- Edmonton
police on U.S. State Department Bad Cop list for violating human
rights | | 2005: Inquiries | Chief
Da Costa responds to racist e-mail inside force Albert
Royer, Timmons, Ontario | Derek
Bemister: CAS story from NFLD | Wanda
Young
- | See also Stacey
Dodd and Cheree Miller
-
- Background
- Abdulahi
Mohamad has been active
in his Edmonton community since he was first arrested, strip
searched and held following a mischievous complaint from his
ex-wife. Aspects of this scandalous episode are still in litigation.
The police continue to defend their secret procedures and continue
to claim it is "policy" for Mr. Mahamad's name to remain
on the CPIC as someone charged with a sex offence.
-
-
- The new civil claim, discussed
on the front page of the Edmonton Journal can be found here
Police sued for sending
tactical team into house: Angry husband, wife 'humiliated'
by raid
Front page
Charles Rusnell, The Edmonton
Journal, June 17, 2004
EDMONTON - Abdulahi Mahamad
and Susan Kolbowicz were in the kitchen of their Groat Estates
home on March 19 making a cake for their five-year-old son's
birthday when there was a knock on the door. Within minutes,
Mahamad was handcuffed and five Edmonton police tactical team
members, in full combat gear and with guns drawn, were swarming
through the house along with two plainclothes detectives.
Mahamad and Kolbowicz are now
suing the Edmonton Police Service for more than $175,000 for
what their claim states was the unnecessary, forcible entry of
their home, for trespass, assault and battery, and for the mental
anguish, humiliation and emotional upset of being handcuffed
in front of friends and neighbours.None of the allegations in
the lawsuit have been proven.
A police spokesman said the
police have not yet been served. In an interview, Mahamad said
he and his wife decided to sue after he received an explanation
for the raid from the police that caused them to conclude it
was unjustified.
"It was overkill,"
said Mahamad."I am president of the Westmount Community
League, I have no criminal record, my wife has no criminal record.
Why did they need to send the tactical team with their guns drawn?"
The explanation Mahamad said
he received from police is that his brother-in-law, David Kolbowicz,
had been communicating over the Internet with a California woman.
David had moved to Edmonton from Vancouver and was living with
Mahamad and Susan Kolbowicz while he sought work.The California
woman had apparently become emotionally unstable and threatened
to hurt her child, whom she had abducted. California police found
David's Edmonton phone number on the woman's computer, and contacted
the RCMP. The RCMP contacted Edmonton police, which in turn dispatched
a tactical team.
Mahamad said the police told
him they were within their rights to immediately enter his home
because the woman's child was in imminent danger.But Mahamad
said there was no evidence the woman was ever in Edmonton or
even in Canada. A car registered in her name was found at the
Vancouver airport but there is no evidence she drove it there.
Mahamad said David Kolbowicz
had not spoken to, or e-mailed the woman since he left Vancouver
for Edmonton in December 2003. In fact, about five days after
the incident in Edmonton, the woman was arrested with her child
in Florida.
Given all this, Mahamad said
the police rationale for forcibly entering his home with guns
drawn makes no sense.
He has a number of questions
police have not answered: If police had a hunch the apparently
armed and dangerous woman was at his home, why wouldn't they
have conducted any sort of risk assessment or surveillance before
they showed up at his door? If this woman was as dangerous as
police believed, why were they apparently not concerned for the
safety of Mahamad, his wife and their two young children?
He said police told him they
were unaware there were other children in the home.
And again, if there was a safety
concern, why did police first send a civilian social worker to
the door?
Mahamad said putting a civilian
in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation can't be part
of a tactical team's protocol.
"So I'm supposed to believe
that police thought there was a dangerous woman with a gun in
my home and I'm harbouring her, and yet they deal with it by
sending a social worker to my door? That's just scary if it's
true."
Mahamad said he decided to
sue, rather than simply file a complaint, because the police
refused to apologize.
"I asked them point blank,
while they were in my kitchen, to apologize and they said they
had nothing to apologize for."
From what he has read in the
media, he also doesn't trust Edmonton police to properly investigate
its own officers."I don't think they would get to the bottom
of it," he said.
-
-
-
-
-
|
 Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
Truth suppress'd, whether
by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com
If you hold the mouth
of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb
Publisher : Sheila
Steele
Got something
to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!
- injusticebusters
court advice :
- How to walk yourself through the justice system
-
- Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)
-
- Sermonette:
The
Naked Truth -- (You
will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this
page
Another target
of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway
Our activism
contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the
civil trial.
Index
to the stories on this website
This is not
regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story
and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at
the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated
Index to Saskatoon Police stories
This is a pretty good scrapbook
for the 1998-2002 period.
Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David
Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown
misconduct: : Opening day |
2 | 3
| 4 | 5
| 6 | 7
|
Trial
set for June 15
We
know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured
affidavit from a Winnipeg cop
-
-
A
round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada
|
