A First Nations Woman Is Suing BC’s RCMP for Battery and Wrongful Arrest

Heller after her encounter with the RCMP. 

Three years ago, 17 year-old Jamie Haller was taken into police custody in Williams Lake, BC. She was released within hours, without charges, and without an explanation.

What she was left with, however, was severe bruising all over her body, a haemorrhage of the eye, blurred vision, cuts to the inside of her mouth from being punched in the face with braces on, post-traumatic stress, and understandably, a deep distrust of the RCMP and Canada’s justice system.

On the evening of September 10, 2011, Haller says a gang of six men chased her as she was walking home. She was yelling for help as she ran away, and when a neighbour called the cops, Haller hid from her assailants behind a fence in a backyard.

Haller’s statement of facts surrounding the night were delivered in a civil suit filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia last week. They detail how on that night when she needed police protection—she instead received a police pummelling.

Haller was discovered by Constable Andy Yung, who allegedly snuck up behind the cowering teenager, tackle her, dragged her to a more open area, and pushed her face into the ground until his backup—two other officers also named in the lawsuit, Cpl. Jason Pole and Const. Daniel Hay—could arrive to slap the cuffs on.

Throughout the arrest, Haller was confused as to why the people she was hoping would help her were attacking her. According to her lawyers, she communicated: “In clear terms that she was the person who had asked the police to be called and she had committed no crime.” Once in the cruiser, Haller says she was verbally and physically assaulted, told to shut up, held down, and repeatedly punched in the face.

Due to the psychological and physical trauma, Haller was forced to miss a week of school, and was so obviously abused that her boss at the restaurant where she was working told her not to come in because “her visible injuries were too alarming for her to be working directly with the public.” Constable Yung was subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing last August.

By going through the process of filing this civil suit, Jamie Haller is bravely shining a light back into the eyes of the RCMP, and raising awareness not only to her individual case, but to the broader questions that surround the RCMP’s culture of policing indigenous communities—particularly in British Columbia.

The BC Civil Liberties Association has followed Jamie Haller’s story closely from day one. Since learning of the incident in 2011, they have filed a police complaint on her behalf, and called for an independent investigation.

“We have a deep and longstanding concern about systemic racism on the part of the police in and across Canada, and particular racism against indigenous people”, says Josh Paterson, executive director of the BCCLA. “I don’t know what was in constable Yung’s mind during the incident, but to us, it has the hallmarks of this same kind of under-protection of First Nations people where this teenager was the one who was in need of help, and instead she was not only not protected, but she was brutally injured and arrested. So it’s an example of both over-policing and under-protection in the same instance.”

What’s important about Jamie Haller’s resolve and determination to follow this through is that it sends a message to the RCMP and other victims—aboriginal and non-aboriginal—that police can be held accountable. And, even more importantly, that there are mechanisms in place and organizations like the BCCLA who can help hold their feet to the fire.

“This is the story of a young woman who hasn’t been willing to just walk away from what she feels is an injustice that’s been done to her by law enforcement,” says Paterson. “And she’s really showing an example, not only to other indigenous people, but to the broader community, of how to try and hold police to account.”

@ddner