Officers had no legal right to enter woman's home, judge rules

Judge Claude Bigué has dismissed three charges of assaulting police because the Kativik Regional Police Force lacked the proper paperwork to prove they were police officers.

The charges had been laid against a woman who was involved in an altercation in which police officers were pushed and yelled at when they tried to subdue her son.

The charges didn't stick because Bigué determined that the KRPF members who arrested the woman had no legal right to enter her Kangirsuk home. To do so, they would have had to demonstrate that a life was in danger inside the dwelling.

They also lacked the proper paperwork to be considered as real police under Quebec law. This would have also been enough reason for the charges to be dropped, said Kuujjuaq lawyer Frédéric Bénard.

According to police reports, on May 2006, two KRPF constables climbed through the rear fire escape of a house in Kangirsuk because a young male suspect they were pursuing had locked himself inside.

One constable kicked in the upper rear window of the house's fire exit. The two then entered and found a young man hanging from the kitchen window to escape from the front of the house.

The two constables held the young man's legs and held him in the window while the upper half of his body hung out the window.

Two more KRPF reinforcements arrived. According to police, when they pulled the young man from the window, he was kicking, screaming and punching. Even after all four constables immobilized him, the young man kept his hands under this back to keep them from handcuffing him.

One constable told the young man was under arrest, to which he replied "fuck you." When police asked if he wanted to consult a lawyer, he answered "fuck you, you fucking asshole."

Throughout all this, the police reports say the young man's mother was yelling and pushing them around.

The woman's son was a young offender. The details of why police wanted to arrest him as well as the fate of the charges he faced in connection with this incident were not available.