Many asking if police should wear body cams following latest in custody death

A video captured by Mason Kabestra shows Winnipeg police officers restraining a 35-year-old man outside of his apartment early Saturday morning.

Kabestra, who lives in the complex where the incident happened, says he originally didn’t pay much attention to the situation, until – he claims – he heard a taser go off and saw an officer hit a man twice with a baton around the ankles.

“I ran to my phone, grabbed it, and started recording, and I said this was clearly excessive and as I started to pull out my phone to record it, that’s when the female officer came in with her baton already drawn, she didn’t pull it out, she already had it drawn, ready to swing on a man who was unconscious,” explained Kabestra.

RELATED: Man, 35, dies after allegedly becoming unresponsive in Winnipeg police custody; IIU investigating

At a press conference Sunday, Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth says a woman called 911 just after midnight saying her boyfriend was intoxicated.

Smyth says officers arrived at the complex on Fairlane Avenue around 12:23 a.m. and found the man on the ground, who reportedly fell down the stairs from their second-floor suite. A video shows several officers restraining and carrying the man.

An ambulance was called, and paramedics took him to hospital, where he later died.  The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba has taken over the investigation.

“They decided to inflict pain, brutally hit him, and portray themselves as heroes. In the incident, it just wasn’t. They made it out as if he was some maniac who was out to kill somebody when he was just intoxicated and sleeping,” said Kabestra.

Aranjot and Baljinder Singh also live in the apartment complex. They say it’s upsetting to see what happened and are worried about their safety.

“Calling the police should be a safe thing. When you’re calling the cops, you shouldn’t be scared of anything. It should be a safe thing,” said Baljinder Singh.

Aranjot Singh adding, “Even the people we talked to from the same block, even they were saying they are pretty much scared to call the cops now because they call the cops and something like this happens, so they are not confident about it right now.”

With the video surfacing online over the weekend, questions are now being raised as to why police here in Winnipeg do not wear body cameras, like other police forces across the country.

Calgary and Toronto police officers wear body cameras. Some Vancouver police officers are wearing them and RCMP plans to outfit officers with body cameras this year.

Markus Chambers, the chair of the Winnipeg Police Board says this conversation about body cameras remains ongoing.

“We continue to see these incidents occur in our community. They are never an incident that we ever want to see, but there are plenty of cellphone cameras that have caught the footage. What is lacking, is context and those are the things that body-worn cameras can provide,” said Chambers.

Chambers says initial costs for the cameras would be around $6 million, with annual maintenance costs of roughly $4.5 million – but criminologist Kelly Gorkoff says this isn’t the right play.

“Maybe that kind of money could be used to fund a better mental health response program. Maybe that money could be used to provide access to mental health supports for people,” explained Gorkoff.

“If the problem that we are trying to solve is police violence against people, the research on body-cameras shows that it does not reduce violence against people.”