Lawsuit filed over Rocky Lonechild arrest

More than 10 months after Rocky Lonechild’s arrest was caught on a surveillance camera, he has now filed a statement of claim in a lawsuit over it.

The suit alleges police misconduct in the arrest and names the Regina Board of Police Commissioners, one of the officers involved in the arrest, the three attending paramedics, and the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

Lonechild was arrested in December. He ran from a vehicle when it was stopped by police and when officers caught up to him, it was recorded by a surveillance camera.

The video shows Lonechild running and being tackled into the snow by an officer, and then being handcuffed on the ground by two officers while a third watched. Then another officer came running up and kneed Lonechild in the back four times.

Lonechild ended up with broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Lonechild’s family alleges the officers didn’t try to help him when he said he couldn’t breathe, and while the paramedics did eventually arrive, they didn’t give Lonechild oxygen.

Police Chief Evan Bray later gave details about the arrest, saying there was a tip about a home invasion and it was believed there was a gun used in the crime. Bray also suggested Lonechild was under the influence of drugs.

These are all allegations refuted by Lonechild and his family.

“I don’t know in this case what the actual details were during the arrest … It will be through the investigation that we really learn what the challenges were during those few seconds of that arrest being made,” Bray said a few days after the arrest.

A group of Lonechild’s family members gathered at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Regina on Friday afternoon. Carmel Crowchild spoke for them.

Carmel Crowchild speaks for the family of Rocky Lonechild outside the Court of Queen’s Bench after a statement of claim was filed for Lonechild’s suit against the police on Oct. 9, 2020. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

“What we witnessed (on the video) was a very traumatic event, a continuation of intergenerational trauma committed upon First Nations people of this land,” she said.

Crowchild said every Indigenous person has the right to protection and service from any law enforcement.

Lonechild’s lawyer, Dan LeBlanc, filed the statement of claim this week. He said Lonechild should not have been assaulted, and the fact it was a police officer makes it worse.

“We say the paramedics failed in their job. Their responsibility that day was to help Rocky as their patient rather than to treat him as their prisoner in their custody,” LeBlanc said.

The suit doesn’t name a specific amount in damages; LeBlanc said that would be figured out in court.

The suit is one part of the action the family members want, but they’re also asking the public to watch the video and decide what they think.

“The court gets to answer ‘Was this legal, yes or no?’ The public gets to answer ‘Should this be legal, yes or no?’ And if we decide no, I think that’s a political discussion we need to have in a serious way throughout Saskatchewan. And that could mean changes to the way we police in Regina or it could mean changes to the way the Police Act reads,” said LeBlanc.

If people find something wrong in that video, Crowchild said they should contact politicians — MLAs, the FSIN, and city officials.

“We are asking for people to start to step up and speak your truth, what you see as right and wrong,” said Crowchild. “Ask yourself if that was your child, is that acceptable behaviour to you as a mother or a father?”

The Regina Police Service declined to comment on the suit Friday afternoon, saying it hadn’t received the documents yet.

A complaint about the arrest was made to the Public Complaints Commission and that body has finished its investigation and passed the file onto public prosecutions. The Regina police weren’t able to say on Friday afternoon whether it had received any report or guidance from public prosecutions yet.