A Tuktoyaktuk man is furious, claiming RCMP used a Taser on his 15-year-old son and said he has the photo to prove it. News/North has chosen not to use the man's name because it could help identify his son, who his father said is facing a criminal charge.
The father says his son was snowmobiling with a group of friends on the edge of the community on Saturday, Nov. 4 when they were approached by at least two police officers for no apparent reason. He said the youths were sitting on their snowmobiles enjoying the day when the Mounties activated the emergency lights on their vehicle and then harassed them.
“I asked RCMP later why they were interacting with the boys when they were not even driving their machines on the road. They told me that they thought they were in distress,” the man said. “I said 'are you that stupid? If these kids were in distress do you not think they would be waving at you – running after you - not just sitting on their snowmobiles enjoying the weather? They'd be running after you.'”
He said his son and the others told the police they were just kids being kids.
“The cops asked them if they were drinking. They think they're Native so they must be drinking,” he said.
He said his son gave his name, but the cops told him he had provided the wrong name.
“They know my son – he is a drum dancer in the community ... They know damn well who he is,” he said.
The man claims the officer put his hand on his son's snowmobile, and when his son told the officer not to touch his machine, things got physical.
“That's when they punched him. The officer put his knee on his head in the snow – he couldn't breathe. His friends said they saw an officer pull some sort of device out and put it in his back. He then started shaking and crying. They did that two times,” he said. “The kids don't know what … but I'm sure it was a Taser. His friend, a girl, ran into our house after the incident and told us our son had been Tasered.”
The man sent a photo to News/North that appears to show two marks on a jacket that could have been made by the prongs from a Taser.
The RCMP told News/North that that was not the case.
“In the spirit of ensuring you have as much accurate information as possible and so as to not mislead the public, I can say there was no Conductive Energy Weapon (Taser) used in the incident,” stated RCMP Cp1. Robert Frizzell, the Aklavik-based officer who handles media relations in the northern part