THE province's police watchdog has asked Crown prosecutors to look into a North Vancouver RCMP arrest that ended in a suspect being badly injured by a police dog.
The Independent Investigations Office forwarded its report to the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch Thursday, after months of interviews with the victim and officers involved.
"The Police Act says the chief civilian director can forward a report to Crown counsel when he feels an officer may have committed an offence under any enactment. We don't specify what offence he feels may have been committed," said Owen Court, spokesman for the investigations office.
North Vancouver RCMP called the Independent Investigations Office immediately after Patrick Umbach was taken down and bitten by an RCMP police dog on Chesterfield Avenue on Dec. 13 last year.
Umbach had just been chased out of the Scotiabank on Lonsdale Avenue at 14th Street for attempting to use false ID. Umbach eluded police but found himself trapped as RCMP had closed off the streets in the area. Umbach tried to hide in some bushes on Chesterfield at 14th, but there was no fooling the RCMP dog section.
"The dog just went right in on him, and you heard him screaming. And he kept on screaming," witness Christopher Larock told the North Shore News at the time. "Then the dog handler went in and got him and got the dog off him."
Umbach was taken to Lions Gate Hospital for emergency surgery immediately after the attack.
It will now be up to the Crown to decide if criminal charges are warranted for any of the officers involved in the arrest, and whether there is a substantial likelihood of conviction should the case go to court.
Because the file is now with the Crown, the investigations office cannot comment on the extent of Umbach's injuries today, said Court, though the Police Act states the office must respond when the incident results in "serious disfigurement or (injuries that) may cause substantial loss or impairment of mobility of the body as a whole or of the function of any limb or organ."
Police originally charged Umbach with fraud, impersonation, identity theft, resisting arrest and using forged documents with victims in St. John's, Winnipeg, Halifax, Calgary and Moosejaw. Umbach later pleaded guilty to one count of identity theft in North Vancouver provincial court and was sentenced to one year in jail and two years probation upon release.
This is the first time the Independent Investigations Office has been called to investigate a North Vancouver RCMP incident. Of the 28 files the office has opened since it began taking cases last September, five have been forwarded to the Crown. Two of those have been tossed due to a low likelihood of conviction, according to Crown spokesman Neil Mackenzie.
Because the potential allegations involve a police officer, the Crown will seek a prosecutor who works in another part of the province to ensure there is no perceived conflict of interest.
Mackenzie could not say if there was any precedent for an officer facing charges because of a dog bite.
The province set up the Independent Investigations Office to investigate police incidents after years of criticism of police investigating police when accusations of wrongdoing arise.
North Vancouver RCMP spokesman Richard De Jong said the detachment and its officers have been fully cooperative with investigators.
