A judge called behaviour by Vancouver officers present at girl’s detention ‘abhorrent’
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A Vancouver police jail guard who “violently assaulted” an Indigenous teenager by punching her four times in the stomach while she was shackled by the ankles to a chair has been sentenced to six months of house arrest.
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Omar Ahmed Flores, 33, a special constable working at VPD cells early on Jan. 1, 2023, committed an “equally violent assault” a week later in the same jail against a man, according to a judgment by provincial court Judge Colleen Elden.
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Ahmed Flores had just returned from a month’s leave for counselling because of previous aggression to detainees, according to the judgment.
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He pleaded guilty to a single count of assault.
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Elden said video showed guards had secured the ankles of the 17-year-old girl, referred to as M.C., and were securing her waist when she made a slight move forward toward Ahmed Flores. He punched her four times.
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“The force of the blows caused the restraint chair to move backward several times,” Elden wrote.
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“The conduct of the police toward M.C. was quite frankly abhorrent,” Elden said, while acknowledging “dealing with intoxicated youths can be particularly challenging.”
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“Taken together, the fact that M.C. was a child, deeply intoxicated, and an Indigenous female made her exceptionally vulnerable and susceptible to violence while in the hands of the state.”
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M.C. had been drinking with other youths at an east Vancouver elementary school and was “heavily intoxicated.” She was detained because her parents were also intoxicated and unable to pick her up when called by police at 2:30 a.m.
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She was handcuffed and placed in leg restraints after she poked an officer in the chest and kicked another in the leg. She passed out in the police vehicle. At the jail, she swayed while seated and tried to spit at guards, Elden wrote.
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She couldn’t sit upright in the restraint chair where she was placed by six guards, including Ahmed Flores, according to the judgment.
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Elden said M.C. was wearing a spit mask and was held by two or three other guards, and there were two other jail guards as well as four Vancouver Police officers and other jail staff, including a nurse, present in a “highly controlled” environment when she was assaulted.
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It was a “tragic irony” that actions for M.C.’s protection “ultimately created the opportunity for Mr. Ahmed Flores to assault her,” she said. M.C. was then “left restrained in chair for over six hours” until her mother picked her up at 10 a.m.
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She said police could have driven her home.
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“This case stands as another troubling example in this country’s long history for Indigenous women,” she said.
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Vancouver Chief Const. Steve Rai did not return a request for comment.
