Weir 'absolutely' denies racism in Abdi arrest, Montsion begins testimony
Day 5 of death inquest to hear more from officer acquitted of manslaughter
The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during the day here.
One of the Ottawa police officers who arrested Abdirahman Abdi in a violent 2016 altercation that sparked outrage and debate about police handling of Black men after Abdi died the next day says Abdi's race had "absolutely" nothing to do with how he dealt with the 38-year-old Somali Canadian.
Former officer David Weir added Thursday that he's not aware that anti-Black racism is a systemic issue in policing, prompting his questioner, a lawyer for a group advocating for people in police-involved deaths, to pause for several seconds.
Rick Frank, a lawyer with the Black Action Defence Committee, then asked Weir if, in hindsight, he'd looked at the Abdi incident through the lens of anti-Black racism.
"I don't even want to answer that question because it's so insulting. No," Weir said.
"It doesn't matter if you're white or Black. If you need to be arrested, you need to be arrested. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care what colour you are. I can't say that more definitively."
That terse exchange came on Day 4 of a coroner's inquest into Abdi's death on July 24, 2016.
The inquest is boring down into the circumstances of Abdi's death and asking questions about Ottawa Police Service training on everything from use of force to anti-Black racism.
Weir was the first officer to try to arrest Abdi, who struggled with mental illness and had groped several women in and near a Hintonburg coffee shop on the day of arrest. Abdi also took a swing at an employee before resisting arrest and running away from Weir, the inquest has heard.
WATCH / The Abdirahman Abdi inquest has begun. Here's what you need to know:
Weir and another officer ultimately cornered Abdi in front of his apartment building. Weir had tried pepper spray and a baton on Abdi, with no success.
Once Weir took Abdi to the ground, the other officer punched Abdi in the head with reinforced knuckles — an act that triggered a criminal trial for manslaughter and ended in that officer's acquittal.
Questions about training on race
Weir had the most dealings with Abdi that day, being the first officer to respond to the report of a disturbance he soon learned involved sexual assault. He had no backup initially.
After Abdi resisted being handcuffed, Weir chased Abdi to the apartment building, with Abdi putting obstacles between him and Weir and at one point lifting up a heavy construction pad that Weir saw as a threat.
Abdi's death after the ensuing altercation had a major effect on his life, Weir told the inquest. He stopped working for Ottawa police as of earlier this year and has suffered from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from Abdi's death and the public perceptions of his actions.
"I was shocked when I heard over the radio that he'd gotten vital signs absent," Weir said. He'd taken care not to injure Abdi when taking him to the ground, he said under questioning by his lawyer Solomon Friedman.
On Thursday, the public scrutiny of Weir continued during his grillings by the Black Action Defence Committee and the Empowerment Council, an advocacy group for people with mental illness.
Anita Szigeti, a lawyer for the council, focused her questions on Weir's prioritizing Abdi's arrest versus handling the call from more of a mental health standpoint.
"I'm approaching it as a criminal call," Weir said, echoing his chief testimony on Wednesday. "He is not the one who is in need of protection at the moment."
Szigeti then asked if Abdi's being Black factored at all in how Weir engaged with Abdi.
"Absolutely not," he said.
'I've gone through lots of stuff'
Then came Weir's questioning by Frank from the Black Action Defence Committee, in easily the inquest's most intense cross-examination since it began on Monday.
Weir, who started with Ottawa police in 2002, said he did not receive training about perceptions of Black men in particular being stronger than they actually are.
He could not remember if his fair and impartial policing training covered the concept of implicit bias, saying it "might" have been included. That prompted Frank to ask Weir to define implicit bias.
"Something that I have in me that is a preformed opinion about a thing, place or person," Weir said, adding that he didn't need to be trained against it. "I am well aware of what's right and what's wrong."
"I don't have bias against anybody," he continued when pressed by Frank. "Black, white, doesn't matter to me."
Weir said he now remembers nothing about his training on racially-biased policing.
"That's a long time ago. And I've gone through lots of stuff," he said. "That type of thing might have been important then. It's not important to me now, so I don't have a recollection of it."
Weir has told the inquest there are things he can't remember because of the trauma he suffered in 2016, and he's not the only witness to say inquests should be happening sooner.
"We put it behind us," said Michael Rowe, a civilian who intervened at the coffee shop and who testified on Wednesday.
"Now that we're back here, eight and a half years later, it brings up emotions that you kind of had put away."
Montsion testimony continues Friday
The mandatory inquest has been delayed partly because of the criminal process against Const. Daniel Montsion, the officer who punched Abdi in the head, was charged with manslaughter and was eventually found not guilty after a lengthy judge-only trial.
Abdi's family also sued Ottawa police, settling the lawsuit in late 2020.
Montsion began his eagerly anticipated testimony at the inquest in the final 15 minutes of Thursday, offering a brief overview of his policing career.
Unlike Weir, he is still a member of the Ottawa Police Service.
Thursday wrapped with Montsion talking about some of the training he's undergone which, notably, he recalled included teaching on unconscious bias.
His testimony during the virtual inquest will continue on Friday.
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