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Police officer faces another lawsuit

Defendant alleges Tasering incident

By: Aldo Santin

Posted: 07/10/2012 1:00 AM

A Winnipeg police officer who has already been sued twice in the last five years for using excessive force and unwarranted arrest is facing another court battle.

A North End resident is suing Const. Jeffrey Norman for an incident in the parking lot of a stripper bar last summer.

Somkid Boonthajit, 31, has filed a statement of claim alleging Norman Tasered him twice without provocation while in the bar parking lot.

Boonthajit, who describes himself as a cook and runs a Laotian family restaurant with his mother, said the incident last July left him with a lack of control over the fingers of a hand, permanent numbness to the left side of his body, problems with balance, a pronounced limp and an inability to jog or to do strenuous exercise.

Boonthajit claims he endured out-of-pocket expenses and lost wages.

Police Chief Keith McCaskill is also named as a defendant.

The allegations have not been proven in court. Statements of defence have not been filed.

WPS spokeswoman Patrol Sgt. Monica Stothers said police would not comment on the allegations or the legal action as the matter is before the courts.

Boonthajit declined to comment.

Boonthajit's statement of claim says he was in the parking lot of Teasers, at Archibald Street and Marion Avenue, in the early morning of July 14, 2011 when Norman approached him while conducting an investigation along with other officers.

Boonthajit states he complied with Norman's instruction to place his hands on the roof of a car and when he asked if he was under arrest, Boonthajit alleges Norman fired a Taser at him, knocking him to the ground.

Boonthajit alleges Norman fired a Taser a second time at him while he was on the ground and pressed his knee against his head.

A review of Winnipeg Police Service press releases issued in July 2011 failed to show any incident similar to the one alleged by Boonthajit.

Boonthajit is asking the courts for general, special, and punitive damages, and legal costs.

No date has been set for trial.

Norman was one of several officers amateur photographer Paul St. Laurent sued in 2008 after Laurent was detained and placed in a police cruiser while photographing an arrest of two suspected car thieves. It was a controversial and high-profile incident in which St. Laurent claimed he had done nothing wrong, but police countered St. Laurent was in their way and refused to comply with directions to move.

Norman was the senior patrol officer at that scene and it was his decision to arrest St. Laurent, handcuff him and place him in a cruiser.

In 2007, Norman and five other Winnipeg officers were sued by a mechanic and garage owner from the town of Aubigny, where the two men claimed they were assaulted by the officers and improperly arrested and detained on false drug charges after a raid on the garage in that rural community two years before.

The two were charged with assaulting police, but the court ultimately stayed those charges.

Court records show the 2007 civil action against Norman and the other officers was discontinued May 17, 2011.

St. Laurent's case against Norman and the other officers was discontinued June 9, 2011. A May 20, 2011 letter in the court file from a City of Winnipeg lawyer states the case "has now been resolved in accordance with our tentative agreement reached on May 13, 2011." No terms of the agreement were disclosed.

In a pretrial brief contained in court documents, St. Laurent's lawyer, Ian Histed, stated: "Norman forcibly arrested (St. Laurent) and placed him in handcuffs. Cst. Norman always handcuffs people he arrests, whether or not it is necessary."

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 10, 2012 0