Regina police officer facing assault charge

A 15-year member of Regina’s police force is facing an assault charge that occurred while he was making an on-duty arrest.

On Dec. 7, 2016, the 44-year-old officer, Corporal Colin Magee, was investigating suspicious activity — possibly a theft — on the 1100 block of Lindsay Street.

It is alleged Magee assaulted a 25-year-old man during an arrest.

The charge comes as the result of an investigation by the Public Complaints Commission into an incident from last year.

As Police Chief Evan Bray spoke to media Wednesday, a man claiming to be the victim of the assault spoke up.

“I really respect what (police officers) do within the city, 100 per cent. You have some great men and women on your force and moving forward, I forgive Corporal Magee,” the man said. “But when I was slammed to the ground and he said to me, when I called out for a supervisor, ‘I am the supervisor’ that is what got me.”

Bray said they are looking into the situation and spoke directly to the man.

“I’m proud of this police service, I’m proud of the men and women that work here. We want to do the right thing. Every once-in-a-while something happens that we need to take a step back and look at,” Bray said.

He said there is an independent body to oversee these types of things so it’s not the police making the decision.

“At the end of the day, we’re open to any sort of oversight, we’re willing to make an apology if we’ve made a mistake, we’re willing to correct mistakes and we’re willing to be better because of it all with the intent to make sure that the public understands and maintains trust in our service to do the job that we do,” Bray said.

He said it’s important to maintain the public’s trust.

“We’re only as good as the public thinks we are.”

He said he will look at how they can improve or change training their officers receive to ensure something like this doesn’t happen in the future.

Magee has been reassigned to an administrative role within the police force. He will make his first court appearance Aug. 17.

Bray said they will need to wait until the end of the court process and the police act side of the investigation, until they decide how to discipline Magee further.

There were 174 instances where police used force last year in 10,000 arrests.