Halifax police officer charged with assault after arrest outside downtown bar

HALIFAX — A Halifax Regional Police officer has been charged with assault following an arrest outside a downtown bar last spring.

Ron MacDonald, director of the Serious Incident Response Team, said the independent police watchdog found sufficient grounds to lay a charge against Const. Derek Fish, although there was no serious injury or bodily harm.

“The issue in this case will be whether or not the force used was justified and whether or not it was excessive,” he said. “Every case is different.”

MacDonald said he couldn’t provide more details of the arrest or the alleged assault as it’s now before the courts.

SIRT initially launched an investigation after receiving a complaint that police deleted video from a man’s phone after an arrest.

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The video allegedly captured the arrest of the man’s friend outside Cheers Bar and Grill on Grafton Street last April.

The investigation concluded that “a technological analysis of the phone could not confirm whether the video existed and was erased, or if it had simply never existed.”

While the investigation into the deleted video concluded without charges, the police watchdog determined that the circumstances of that arrest raised issues of “significant public interest” and launched an investigation into the arrest itself.

In a report summarizing the investigation into the arrest, SIRT said “an assault is committed whenever a person intentionally applies force against another person without their consent.

“Police officers have the right to use reasonable force when arresting a person they have reasonable grounds to believe has committed an offence,” the report said. “However, if the force used by the police officer is not reasonable, the actions of the officer can constitute the offence of assault.”

The 47-year-old constable will be summoned to appear in Halifax provincial court Nov. 2.

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press