Police board never received mandatory report on Abdi arrest
'It just was either forgotten or slipped through the cracks,' officer tells inquest
The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during weekdays here.
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) never provided its civilian oversight body with a report summarizing the findings of its internal investigation into the Abdirahman Abdi arrest, even though it was legally required to do so.
"It just was either forgotten or slipped through the cracks," Insp. Mazen Dikah said Monday during the ongoing coroner's inquest into Abdi's death.
Abdi, 38, was a Somali-Canadian man who struggled with his mental health. He died on July 25, 2016, one day after a violent arrest by Ottawa police that, as Dikah put it, was "probably one of the bigger incidents that happened within Ottawa involving the Ottawa police."
One of the officers involved in the arrest, Const. Daniel Montsion, punched Abdi in the head and was charged with manslaughter. A trial judge later found Montsion not guilty.
Because Montsion was investigated by Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, OPS's professional standards unit (PSU) conducted its own investigation into the conduct of Montsion and all other officers involved in the call.
That probe also looked at relevant OPS policies and ended up being quite comprehensive, encompassing the reinforced gloves used in the arrest, "warrior mindset ethics" and a law enforcement video featuring audio of a motivational speech given by Al Pacino's character in the football drama Any Given Sunday.
The internal review also found the force used by Montsion and the other officer involved in the altercation, David Weir, was legally justified.
Under provincial legislation, the Ottawa police chief was required to provide a report summarizing findings to the Ottawa Police Services Board, the OPS's civilian-led oversight body.
On Monday, the inquest learned that never happened. Dikah was not involved with the report but offered an explanation for why the board never received it.
He cited changeover in boards and chiefs of police. He also pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Freedom Convoy protests of early 2022, which led to the departure of former OPS chief Peter Sloly.
"It wasn't withheld [and] the intentions were not not to submit one or to deviate from the process. The content and what was going on was well known," Dikah said of verbal conversations between police and the board.
WATCH / The death of Abdirahman Abdi: Here's what you need to know:
Lawrence Greenspon, the lawyer for the Abdi family, poked at the timeline during his cross-examination of Dikah.
The PSU completed an in-depth operational review report in November 2021 and a summary report in April 2023. As Greenspon pointed out, the in-depth review was completed months before the Freedom Convoy and Sloly's departure.
However, under cross-examination by OPS lawyer Jessica Barrow, Dikah said only a high-level summary of the PSU's findings would go to the board in report form, not the actual summary the PSU completed in April 2023.
In a March 2017 oral report to the board — provided the same month Montsion was charged — then police chief Charles Bordeleau said the charges against Montsion might affect the force's ability to publicly report the internal review.
Montsion was acquitted October 2020, but one of the officers who conducted the internal review, Sgt. Grayson Lafoley, told the inquest later on Monday that the review was effectively on hold during Montsion's lengthy and delay-plagued trial.
Dikah said to his knoweldge, no summary of the PSU investigation has ever been provided.
Part of the inquest's focus, as set out in its statement of scope, is to look at the effectiveness and quality of these internal reports "to enable meaningful oversight of the adequacy of policing provided to the municipality."
The inquest jury is being asked to make recommendations to prevent deaths like Abdi's in the future.
Video deemed inappropriate
The video with the Al Pacino voiceover, which was played for the inquest jury, is cut against a montage of violent imagery. In some scenes, civilians attack police. In others, police appear to be clothed in riot gear.
"We're in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me," part of the voiceover goes. "And we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light."
The video was shown during use-of-force training by OPS's professional development centre in 2016, the inquest heard.
At some point, however, OPS stopped showing the video. The internal review of the Abdi incident included a supplemental review of the 2016 training and found the video was inappropriate and not permitted for use.
"Showing a bunch of officers continually in fights and violent situations, in my opinion, was not the best way to inspire," Lafoley said.
The review found no connection between the video and the force used by Montsion and Weir.
The inquest again circled back Monday to Weir's arrival at the scene when he issued verbal commands and tried to handcuff Abdi, whose deeper mental health problems were not known to Weir.
Asked if the internal investigation looked at whether Weir could or should have used "calmer communication techniques," Lafoley said: "We did everything you could upon arriving on scene to take Mr. Abdi peacefully into custody. Mr. Abdi was not able to comply, obviously, due to the mental health crisis he was experiencing. And that's part of the story.
"But the analysis determined the officers did everything they could."
Solomon Friedman, the lawyer for Montsion and Weir, directed Lafoley to a statement Montsion gave the PSU in which he said that stopping the fight that later erupted outside Abdi's apartment building "was not possible under the circumstances."
The inquest continues on Tuesday.
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