Vancouver police say the man they arrested June 26 resisted them and tried to grab an officer's gun. (YouTube)

A B.C. civil rights organization says a video posted on YouTube showing a violent arrest contradicts the official police version of the incident.

But a psychologist specializing in conflict management says the video suggests that police acted appropriately.

B.C. Civil Liberties Association president Robert Holmes says the video shows two police officers exiting their cruiser at a street corner, approaching a man and, just seconds later, repeatedly kneeing him.

Two days after the June 26 incident, Vancouver police issued a release saying the homeless Sudanese-born man began to "actively resist arrest and fight" and "continually tried to disarm one of the officers by trying to pull the officer's gun out of its holster."

The grainy, one-angle video does not show precisely where Eltah Ishtag's hands are through much of the confrontation, but Holmes said his view is that the man's hands were not near the gun belts of either of the officers.

Man faces 3 charges

Holmes said police issued a "misleading" news release.

"They indicated that he started the thing and the video doesn't bear that out," Holmes said about the surveillance footage provided by Megaphone Magazine, which has an office just steps from the scene on the city's Downtown Eastside.

Ishtag, 47, has been charged with obstructing a peace officer, assaulting a peace officer with intent to resist arrest and disarming a peace officer.

"The suggestion was that after they kneed him a few times he should have just laid back and taken whatever they were [doing to] him," Holmes said.

It's not clear how long the incident lasted, as the three struggling men moved out of the camera shot after about one minute.

Mayor informed

Psychologist Mike Webster said after viewing the video he felt the officers' actions were appropriate because Ishtag was wanted on a warrant for allegedly threatening officers in Calgary in June.

"If he was just a regular guy and never had any dealings with police and he had limited English, then yes, that would matter," said Webster. "But in my experience, this fellow would know full well what the police were there for."

Vancouver police spokesman Const. Lindsey Houghton said he could not comment on the matter because it's before the courts.

Holmes said he has sent a letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson, head of the Vancouver Police Board, asking him to say why the department issued information that puts a "favourable gloss on events."

With files from The Canadian Press and the CBC's Robert Zimmerman