A Vancouver police officer is facing two investigations after a violent incident outside a Langley pub in June when a woman was punched and a man was arrested.
B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner confirmed it launched an investigation under the Police Act into what happened, while the Langley RCMP are pursuing a criminal complaint.
“The information that we have been provided is that there was an altercation involving one of the members and a member of the public,” said Deputy Police Complaint Commissioner Andrea Spindler.
“The criminal investigation is underway and the police complaint commissioner has suspended its investigation pending the outcome of the criminal investigation."
What happened in that incident was shrouded in mystery when CTV News discovered that an officer was involved somehow outside the Oak and Thorne Neighbourhood Public House on June 23.
The Langley RCMP said their officers arrested a 29-year-old man in the parking lot about 45 minutes after the Oak and Thorne closed for the night. Mounties said they were investigating an assault against a woman.
But the RCMP wouldn’t say whether the person being investigated was a police officer or not, and VPD spokespeople didn’t confirm or deny any connection, or answer any questions about whether that officer was still interacting with the public, specifically women.
CTV News tracked VPD Chief Adam Palmer down and asked him about it, who confirmed the incident last week.
The Police Complaint Commissioner was also silent. That’s because the agency has a new policy of not confirming or denying any investigation until it’s already public, Spindler said – and it was the early CTV News story that put the incident into the public eye.
A Langley RCMP spokesperson said charges have not been laid in the incident, and that they are still looking into it.
