Video Shows Interaction between Officer and Youth
THUNDER BAY – UPDATED – A video showing a Thunder Bay Police Service officer apparently striking a person strapped to a Superior EMS gurney has had over 150,000 views online in less than 24 hours. The incident, NNL is told has been reported to the Thunder Bay Police Service, the OIRPD and to provincial and federal political leaders.
The twenty-one-second video taken on a smartphone shows what appears to be the officer striking the person after the officer states do not spit on me. It was first posted on Facebook and has since been picked up and reported by local and national media.
Sources tell NNL that the person in the gurney was a seventeen-year-old youth who was apparently intoxicated. The incident has sparked a renewed talk about systemic racism in Thunder Bay as the youth is reported to be Indigenous.
The TBPS are investigating the incident, and following standard procedure do not comment on ongoing investigations.
Our earlier report had the youth’s age as 13, that has been corrected in this update.
