Ottawa police shocked, struck, kicked Black man in case of mistaken identity
CBC
Kane Niyondagara was walking home from a Starbucks in Ottawa's east end when he heard the sirens.
He turned around and, according to his description of what happened to him on the morning of Feb. 16, saw police officers with weapons pointed at him on Innes Road.
"Hands up," they ordered. He obeyed.
"Get on your knees," he remembers one officer calling.
But Niyondagara, 27, hadn't done anything wrong. He dropped his hands and shrugged, as if to ask why. He looked at the sidewalk under his feet and said he was afraid of being "brutally arrested" against the hard concrete.
"They just kept screaming to get on the ground," he said. "As I was really scared, I didn't get on the ground. I just waited."
He waited, he said, until a police officer came too close. Then he ran.
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) won't say much about that encounter or what followed, except to explain that it was all a case of mistaken identity.
Niyondagara, who is Black, said he was shocked with a stun gun, pinned down, struck in the face and handcuffed before police realized their mistake. Parts of the incident were captured on video by a bystander who shared it with CBC News.
WATCH | Part of that bystander's video:
Niyondagara said police would later ask if he knew anyone called "Gibriil" — a stranger whose name matches a wanted murder suspect who is also Black.
CBC has confirmed Niyondagara does not have a criminal record.
The case comes just weeks after Toronto police admitted misconduct for shocking a Black university student with a stun gun and kneeing him in the neck in another case of mistaken identity.
In Ottawa, 2022 statistics from the city's police board show Black people made up one-quarter of those against whom police use force, and 17 per cent of those against whom officers discharge stun guns, even though just eight per cent of the city's population is Black.
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