A Lac La Biche RCMP constable has been suspended without pay after he plead guilt to assaulting a prisoner at the local detachment ’s holding cells last September.
Const. Desmond Sandboe, with nine years of policing experience, plead guilty to the charge in an Edmonton courtroom last Friday. The plea came shortly after the Crown introduced video footage of an altercation between the officer and 33-year-old Andrew Clyburn, an Edmonton-based oilfield worker who police had been holding in the detachment ’s 'drunk tank ’ since he was arrested earlier following a drunken brawl at the Almac Motor Inn.
The black and white video, which has no audio, shows a Clyburn wearing a t-shirt, pants and socks being lead down a corridor by two uniformed Mounties to a pile containing several articles of clothing. The time stamp on the video is 7:15 a.m. on Sept. 19, 2009, just four hours after a very drunk Clyburn was picked up by police outside a local bar. At the time, Clyburn had been involved in a fight with other bar patrons and had suffered cuts and bruises to his body. In the video, Clyburn fumbles with a sweater he picks up from the floor, and appears to have words with one of the officers. Moments later the officer lunges at the prisoner, whose hands are still inside the sleeves of the sweater he was holding. Clyburn is thrown against the wall twice then pulled to the ground as the officer hits him several times. The fight lasts for 20 seconds, and is watched by a civilian prison guard and a second Mountie, who the Post has learned had been stationed in Lac La Biche only a few weeks and was being trained by Sandboe.
The footage and guilty plea has police brass in damage control, with RCMP spokesperson Doris Stapleton saying assault cases of this nature are very uncommon.
"This incident is not representative of the standard of care that RCMP members deliver on a round-the-clock basis in detachments across Alberta,” he said.
A statement from the acting commanding officer of Alberta ’s RCMP headquarters in Edmonton echoes those sentiments.
"The RCMP finds this incident appalling. The public trusts the RCMP to care for them in our custody, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” said Supt. Joe Loran, in a statement reported in the Edmonton Journal.
Locally, police officials are not speaking about the incident, the plea or the video, but Lac La Biche-area lawyer Randy Benson says the video is the principal item that Sandboe and his legal team will have to deal with when the matter continues in court on January 27, and when the Mountie faces sentencing.
"The video is the key to this case,” Benson, who wasn ’t involved in the case, and spoke to the Post to provide a legal perspective on the story, adding he wasn ’t taking sides.
The video provides an objective viewpoint that is hard to dispute, he said.
"The deciding factor in this issue is the video,” he said. "It took credibility out of the issue.”
The RCMP are continuing to conduct an internal review that will be concluded after Sandboe ’s case is through the court system.
