Judge blasts 'overly aggressive' Mounties for violent arrest; $1.3M for youth worker

Photo: Tim Petruk

Michael Lenard McLellan was violently and wrongfully arrested on Feb. 11, 2010, in the parking lot outside Twin Rivers Education Centre on Holt Street.

A man who hasn’t been able to work since he was violently and wrongfully arrested by "overly excited" Kamloops Mounties outside a Brocklehurst school has been awarded more than $1.3 million by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

Michael Lenard McLellan won his lawsuit against the federal government and two former Kamloops RCMP officers — Const. Evan Elgee and Const. Karla Peters. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Joel Groves delivered his decision on Tuesday, awarding McLellan $1,303,448.96.

McLellan was arrested on Feb. 11, 2010, at Twin Rivers Education Centre on Holt Street. He was employed as a youth worker at the time and was at the school because one of his clients, a student at TREC, was in trouble. The young man was accused of possessing a knife and threatening a teacher.

Court heard McLellan and his client were in the parking lot of the school when Mounties arrived, responding to a report of a young man armed with a knife.

McLellan said Mounties pointed guns at him and yelled, demanding he get on the ground. He also said Peters jumped twice onto his back while he was on the ground, and Elgee picked him up by the handcuffs and then dropped him on his face.

McLellan’s injuries were serious. In addition to remaining off work, he has undergone injection therapy for injuries to his back suffered during the arrest. A doctor testified at trial that his prospects for recovery are not great.

“What I find happened that day is that constables Peters and Elgee, in an overly aggressive manner, in a manner inconsistent with the police use of force training … unlawfully arrested and detained Mr. McLellan,” Groves said in his decision.

The judge found Peters “landed overly aggressively with her knee” on McLellan’s back twice — before he was handcuffed, and while he was being handcuffed. He also found Elgee grabbed McLellan by the handcuffs “in an overly aggressive attempt to get him to his feet” before dropping him to the ground, causing a serious lower back injury.

Elgee and Peters testified at trial, claiming to have been following use of force training. They said their actions were necessary to ensure officer and public safety.

Groves dismissed those claims, saying Mounties had their suspect — a teenager armed with a knife — outnumbered and outgunned. He described Peters' evidence as "difficult" and Elgee's version of events "troubling." He also found Elgee "exaggerated" the tension between the parties in his testimony.

“When facing two people, when you are only looking for one, you would know one is a suspect and the other is not,” he said.

“In my view, these police officers did not have a reasonable suspicion that their safety, or the safety of the public, was at stake when they detained the plaintiff because they could easily have determined that he was not [the youth suspect] by simply listening or asking. I say listening because I accept the evidence of Mr. McLellan that he in fact identified himself and held up his identification pass when confronted at gunpoint by constables Elgee and Peters.”

Groves also took issue with what he described as "an eagerness to draw weapons" on the part of both constables — "an overwhelming show of force" he called "concerning."

"It does not appear that constables Elgee and Peters relied on their training to even take a few moments to assess a situation before they drew their guns, began yelling and, I find, ignored the representations and explanations being offered by Mr. McLellan — including his statements, which I accept he made, that he was merely a worker for the student, and by his showing his badge to confirm this," he said, calling the pair "overly excited."

Groves awarded McLellan $650,000 for loss of future earnings, more than $330,000 for past wage loss, nearly $100,000 for special damages, $56,120 for for cost of future care and $170,000 for non-pecuniary damages.

Though McLellan’s rough 2010 arrest was not public knowledge until his civil trial began in May of last year, the incident took place at a time when the Kamloops RCMP detachment was routinely finding itself in problematic situations.

Elgee and Const. Stephen Zaharia, who was also present at McLellan’s arrest and testified at his trial, were both charged in connection with a well-documented incident in 2010 in which a number of Kamloops Mounties and jail guards watched two intoxicated woman engage in sex acts in a jail cell — one of whom was arrested by Peters.

Charges against Elgee and Zaharia were later stayed. They both testified at the 2014 trial of RCMP Cpl. Rick Brown, who was ultimately acquitted on one count of breach of trust.

During Brown’s trial, court heard the Kamloops RCMP detachment was a very dysfunctional place in 2010.

Elgee is now working as a constable at an RCMP detachment in New Brunswick. Peters retired from policing in 2017 due to an unrelated medical issue.