A Vancouver Provincial Court judge Oct. 11 found a Vancouver Police Department constable not guilty of assault stemming from a 2019 Strathcona Park incident.
Const. Simrit Roycombough was charged following an on-duty incident on June 9, 2019 in Vancouver. The province's police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), was called in to investigate.
A man told the IIO he was walking with a female friend near Strathcona Park when he had a conversation with a uniformed officer in an unmarked SUV.
“He then alleges there was a further interaction which resulted in the male being tackled to the ground by the officer and arrested,” an IIO June 26, 2019 statement said.
However, in her judgment, Judge Delaram Jahani said she preferred Roycombough’s version of events to the complainant’s.
She said the officer testified he was parked doing end of shift work when he saw the pair walking down either side of a line of parked cars. He believed the two were casing the cars to rob them.
Jahani said it was reasonable to believe a crime was “in the process of unfolding.”
She said the officer did not have to wait for a crime to occur to intervene.
Roycombough spoke to the pair but the man kept on walking.
Jahani ruled Roycombough’s belief was reasonable, and that he had the right to detain the pair.
When he did, however, the woman began screaming and the man wouldn’t take direction, Jahani said.
The judge said when the man began fumbling in his pocket for something, Roycombough feared the man might have break-in tools he could use for a weapon.
Roycombough cuffed the man and put him to the ground. Other officers arrived and the man was taken to cells.
Somewhere along the line, his arm was broken but no allegations were made with regard to that. He was taken to hospital after the jail.
Jahani said Roycombough also found two crack cocaine pipes with residue in them.
She said the complainant’s story that he didn’t recall much of the events wasn’t believable despite the speed at which things happened.
Jahani said she found it difficult to accept that the man said he did not see or hear anything as the officer got out of his vehicle, came up behind him and took him down.
And, she said she found Roycombough’s evidence “detailed and generally consistent.”
Upon completion of the IIO investigation, chief civilian director Ronald MacDonald reviewed the evidence and determined that reasonable grounds existed to believe that an officer might have committed offences in relation to the officer’s use of force during the arrest.
The IIO forwarded its report to the BC Prosecution Service for consideration of charges. The information charging Roycombough was sworn on May 19, 2022.
Chief’s commendation
Roycombough received a 2016 chief constable’s commendation alongside constable colleagues Brian Lequesne and Neil Logan for arresting a man who stabbed a Surrey grocery clerk. After the stabbing, the man hijacked a car, forcing the driver to move as he brandished a cleaver.
The car was pursued into Vancouver with a police helicopter overhead.
The hostage jumped from the car at 33rd and Cambie and his captor chased him with a knife.
The man jumped in the vehicle again and officers attempted to box him in but he escaped and continued driving.
Lequesne, Logan and Roycombough took up the chase. Increasingly concerned about the reckless driving and threat to the public, the officers decided to use a police car to stop the vehicle.
After the collision, the suspect’s car left the road and Logan, who was at the wheel, was briefly unconscious while Roycombough was trapped in the car.
Logan awoke and Roycombough freed himself. Both chased the fleeing suspect.
“What followed next was like a scene out of a movie,” the chief constable’s award description said.
The man ran into an industrial mill where the equipment was still operating, its loudness rendering police radio communication useless.
“The struggle to make an arrest would move overtop of a wood chipper and the spiked belt moving lumber toward it,” the description said. “A fall onto either would result in certain death.”
At one point, Logan fell, striking his head.
However, officers managed to get the man into handcuffs. He was charged with kidnapping, assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, flight from police and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
“For doggedly pursing a dangerous suspect, despite serious injury and life-threatening danger, Constables Brian Lequesne, Neil Logan and Simrit Roycombough are awarded the chief constable’s commendation,” the description said.
