'It's not who I am': B.C. RCMP officer defends allegedly offensive chat messages at hearing

One of three B.C. Mounties accused of making racist and sexist comments in group chats apologized for some of the comments Monday — blaming the pressures of policing and frustration with supervisors and co-workers for what he said was uncharacteristic behaviour.

But Const. Ian Solven also defended many of his posts — including one about Tasering a Black suspect — by saying he was simply describing events as they happened and the dark humour of front-line officers had been taken out of context.

"Some of [the messages], I'm definitely not proud of," he said.

"Some messages, I'm clearly joking with my friends. I'm not trying to be offensive to people. It's an unfortunate situation. Policing's so stressful. Any first responders just gravitate to a different type of humour. It's unfortunate it's come out this way."

'A space that was safe'

The two other Mounties before the code of conduct board watched as Solven took the stand Monday — the first of the three Mounties to testify on their own behalf at the proceeding, which has taken weeks to unfold.

The RCMP wants Solven, Const. Philip Dick and Const. Mersad Mesbah fired over posts to a private chat group on the Signal app and messages sent over the RCMP's internal mobile data messaging system.

Solven said he became an officer in 2018 after being accepted to the RCMP the year before.

He became emotional, choking back tears as a lawyer took him through a variety of situations he encountered in his first few years of policing, including an incident in which two fellow members sent out a code to say their lives were in danger.

Solven claimed one of the officers broke her back and the other broke his shoulder confronting a suspect who was in a state of delirium. 

"They were screaming for their life," Solven said as he described rushing to the scene along with every other available member of his watch — except for one officer who clocked out.

Solven said the rest of the team wanted the officer who went home reported, but management failed to do anything about it:

"It was just an example of management not really caring about what happened to us."

The officer said he and the others took those concerns to the private group chat.

"It was definitely a space where we felt comfortable that we could vent our frustrations about our job and about our co-workers," he said.

"In a space that was safe."

'Thrown under the bus'

Solven's lawyer took him methodically through messages posted on both the Signal app and the mobile messaging system — drawing lengthy explanations for some comments and regret for others.

Solven said he had apologized to one female officer for joking about her weight, and he said he showed a "severe lack of judgment" for a comment in which he joked about "getting preggo" as part of an RCMP "vacation plan."

"I fully support everyone having the ability to take time off work," he said.

But Solven implied that other posts had to be viewed in context to be understood, including one in which he appeared to have been joking about about Tasering an "unarmed Black" suspect.

The officer said he was referring to an incident in which he was called to a scene where he used his conducted energy weapon to take down a Black suspect threatening people with a syringe in front of a crowd of several hundred.

"I remember when I looked up, I think it was the first time I noticed people filming me while I was doing my job," he said.

"This was all around when Black Lives Matter started, so there was a lot of scrutiny on police about our interactions."

Solven said he worried a "three-second clip" of the interaction would make the news, claiming he had Tasered an unarmed Black man when "actually, he wasn't unarmed; he was threatening people with a syringe."

"I know the RCMP is not the best at defending its members publicly," he said.

"And I was concerned I was going to be thrown under the bus for this situation where I was just doing my job."

Solven's lawyer asked the officer how he looks back on the posts that could cost him his career.

"It's not who I am as a person. It's not who that person was then or today. It was a bad way for me to cope with what was going on at work and in my personal life," Solven told an RCMP code of conduct hearing.

"Policing — the job of policing, the actual work — is the best job I've ever had. But the organization stress, the co-worker stress, it just compiled and continuously beat me down."