[BRIEF NOTE] On the latest "embarrassment" involving the RCMP in British Columbia

[rfmcdonald]

What is it with the RCMP in British Columbia? This sort of thing keeps happening.

Officers from the Abbotsford Police Department arrive in Kelowna Tuesday to begin an investigation into an alleged incident of excessive force by an RCMP officer.

Const. Geoff Mantler has been suspended with pay after he was accused of using excessive force during the arrest of a Kelowna man on Friday.

[. . .]

Police were responding to a report of shots fired near the Harvest Golf Club. Officers later apprehended the suspected shooter, Buddy Tavares, on a Kelowna street.

A freelance reporter who observed the arrest began video-recording events as police converged on Tavares with their guns drawn.

Tavares, 51, is seen getting out of his truck and, on police orders, falling to his hands and knees. Next, the RCMP officer kicked Tavares in the face.

Moments later, the video shows the handcuffed Tavares lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

B.C. Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott said the incident shows it is time for the province to look seriously at civilian oversight for the RCMP. "This is, I think, fortuitous in some way," he said.

Oh, but it gets better.

Mr. Tavares was arrested after police responded to a call that an employee of the Harvest Golf Club in Kelowna was on the grounds firing a gun. Mr. Tavares is a long-time employee of the club and one of his duties was scaring away geese with a shotgun.

But police say Mr. Tavares is on disability leave from the club, did not have permission to be there Friday, and there were no permits in place for the use of firearms or noisemakers to scare birds.

Mr. Tavares, however, says he resumed geese-control duties about two weeks ago and was authorized to use a shotgun “at my discretion.”

“I go there every day but there's not geese every day,” he added.

The Harvest Golf Club's administrative assistant, Keri Fisher, said the club would not comment on the incident or Mr. Tavares, who has been charged with careless use of a firearm.

Police have said the incident is connected to a “domestic violence situation,” an allegation that baffles Mr. Tavares and his family.

Mr. Tavares’s former wife, Trudi Tavares, also works at the golf club but has said she was “absolutely not” the victim of violence at her former husband's hands.

[. . .]

Police pulled Mr. Tavares over in his truck about five kilometres away from the club. Mr. Tavares said he was shocked to see police pointing guns at him.

He said he obeyed an officer's order to get out of his truck and onto the ground. “And then it's sort of a blank,” he said of his memory.

The video, however, clearly captured an officer giving him a swift kick to the head. The video also shows Mr. Tavares's bloodied and battered face as he is led away.

Am I justified in wondering if there's something terribly wrong with the culture of the RCMP, whether only in British Columbia or in Canada as a whole?