RCMP questioning of 14-year-old girl after Port Coquitlam assault outrages mother, alarms advocate

PORT COQUITLAM (OMNI TV) — A mother is outraged and an advocate is sounding the alarm over the way RCMP in Port Coquitlam questioned a 14-year-old after an alleged assault.

According to RCMP the altercation that left the girl bruised and bloodied happened at Jan. 10 around 3:15 p.m. and started as a verbal confrontation between four boys and a girl. The situation apparently escalated from verbal taunting to the girl using a low level of physical force, which led to the boy responding with “excessive force,” according to a release sent Tuesday.

In the interview with police and in social media posts, the girl’s mother maintains the four boys instigated the confrontation when they began following the girl and her sisters, taunting them and making sexual comments.

The video obtained by OMNI TV captures an officer who responded to their home interviewing the girl and her mother.

The officer expresses concern and sympathizes with the girl. He says he was angry when he first got the report, saw the girl bloodied, and heard it was four boys who were responsible.

But he also makes a number of statements that upset the girl and her mother, and those statements have an advocate concerned as well.

The officer gives his opinion on what the outcome of the case may be it proceeds to court, encourages a restorative justice program instead of a criminal court process, and floats the prospect of the girl being charged as well.

“Police have a very specific role in this kind of circumstance. Their role is to take the statement. To ask the victim what happened, to record that in a formal way and then to proceed to move it through the system And the next step would be to bring it to Crown counsel who then decides if charges should be laid,” says Angela Marie MacDougall with Battered Women’s Support Services. “Police have a lot of power, and a lot of influence and we’ve seen them step outside of their role and conduct an investigation that–through the statement taking–involves using language that would dissuade a victim from pursuing the criminal system.”

Earlier this week, the RCMP said that there is more to the story than social media posts suggest, and warned the public against jumping to conclusions.

“There are allegations appearing on social media that directly contradict the video evidence, witness statements, and established facts of this investigation”, a spokesperson for Coquitlam RCMP said earlier this week. “There has been a lot of anger directed to the school and police. We want to assure everyone that our first priority is to continually assess the risk and make sure that everyone involved is safe. Now, we ask that you stay patient and avoid judgment until a full and impartial investigation is complete.”

MacDougall says the statements by the officer are an example of “problem policing” of violence against women and girls.

“That is not their role. And we think this is a significant part of the failing of the criminal system right off the bat,” she explains. “That’s just appalling policing. It’s appalling in terms of responding to a victim. We see this far too many times, where police are minimizing this kind of violence.”

MacDougall says it is possible the police underestimated the aggression the girl was faced with.

“We have a girl with four boys and she’s being pursued. That’s aggression, that is harassment. It makes sense in that circumstance to defend yourself,” she explains. “So to have the police deciding that this is somehow mutual– it’s not mutual at all.”

MacDougall says one of the most effective ways to make the process of reporting to police smoother, and to ensure better treatment is for women and girls to have an advocate from a women’s group with them, which is their right.

“The reason for that, and why that’s a good thing is because too often–frankly routinely–we have police services performing inadequately in their investigation. Making statements to dissuade victims from using the legal system, using victim-blaming statements,” she says. “An advocate provides another set of eyes and ears. If I could have my way, every single survivor of violence, every single victim of violence would have an advocate with her when she gives her statement to the police.”

OMNI News has reached out to RCMP for comment about the interview.

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