A Burnaby family ordered out of their home by police officers with guns drawn says the Burnaby RCMP owes them an apology – especially since the family had been the ones to call 911 to help a man who told them he was in mortal danger.
Joe Sara told the NOW he and his family were at home watching hockey on March 23 when they heard loud bangs coming from Harwood Park next door just after 8 p.m.
Police lights/Shutterstock
They thought nothing of it, Sara said, since kids often make noise in the park.
A few minutes later, however, a man who looked to be in his mid-20s rang their doorbell and told Sara someone was shooting at him and his friends in the park.
Sara let the man in after he called 911.
‘Hands up!’
The dispatcher told him to stay inside with the man as police checked out the scene, he said.
After about half an hour, Sara said a police officer called him back and told him to turn on the exterior lights and send the man out with his hands up.
“He starts walking out with his hands up. I open the door for him, and then the police, there was one specific officer that was really loud, and he started yelling, ‘Everybody, hands up! Everybody out of the house!’ repeatedly over and over again,” Sara said.
The whole family – Sara, his fiancée, his brother and his parents – came out in their socked feet and were patted down by police, according to Sara.
Officers then searched the house.
“When there’s a gun pointed at you, you’re inclined to acquiesce to a request,” Sara said.
He said he doesn’t understand why police ordered everyone to leave the house so suddenly.
“If they had planned to do that, why wouldn’t they just ask us since we were already cooperating? And, if they didn’t plan to do that, what went wrong and what can be done about it in the future?” he said.
Some family members suspect the actions may have been influenced by the family’s ethnic origin.
“I hate to say that maybe race, or not race per se, but background, had a little role to play because the kid was of Fijian or Indian descent, based on looks. And my family’s of Punjabi Indian descent and I have a long beard,” Sara said.
Burnaby RCMP, however, said that’s not the case at all.
“Our police officers were responding to a dynamic, fast moving, high-risk incident,” Supt. Graham de la Gorgendiere said in an email to the NOW. “They did not know if this man was potentially a victim or a suspect until they had spoken with him. They also did not know if there was potentially another suspect or victim in the home … At this point, suspects and multiple other potential victims were still outstanding.”
Shots fired
The man who sought refuge in Sara’s home had been one of three men playing soccer at the park, according to police.
They later told police a vehicle (possibly a grey hatchback) had pulled up and a man had gotten out and asked for a certain individual by name.
When the three men said they didn’t know who that was, a second man got out of the vehicle with a handgun and shot multiple times into the ground around the soccer players.
The victims scattered, and the two suspects fled in the vehicle, the men told police.
During the 911 call from Sara’s house, police said they were told the man who took refuge there had been chased.
Because the suspects were still at large, police said they ask the man to come out with his hands up, which he did, but Sara, who had opened the door for him “failed to follow further direction and closed the front door of the home.”
Not knowing whether there was another suspect hiding in the home, police decided to clear the house and search it.
“Once the home had been cleared, these residents were allowed back in,” de la Gorgendiere said. “Our police officers on scene then made themselves available to the residents of the home to ensure they understood why they had to leave the home under police direction.”
Sara, however, said he had not been directed to keep the front door open when he let the man out, so he had been in the process of closing it when officers starting yelling at him to get his hands up.
“Do I have a problem with the police? Now I do. Before I didn’t, so much,” Sara said.
He has filed a complaint with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, the independent agency that reviews complaints made by the public about the on-duty conduct of RCMP members.
