Heiltsuk man, granddaughter seek more discipline for Vancouver police officers who wrongfully handcuffed them

A Heiltsuk man and his granddaughter are asking British Columbia's police complaint commissioner to reopen discipline proceedings against two Vancouver police officers who wrongfully handcuffed them in 2019.

Maxwell Johnson and his then 12-year-old granddaughter were detained outside a Bank of Montreal branch in downtown Vancouver in December 2019 after staff called police due to suspicions over their government-issued Indian status cards.

The handcuffing prompted immediate criticism of the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and its treatment of Indigenous people. It led to a human rights settlement with police and a formal cultural apology ceremony in the Heiltsuk Nation in October 2022 — which was attended by senior VPD leadership, but not arresting officers Mitchel Tong and Canon Wong.

Johnson and his granddaughter are now applying to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) to reconsider disciplinary proceedings against the officers and compel them to visit the nation for a second reparation ceremony in Bella Bella.

The OPCC had suspended Tong and Wong in April 2022 and found the officers did not have reasonable grounds to handcuff the Johnsons.

"There is a hole in me right now," Johnson says in the new application to the OPCC, dated Dec. 13.

"My family, my people and my culture are being disrespected and cast aside. If the constables don't come to Bella Bella and apologize in the proper way, the hole in me, and in our community, will stay there."

In a statement, the Heiltsuk Nation says the officers had told the OPCC they would attend the apology ceremony.

It says the fact they didn't show up constituted evidence that "the constables will not agree to a culturally appropriate apology without being ordered to on reconsideration."

"The Vancouver Police Board is supposed to be working with us to address systemic racism, but the ongoing failure of their constables to respect Heiltsuk legal traditions and culture, and to apologize in an appropriate way, is systemic racism in action," said Heiltsuk Elected Chief Marilyn Slett in the nation's statement.

At the time of the apology ceremony in October 2022, VPD Chief Const. Adam Palmer had told CBC News that the officers could not attend for personal reasons.

The new submission says the constables were ordered to provide a written apology to the complainants, and did so.

It also says there was an offer to apologize in person, but the officers were not "compelled" to do so.

"The application is now before the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. In order to protect the integrity of the OPCC's process, it would be inappropriate to comment," said Vancouver Police Board vice-chair Faye Wightman.