An Easter Surprise: Winnipeg media bias revealed

For a brief, shining moment two years ago a cheap two-bit car thief was a hero in Winnipeg media circles.

His achievement? He was, declared the news media in the city, the victim of a police beating which had been CAUGHT ON TAPE.

The media mob was unanimous. There was no doubt. Hadn't the Crown attorney dropped a raft of charges against poor Cody Bousquet because of the savage beating? Hadn't the judge convicted the police in the court of public opinion by declaring in open court that he had seen the beating with his own eyes? There, there, you could see the video for yourself posted as a public service on the news websites.

Uh, oh. Along came Easter, 2012.

Instead of hefty servings of turkey and stuffing, the reporters, columnists, pundits and sundry found themselves eating crow, bitter crow, sour crow and more crow with Matzah.

A formal RCMP investigation that was universally expected to lead to criminal charges against the Winnipeg City police involved in the videotaped arrest of Bousquet exonerated them instead. No charges. No blame.

The RCMP reviewed the video, interviewed all concerned, and consulted with an out-of-province expert on use of force. Their report was sent to a prosecutor in Ontario to avoid any allegations of conflict of interest. The result, a conclusion that the city police acted properly under the circumstances.

The MSM was crestfallen. The Winnipeg Free Press wrote a story centered on the disappointment of Bousquet's defence attorney. "Video showed suspect on ground being struck" declared the subhead.

The Winnipeg Sun, possibly the leader of the media mob in 2010, simply regurgitated all the allegations against the police in their story about the exoneration. "A surveillance video obtained by the Winnipeg Sun showed police punching, kneeing and shocking Cody Bousquet, then 19, with a Taser following a high-speed chase in a stolen pickup truck." So there.

CBC, after repeating the falsehood "court saw surveillance video of Winnipeg police officers holding Bousquet down while others kicked, punched and kneed him" then concluded "(n)o reasons were given as to why the counsel did not recommend any charges."

Uh, isn't it obvious, geniuses? There was no crime, therefore no charges. Duh.

When the media pack was attacking the police, The Black Rod looked at the facts. This weekend we reviewed our story which ran two years ago. Appropriately, it was titled "Who do you believe? Them or your lying eyes?" We were shocked at the rabid anti-police ranting of the so-called "professional journalists." We had forgotten.

The pack journalism was so bad that we believe we should rerun our story on Bousquet for the new readers we've picked up since 2010. But first we want to introduce our story by republishing the response to the RCMP investigation by Winnipeg Police Association president Mike Sutherland. His comments were included in the Free Press's online story, but not in the print story Saturday. They deserve to be read by as many people as possible.

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION April 5, 2012

"While [it's] unpleasant and does not reflect the apparent ease with which suspects are restrained on many TV police dramas, the fact is that in real life, unappealing force is sometimes needed to keep people safe and apprehend the dangerous," he said.

"We do not have months or years to author carefully composed soliloquies on the various legal virtues of specific crimes and the balancing of societal and individual needs or previous case precedents. We have a split second to react, and sometimes we don’t even have that long."

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The Black Rod -- Originally published Sunday, February 07, 2010

Who do you believe? Them or your lying eyes?

The pictures don't lie, wrote Winnipeg Sun editorialist Paul Rutherford.

No, for that we depend on "professional" reporters, Winnipeg Sun columnists and editorial writers.

The mainstream media has been all a-twitter over a surveillance video which shows the arrest of a drunk car thief. The description of what's on the video has grown wilder by the day, culminating in Tom Brodbeck's grotesque declaration that he sees an unrestrained flurry of kicks and punchs on a handcuffed prisoner.

"I've watched the video over and over again…" says Brodbeck. Try it with your eyes open next time.

Watch the video for yourself. The entire surveillance video is available on the Winnipeg Free Press website. The Sun has an abridged version.

Then find someone with dial-up Internet connection. That way the video plays in frame-by-frame slow motion. Watch it again.

Here's what you will see:

The complete video runs 3 minutes 26 seconds. The arrest takes less than 45 seconds. The police use of physical force occurs twice, six seconds the first time and less than four seconds the second time.

The video begins with a shot of an empty compound of a business on Notre Dame. Headlights flash across the lot. At the bottom right, car thief Cody Bousquet appears, on foot. He stops and looks to his right. A police car pulls up at the top right of the frame and the driver's door opens, but you can't see who gets out.

Bousquet stands listening to the unseen driver of the cruiser car. He's wearing a three-quarter length parka and holding something black in his left hand. He turns his back to the policeman and starts to kneel, still clutching the object in his hand.

The policeman outside the cruiser car rushes over to Bousquet and shoves him to the ground with his left hand; he's holding a gun in his right. Bousquet sprawls on his stomach, then turns his upper body to his left, facing the officer (Officer A). The other policeman in the car (Officer B) rushes over, drops behind Bousque on his knees, and tries to control him.

Two other policeman walk into frame and stand nearby, watching the arrest and taking no part. Suddenly a third policeman (Officer C) runs into frame from the right. He circles around Bousquet's head, crouches momentarily to look at something, then leaps in to grab…what . You can't see what because Bousquet's is blocked from the camera by Officer A's body.

Officer C, who we now know is Constable Ryan Law, then drops to his knees and struggles with Bousquet who won't give up whatever he's holding. Officer A stands and watches as Officers B and C try to control Bousquet. Ten seconds have passed.

Another policeman arrives, Officer D. He, too, kneels beside Bousquet. A is still at Bousquet's back, D is facing him, and C is to D's left over Bousquet's upper body.

Three other policemen are standing nearby, observing the struggle.

15 seconds in, you can see Bousquet pulling Officer C's coat. Otherwise all you see is the bodies of the three policemen over top of him.

Officer C throws an elbow strike, followed by three punches. Officer D lands three knees to Bousquet's body. Look carefully, as the second knee is launched you can see Officer B pull something from his belt, presumably the Taser.

There's a further pile-on and. A fourth policeman (Officer E) has been watching the scuffling quartet. He circles around to the top of the frame then crouches down, looking closely at Bousquet.

Officer C throws another 3 punches, and Officer B another two knees.

Bousquet is face down and his left knee bends up, perhaps indicating this is when he's shocked by the Taser. Bousquet is wearing a parka, making the use of a Taser problematic but Constable Law, in his written statement about the incident, said the officer with the Taser used it against Bousquet's right buttock, presumably under the parka.

Officer E lunges into the huddle to grab something. Bousquet lies limp, showing the effect of the Taser.

All the policemen except Officer D stand up. Officer D searches him. He tosses what appears to be a cell phone into the snow behind him. Constable Law who was bareheaded, PUTS ON A TOUQUE.

Is that what Bousquet had in his hand or was holding onto so strongly?

Another cruiser car pulls up as Officer D ministers to Bousquet. D lifts Bousquet to his feet. His hands are handcuffed behind his back. He is led to the top cruiser and the police at the scene drift off to their respective police cars.

CBC reported:
"Bousquet is quickly surrounded by police, some kneeing him while he is lying down and being handcuffed. Much of the video shows four officers pinning him down, while some punch and knee him further."

Absolutely false. CBC wants you to believe Bousquet was being pinned down by some police officers while others wantonly punched and kicked him. The video show exactly the opposite. The police struggled with him, used force as they were trained and in a restrained manner, and when they finally had him under control, handcuffed him. Up to eight policemen were around Bousquet in the 45 seconds it took to subdue the drunk and belligerent car thief, but never more than 3 were wrestling with him at any given moment.

Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun wrote:

"Still, there appears to be no reason whatsoever for cops to start punching and kicking the suspect even if he was resisting arrest."

-Snip-
"Judging by this video, there appeared to be no reason whatsoever to administer the kind of beating cops did in this case.This was police rage, plain and simple, and it had nothing to do with good policing or law and order."

Absolutely false. What "kind of beating"? The arresting officers didn't launch themselves at Bousquet, punching and kicking at will. The police used a minimum amount of force to get the suspect under control and under arrest. There was no "beating." Had Bousquet stopped struggling with police in the first 15 seconds, there would have been no punches and no knee strikes. It was only after two-count 'em---two Taser jolts that Bousquet stopped resisting police.

The Winnipeg Free Press quoted Crown attorney Mick Makar on why he went soft on a car thief who tried to ram police in a cruiser car. Makar dropped charges of car theft and assault with a weapon and accepted a plea bargain to charges of assaulting a police officer and dangerous driving to ensure that Bousquet got the lowest sentence possible.

"Crown attorney Mick Makar said Bousquet would have been looking at a penitentiary sentence, were it not for the damning evidence of the security video. Makar appeared to blame the officers' actions on adrenaline.

"The whole incident is only a matter of minutes," Makar said. "So you can imagine everyone's hearts were racing at the time."

If anybody's heart was racing, it was Bousquet's. Here he is, an experienced car thief, having the time of his life trying to maim or kill police by ramming their cars, then driving like a maniac while endangering other drivers and pedestrians until he's finally cornered. What a rush.

Brodbeck decided to use his vast experience of sitting at a computer keyboard to give police advice on how to arrest a resisting criminal.

"Use-of-force experts tell us all the time cops are trained to use their intermediary weapons when necessary to force compliance on suspects. They're not supposed to wrestle dangerous suspects to the ground because that puts officers at undue risk of injury, even death in rare circumstances.

Instead, police are supposed to shout commands at the suspect, in this case ordering him to the ground face-down with hands behind his back.

If he doesn't comply, an intermediary weapon like a Taser should be deployed until he does comply. Once the suspect is safely on the ground with hands behind his back, cops can handcuff him and make the arrest."

He forgot to mention what those same use-of-force experts say about using a Taser on a criminal wearing a parka in Winnipeg. Otherwise, it's obvious the Winnipeg police went by the book in making the arrest.

There are three lessons to be learned from the Bousquet arrest.

One. It demonstrates how dangerous the streets are for police night after night. Car thieves like Bousquet think nothing of trying to maim or kill police by ramming their stolen vehicles into cruiser cars. While making an arrest, police have always to expect that the suspect is armed, at the very least with a screwdriver.

Two. The police can expect to be sold out by the Crown attorneys every time. Makar chose to drop charges that were totally unrelated to the video --- the theft of the truck and the use of the truck to try and hit a police car. There is no reason he can give for failing his duty to the public by refusing to prosecute a car thief to the fullest extent of the law.

Three. Justice is supposed to be blind, not judges. Judge Ray Wyant said he didn't see "any evidence of overt resistance." According to the press, he said there was no excuse for the degree of force seen on the video.

"There are some people who would look at that video and say 'What's the big deal, he got what he deserved?' No amount of excessive force would ever be condoned by this court, no matter what the circumstances."

Wyant has never had to physically arrest anyone in his entire life. He's the kind of lawyer who gets a hernia carrying his lawbooks up the stairs. What does he know about "excessive force"? Have years of watching TV cop shows given him the experience to judge the reality of police life on the streets of Winnipeg? Were two punches acceptable, but four excessive?

The police used as much force as was necessary to get control of Bousquet's hands. Once he stopped struggling, they released him and stepped away. There is no sign at all to anyone but Ray "Mister McGoo" Wyant that they were punching and kicking him indiscriminately.

Wyant said he didn't see "overt resistance." Why the semantics? He obviously saw "resistance." The video is totally consistent with the police account of a suspect who refused to give up his hands to be handcuffed.

Wyant obviously saw that Bousquet had something in his left hand when he went down. The police had every right to suspect that was a weapon of some sort which had to be neutralized quickly.

If Wyant failed to spot the object, he needs to apologize to the police immediately.

Two years ago Wyant sentenced police officer Derek Harvey-Zenk to house arrest on a charge of dangerous driving. At the time he stood up to those who demanded he send Zenk to prison. He told the court:

"They want their pound of flesh. They want to hear the clanking of the cell door.

But let me make it absolutely clear, Mr. Zenk, those factors are not something this court or any court can entertain in deciding a fit and appropriate sentence. To do so would corrupt the very foundations of our justice system and plunge our system into chaos. So it does not matter what we think happened, what we must do is only sentence or decide cases on the evidence before us.

If we were to substitute our opinions or the opinions of others for proof and evidence, we would surely undermine fundamentally our system of justice. For to replace our feelings or opinions for facts would mean that any citizen could be the subject of arbitrary justice, of decisions based, not on evidence and proof, but on innuendo and personal biases."

What happened to that Ray Wyant?

It seems he got the message. If he wants to advance his career, he had better start listening to the mob.

Hold this torch and pass the noose, Ray.