Prince George Mountie found guilty of obstruction of justice

A provincial court judge has found a Prince George RCMP officer guilty of obstructing justice for ordering a bystander to the aftermath of a violent police takedown to delete video of the incident from his phone.

Const. Arthur Dalman was one of two officers charged in the case — which stemmed from the arrest of a Wet'suwet'en and Gitxsan man who later died in custody.

In a verdict delivered over three hours Thursday, Judge Adrian Brooks found Dalman guilty but acquitted co-accused Staff Sgt. Bayani (Jon) Eusebio Cruz.

'Delete the video'

The verdicts are the latest chapter in a case that dates back seven years to a night when RCMP pursued and arrested Dale Culver — a 35-year-old who died about half an hour after he was taken into custody following a fight with multiple police officers.

Culver was arrested in downtown Prince George after police responded to a call about a suspicious man on foot looking into cars. 

He was in the area, riding a BMX bike without a helmet. A chase and fight ensued after he refused to stop for a police officer, resulting in a call for assistance from all other officers in the area.

Five RCMP officers were charged in relation to the incident, but Dalman is the only one to have been found guilty of anything criminal. Manslaughter charges against two officers were stayed this spring, and an obstruction charge against another officer was also stayed.

Brooks delivered his verdict in exacting detail in front of a courtroom packed with both supporters of Culver's family and two dozen uniformed RCMP officers.

The judge said the situation has "many moving parts and many different players," but the basic allegation against Dalman came down to an encounter with a man who started filming with his phone after walking onto the scene at a point when Culver had already been subdued.

Kenneth Moe claimed Dalman approached him shortly after and demanded to see the video, trying to snatch the phone away from him at one point before threatening to arrest him for obstruction of justice and telling him to delete the video.

Moe claimed a second, more senior officer — Cruz — then repeated the threat.

"The gist of it was delete the video or have your phone taken as evidence," Brooks quoted Moe as saying.

'Serious concerns'

Both Dalman and Cruz pleaded not guilty to the charge, denying the events as described by the witness.

Defence lawyers suggested Moe did not like police and cited criminal convictions from more than a decade earlier during their cross-examination.

Moe said he "had no shame" with respect to his past, was "proud" to have overcome drug addiction and suggested that he had no issue with police "until they did what they did to me."

Brooks said he found the witness credible.

The judge said he had "serious concerns" with Cruz's testimony but was "unable to reject his evidence" and — accordingly — had to enter an acquittal.

But Brooks found numerous problems with Dalman's version of events, rejecting his evidence of the conversation between the two men and the idea that the witness would have voluntarily deleted the video.

Cruz bent over and began to cry as a family member hugged him in the seconds after Brooks announced his acquittal.

A test of the justice system

The cases following Culver's death have been viewed by First Nations leadership groups as a key test of the B.C. justice system's ability to hold police accountable.

The manslaughter charges against the two other RCMP officers were stayed in April after a pathologist determined Culver died of a heart attack, not blunt force trauma as was initially believed.

That discovery came after the Crown hired Ontario chief forensic pathologist Michael Pollanen to review the conclusions of the first pathologist to examine Culver's death.

Prosecutors said Pollanen's report concluded Culver died of cardiac arrest brought on by sustained use of methamphetamines and the struggle with police "contributed to or exacerbated" his conditions.

Speaking outside court, Culver's eldest daughter, Lily Speed, said she had mixed emotions; she was disappointed to see Cruz acquitted but pleased to see the charge against Dalman stick.

"It's been a long seven years waiting to hear those words," she said. "I feel a lot of relief."

Culver's cousin, Debbie Pierre, echoed Speed's emotions. 

"I've been sitting on pins and needles for seven years going through this entire process and only expected the bare minimum," she said.

"It's just been an emotional roller coaster."

Pierre said Indigenous people need to see allegations of police brutality brought to court. She stressed that the stayed charges have denied Culver's relatives a chance to see the circumstances of his death brought into the open.

According to Dalman's lawyer, he served as a master corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces and had six months experience as an RCMP recruit the night Culver died. Dalman is now a member of the RCMP's elite Emergency Response Team.

After the judge delivered his verdict, Dalman's lawyer said the defence was planning to apply to have the charge stayed because of pre-trial delay. 

Sentencing is expected to happen later this year.