The victim testified Wednesday at the trial of the police officer of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) of Val d’Or who is accused of assault.
John Andrew Fedora took the witness stand on day two of the trial of Stephanie Dorval, one of the few law enforcement officers who has been criminally charged following a wave of Indigenous whistleblowers.
The young man recounted his version of the facts soberly on Wednesday, at the Val d’Or courthouse.
But the judge had already been able to see with her own eyes much of what happened on September 14, 2019: two videos filed in evidence on Tuesday provide an idea of the police intervention that took place in a apartment building in Val d’Or, in Abitibi.
In the first, filmed by the victim himself, we see the police in a dwelling where there are several people who are screaming. They try to arrest a young man who refuses to cooperate, according to the version of the facts given by an ambulance driver and a policewoman: he kicks and kicks and seems unable – or refuses – to stand up. He is dragged outside and taken away in a patrol car.
The cacophonous scene takes place under the eyes of John Andrew Fedora, who is filming his brother’s arrest with his cell phone.
A second video, shot by a neighbor who lives one floor above, shows Mr. Fedora quietly approaching the police car while filming.
We then see the accused move abruptly towards him, push him with one hand and snatch his cell phone with the other. It is for these actions that she faces a count of assault.
John Andrew Fedora testified that he went to his brother’s apartment when he heard a noise. He saw his brother hitting the wall with his fists, then using his head. Mr Fedora says he tried to calm his brother down, telling him to stop struggling when the police moved in to arrest him.
“I didn’t want the police to be so brutal with him.”
He came out behind the officers who were taking his brother away and had brought his pants, to hand them over to the police.
Mr. Fedora admits that he stood close to the patrol car where three police officers were struggling to enter his brother who continued to struggle, and that a policewoman told him to back off.
“I wanted to make sure they didn’t hurt him.”
Then, the accused walked around the car to go towards him: “she just tried to push me,” he told Judge Anne-Marie Jacques of the Court of Quebec. And she snatched his phone, which she threw into the patrol car.
In the video, he is then seen gently placing a pair of jeans on the hood of the car and stepping back.
The trial continues Thursday.