A jail guard with the Vancouver Police Department has been sentenced to house arrest after violently assaulting two detainees at a pre-trial detention centre, including a 17-year-old Indigenous girl.
According to court documents, Omar Ahmed Flores is being sentenced on one count of assault in relation to an incident Jan. 7, 2023, during which he stomped on a detainee’s head, kicked him in the face twice, put his knee on his back, and punched him in the ribs several times.
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This came less than a week after he was found to have punched the teen girl in the stomach four times when she was heavily intoxicated and being secured in a restraint chair.
In her decision, Judge Colleen Elden says her ruling was based in part on video evidence from inside the VPD jail.
She also goes on to say that the police’s conduct toward the girl was “abhorrent.”
“It was New Year’s Eve, and [the girl], like many 17-year-olds, had overconsumed alcohol,” she wrote.
“In my view, a logical first step to ensure her safety would have been to drive her home. It is deeply concerning that the police chose, instead, to arrest [her] and keep her in custody until she was sober.”
Elden points out there is a “tragic irony” that police say she was taken into custody “for her own protection” and then assaulted and restrained in the chair for over six hours.
She goes on to say this stands as yet another example of the country’s history of the mistreatment of Indigenous women.
Under his conditions, Flores must stay at home 24 hours a day for six months.