Man says Winnipeg police officers mocked, verbally abused him during arrest

Two Winnipeg police officers are facing allegations they verbally abused a man they arrested while doing a wellness check.

Provincial Court Justice Julie Frederickson presided over a hearing Monday surrounding a 2022 public complaint to the province's Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA), an independent body that reviews police conduct.

The complainant, Kyle Sward, said during the hearing that officers mocked him and his girlfriend while responding to domestic dispute in the early morning of April 9, 2022.

Sward said he told one of the officers to shut up after the officer imitated wailing and said "Look at us. We're adults. We can't handle our feelings."

He said he was eventually dragged into a police cruiser, and was told by that same officer repeatedly he should shut up and "kill himself."

Sward also alleged that when he asked what he was being charged with, the officer's partner told him they would "make something up."

The initial complaint named four officers and included allegations they used excessive force during the arrest, court heard Monday.

That was dropped after another provincial court judge found Sward guilty of resisting arrest and three charges of uttering threats.

Sward also said that at some point before he was dragged into the cruiser, his pants came down to his ankles, and that when he asked whether he could pull them up, one of the officers told him he "should have thought of that."

Officers deny allegations

CBC News can't name the police officers involved in the matter until a judge has made a decision.

The two officers facing the allegations denied they said the things Sward alleged.

They said the man appeared to be intoxicated, something Sward denied. The man initially said he had one beer that night, but walked that back after the officers' lawyer, Josh Weinstein, pointed out during cross examination he had previously said under oath he had two.

Weinstein questioned the man's recollection of events, saying some details about what the officers said were not in the LERA application and were not brought up during a follow-up interview.

Sam Green, Sward's lawyer, said the man did not have legal counsel at the time he made the complaint.

Judge Frederickson will deliver a decision at a later date.

Weinstein declined to comment while the case is ongoing. Sward also said he would wait for a decision before talking about the matter.

LERA is the sole public body in the province where individuals can file a complaint about the conduct of a municipal police officer, but hearings like this one are rare. Statistics from 2022, for example, show that while there 81 complaints filed that year, none went to a public hearing.