The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that a complaint filed by a woman with cerebral palsy who was shoved to the ground by a police officer in the Downtown Eastside will go to a public hearing.
In releasing the decision Tuesday, tribunal member Murray Geiger-Adams denied the application by Vancouver police Const. Taylor Robinson to dismiss Sandy Davidsen's complaint of discrimination.
"She's happy, she's been wanting to have a public hearing and have her complaint aired," Davidsen's lawyer Scott Bernstein told the Courier.
Davidsen, who also suffers from multiple sclerosis, was on a sidewalk in the Downtown Eastside in June 2010 when a video camera from a hotel captured Robinson shoving her to the ground.
Robinson was charged with assault but the charges were stayed after he agreed to an alternative measures program. He was transferred out of the Downtown Eastside and the department gave him a one-day suspension without pay.
The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner was not satisfied with the penalty issued from the police department and has ordered another hearing.
Robinson wrote an apology to Davidsen in which he explained why he shoved her to the ground.
"The reason that I used the amount of force in which I did against you was because I thought at the time you were attempting to reach for my firearm," he wrote in his letter filed in court documents. "As police officers we go through rigorous training when dealing with our firearms. The actions that I took were purely instinctual when I felt my firearm was being targeted. The force in itself is something that I regret using but it is what I did afterwards that makes me most sorrowful."
He added: "I am not going to try to make excuses for what I did because all attempts would fall short. I made a mistake and if it were possible to go back and do it over again, I would not have walked away from you while you were lying there."
Robinson's lawyers, however, wanted the human rights complaint dismissed because they argued Robinson was not being discriminatory when he shoved Davidsen.
"Ms. Davidsen's complaint falls into the realm of speculation," wrote lawyer Melissa Kruger, acting on behalf of Robinson.
The hearing will likely begin in the spring of 2013.
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