terry McLeod said.

Elliot McLeod said he provided this version of events to an officer from the professional standards branch a few months after his arrest and has heard nothing since. 

Natasha Wright shared the video of McLeod's arrest on Facebook earlier this month, the same day an estimated 10,000 people rallied at the Alberta legislature calling for an end to systemic racism against Black communities and violence by police.

Wright filed a complaint on Aug. 28, 2019, and after speaking to an officer a week later, never heard anything further.

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@charlesrusnell @jennierussell_