By IANS,
Vancouver: Canadians were outraged when men from the Vancouver Police Department bloodied a man at the dead of night without confirming whether he was the man they wanted.
They were responding to a domestic abuse call from a woman Friday, who said that she was being assaulted by her husband and she feared for herself and her child.
The policemen reached the address, knocked on the door and woke Yao Wei Wu up from his sleep. They dragged him out and beat up him black and blue.
Since the Chinese-origin man spoke little English, he couldn’t ask the policemen why he was being beaten. The 44-year-old man was left with a swollen eye and deep cuts before his wife could come and intervene.
Actually the woman who had called police for help lived in the basement of that house while the Chinese man and family lived on the ground floor. But the policemen never asked any questions before bashing the Chinese-Canadian.
Later, the police department tried to wriggle out of the embarrassing situation by saying that the man was bashed for resisting arrest. But after public outrage, Vancouver police chief Jim Chu went to the family of the victim and apologised.
He admitted that the policemen didn’t give the man any chance to identify himself before beating him. “We empathise with the Wu family and how upsetting this incident must be for them,” the police chief said.
Wu’s wife Nan Man Chi told the Vancouver Sun newspaper: “The (police) chief apologised, but the officer who did that should be the one apologising. And even if we did forgive him, then what? Then we don’t file a lawsuit?”
Two years ago, a newly arrived immigrant from Poland was killed at Vancouver airport when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used taser guns on him. No policeman has been booked for that killing.