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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Policeman Claims Fellow Cop Assaulted Him

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) - A Vancouver, B.C. police officer assaulted and falsely imprisoned a fellow officer after pulling over his unmarked police car during a plainclothes surveillance operation, the officer claims in court.

Gregory Kodak, a sergeant with the Vancouver Police Department, sued fellow Officer Alison Hill, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department, the Police Board and Police Chief Jim Chu in British Columbia Supreme Court.

Kodak claims that in July 2012, as a supervisor with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, he was on duty during a surveillance operation on a vehicle in downtown Vancouver. He was in an unmarked station wagon conducting surveillance, according to the complaint, and had to go through red lights to maintain contact with the target.

A marked police car followed him and turned on its emergency lights. Kodak says he pulled over and "signaled the operator of the police vehicle by waving his portable police radio out of his driver's side window, which the plaintiff says is widely understood standard practice used by plainclothes police officers to notify other police patrol vehicles that an unmarked vehicle is engaged in a surveillance function."

The marked car turned off its emergency lights, and Kodak pulled away after concluding that the officers understood the signal.

But after driving away, Kodak says, the marked car turned on its siren again and motioned him to pull over despite his flashing his police badge.

After pulling over, Kodak says, he opened his door, showed Hill his police badge and told her he was a police officer conducting surveillance. But Hill ordered him out of the car, and he complied after putting his badge in the driver's side door map pocket, Kodak says.

As he stood next to the car telling Hill he was a police sergeant, she grabbed his arm and handcuffed him in an "inappropriate and painful manner," Kodak says in the complaint.

"As the defendant Hill applied the handcuffs to the plaintiff's person, she violently struck the plaintiff's rear right upper thigh with her knee on at least one occasion, telling the plaintiff loudly to 'stop resisting,'" the complaint states.

Another member of Kodak's unit approached Hill while Kodak was still handcuffed and identified himself and Kodak as police officers. Hill told the other officer to back away and ignored requests to have a supervisor come, Kodak says in the lawsuit.

Kodak claims Hill incorrectly applied the handcuffs and held his wrists in a "painful and unnaturally elevated manner, causing significant, severe pain to the plaintiff's wrists," causing nerve damage, numbness, and pain in his arms, hips and legs.

He seeks general, special, aggravated, exemplary and/or punitive damages for assault and battery, unnecessary force, negligence and other charges.

He is represented by Leslie J. Mackoff, of Vancouver.

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