Former police constable charged with assault
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | 7:08 PM MT
CBC News
A former Edmonton police constable is facing a criminal charge of assault with a weapon after an incident said to have taken place while he was on duty in 2006.
Rodney Wadden was with Edmonton police for nine years before resigning in April to take a job as a constable with the Fredericton police department.
The criminal charge came after an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, an independent civilian agency that looks into all incidents in Alberta involving police that result in death or serious injury.
"The incident involved members of the Edmonton Police Service who attended at a house and arrested an individual found at that location," the agency's executive director, Clifton Purvis, said Wednesday.
Wadden was charged in early September. This is the first time an Edmonton officer has been charged after an investigation by the Serious Incident Response Team since the agency was set up by the province in 2007.
Purvis would not release other details about the incident because the matter is before the courts. Wadden is expected to make his first appearance in court in early November.
But CBC News obtained a statement of claim related to a $450,000 civil lawsuit filed a year ago in relation to the alleged incident.
In it, two homeowners allege that Wadden and a number of other police officers "unlawfully and forcefully entered" their residence without a warrant or their consent and began questioning them.
The court document alleges one of the officers, who is not named, threw one of the homeowners onto the ground and stood on his head, while three other officers kicked his head, chest, arms and legs and used a Taser on him twice.
The allegations have not been proven in court.
Police in Fredericton were aware of the charge against Wadden and said he will remain on the job as a patrol officer.
According to published media reports, while off-duty in 2005, Wadden pulled a woman from a car that was on fire after it collided with a truck. In 2002, he helped save several families from a fire.
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