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An Edmonton police officer has been found guilty of assaulting a man during an arrest.
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Provincial court Judge Peter Ayotte gave his verdict Thursday morning in the case of Edmonton Police Service Const. Michael Partington.
Calling it a “gratuitous” attack on a restrained suspect, Ayotte found Partington used excessive force during the Aug. 27, 2019, arrest of Elliot McLeod, who a fellow officer stopped for riding a bicycle without a bell near 118 Avenue.
Partington, a five-year member of the police service, was criminally charged after video emerged last year of the arrest, in which he dropped his knee into the restrained Indigenous man.
He has been suspended without pay since charges were laid and looked downcast as Ayotte read his decision.
Partington joined EPS in 2015 after a career driving tanks in the Canadian Forces. On the day of the arrest, he was a patrol officer in the city’s Northwest Division.
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The incident began when Const. Curtis McCargar spotted McLeod riding his bike on a sidewalk in the Alberta Avenue area without a bell. He stopped to speak with McLeod, who was initially cooperative but rode off after giving a fake name.
Believing McLeod was obstructing his investigation, McCargar chased him and tackled him to the ground in a grassy area along a sidewalk near 114 Avenue and 93 Street. McCargar called for backup.
Partington arrived in his patrol car a short time later and found McLeod prone on his belly underneath McCargar. While striding toward the melee, Partington dropped his knee into McLeod’s back, causing McLeod to scream and moan in pain.
The Crown and defence presented two competing versions of the arrest.
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Defence lawyer Michael Danyluik argued Partington’s actions were reasonable and justified under Section 25 of the Criminal Code, which allows police officers to use force in the course of their duties. He said Partington genuinely believed that McCargar was in trouble and needed urgent help handcuffing a resisting suspect.
Partington claims he attempted to “place” his knee on McLeod’s back to restrain him, but misjudged the amount of force.
Danyluik said Partington was calm and collected, showing “not one drop of anger” toward the arrestee. He delivered no additional blows to McLeod, who Danyluik insisted was an unreliable witness who “outright lied to this court.”
Danyluik added that the law does not insist on “perfection” in the amount of force used.
As for the video, Partington testified he knew neighbours were recording the arrest, and that he paid them no mind because he felt he had done nothing wrong.
Crown prosecutor Carla MacPhail argued Partington and McCargar played up the actual risk posed by McLeod to justify the use of force.
MacPhail said the officers painted a dramatic scene in which Partington raced to McCargar’s aid with lights and sirens activated, and found him wrestling with a screaming suspect.
She said that in reality, McLeod was restrained on his belly beneath a large officer with his legs spread and his arms behind his back. She said no witnesses besides Partington described hearing sirens, while the video shows McLeod was silent in the moments before Partington delivered the knee blow.
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“There was no pressing need for the application or force, and certainly not the force that was applied,” she said.
MacPhail noted Partington was able to recall small details about the arrest — such as the “furious” look on McCargar’s face and the bulging veins in his arms — but not the amount of force he used on a prone arrestee.
She argued Partington omitted key details from his official reports because he likely did not know his actions were caught on video.
Ayotte largely agreed with the Crown, noting there was no evidence McCargar was in imminent danger, as Partington claimed.
He was particularly hard on McCargar, calling part of the officer’s testimony about the struggle with McLeod “a complete fabrication.”
Prior to Partington, the last Edmonton police officer to be convicted of assault was Const. Matthew O’Mara, who was sentenced to 18 months probation last November for beating up a homeless man and leaving him in the river valley. Like Partington, O’Mara is also ex-military, having served as a Canadian Forces military policeman in Afghanistan.
More to come.
