A Mountie who was accused of twice assaulting a woman with excessive force in a Portage la Prairie RCMP holding cell has been acquitted.
Provincial court Judge Patrick Sullivan ruled Const. Tyler Hoogkamp, who had pleaded not guilty to assault causing bodily harm and simple assault during his trial last fall, would be acquitted of the charges in a written decision issued last week.
Sullivan decided Crown prosecutor Chantal Boutin hadn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the force the Mountie used was excessive and unnecessary, as alleged, but warned he did not want his decision to suggest he approved of what occurred in the holding cell in early July 1, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES/Darryl Dyck
A Mountie who was accused of twice assaulting a woman with excessive force in a Portage la Prairie RCMP holding cell has been acquitted.
“Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a not a light burden for the Crown to meet,” Sullivan wrote in his May 29 decision, issued in Portage la Prairie. “I reflect on this… to make clear my decision should not be interpreted as an approval of the force used by (Const.) Hoogkamp.”
Hoogkamp was charged in November 2022 following a probe by the Independent Investigation Unit, Manitoba’s police oversight agency.
The constable punched a “highly intoxicated” Amanda McIvor in the face, bloodying her nose, and forcefully shoved her in the chest during two separate encounters in the holding cell.
McIvor had been arrested around midnight after she was found extremely drunk outside her Amaranth home, banging on the door and demanding to be let inside.
She had consumed an “astonishing amount of alcohol” at a friend’s home in Amaranth, where they had played bingo.
She has no memory after leaving bingo at around 10 p.m. on June 30 until she was holding her bloody nose in the holding cell.
McIvor was to be charged with causing a disturbance — though court records suggest the charge was not ultimately sworn — and taken to the Portage detachment where Hoogkamp and two other officers placed her in a holding cell at 1:40 a.m.
Security video of the holding cell provided to court shows the officers performing a body search as McIvor is on the floor, on her stomach.
Within seconds of the officers leaving the cell, McIvor is seen removing her shirt and tying the arms around her neck. Seconds later, the officers return and McIvor is restrained as they take her shirt away.
As she was on her back, she kicked Hoogkamp’s thigh, leading him to punch her with a closed fist in the face, “leaving her lying motionless in a pool of her own blood,” wrote Sullivan.
Two other officers were in the cell at the time.
Later, at about 5:45 a.m., after having entered the cell several times to take other clothes she had used to try to strangle herself, Hoogkamp entered the cell again and used two hands to push McIvor back as they faced each other.
Hoogkamp argued the punch was in response to the kick and meant to prevent further “assaultive behaviour,” while the push was in response to an abrupt body movement she made that he interpreted as a threat, wrote Sullivan.
Defence lawyers Josh Weinstein and Lisa LaBossiere argued the punch and push were justified and reasonable and proportional under the circumstances.
The lawyers relied on the protection from liability given to police under the Criminal Code as well as general self-defence provisions in the law.
Boutin said although there was an “air of reality” to those defences, it was the Crown’s position that Hoogkamp’s actions were “not justified, proportional, or necessary in the circumstances,” or objectively reasonable considering the nature and quality of the threat he faced.
Ste. Anne Police Services Sgt. Kelly Keith, a use-of-force expert who was called by the Crown, testified he did not think the punch was reasonable, calling it “grossly, grossly disproportionate.”
Keith said he did not know what to make of McIvor’s sudden movement and the push. He said the push would be a normal or acceptable response if it was done to create distance, but not so if it were done out of anger or retribution.
Christopher Butler, a retired Calgary police inspector, testified for the defence. His opinion was that the punch and push were proportionate in the circumstances.
Sullivan said he accepted that Hoogkamp feared potential assault ahead of the push. Hoogkamp said he did so to create distance between the two.
The judge said he accepted that Hoogkamp felt a risk from McIvor’s flailing legs before the punch.
“Though police outnumbered Ms. McIvor three to one, none of the officers had control of her,” said Sullivan about the circumstances of the punch.
“Though there may have been other, less forceful ways for him to respond, I am of the view that in the circumstances he found himself him, the Crown has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the force he used, a single closed-fist strike, was excessive.”
erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik.
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