A Manitoba RCMP officer has been charged following a 2019 arrest in which a Mountie pressed his knee into a man’s neck at the Winnipeg airport while the man repeatedly yelled “I can’t breathe.” Manitoba police said in a news release Monday that there are reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offense has occurred. Const. Eric Gerain is charged with assault and ordered to appear in provincial court on September 26. The arrest outside James Richardson International Airport was captured on video by the father of Nathan Lasuik, the man pinned to the ground. The video shows an RCMP officer kneeling on Lasuik’s neck and pressing the man’s face to the ground. The officer does not seem to adjust his knee, nor the pressure, despite the man’s repeated pleas. This is still from a video taken by Nathan Lasuik’s father showing an RCMP officer placing his knee on Lasuik’s neck during his arrest outside the James Richardson International Airport in Winnipeg on August 1, 2019. (Submitted by Nathan Lasuik) Although the arrest was made on August 1, 2019, the RCMP did not notify the Manitoba Independent Investigations Unit until more than two years later, on August 11, 2021, after the video was entered into evidence at the arrestee’s trial. Jane MacLatchy, who was the commander of the Manitoba RCMP at the time, said the force learned of the events from a Winnipeg Free Press report on the trial, after which the RCMP reported the allegations to the IIU, which investigates serious incidents involving the police.
“Let Me Breathe”
At one point in the video recorded by Lasuik’s father, the officer dismisses Lasuik’s pleas because he could still speak. “Let me breathe,” Lasuik can be heard saying early in the video. “You breathe. When you talk, you breathe,” someone shouts. It is not clear from the video which police officer is speaking. A police officer can be heard telling a bystander to move away, but she stands her ground. “I’m just making sure that person breathes,” says the bystander. At the end of the video, a police officer approaches Lasuik’s father to ask if he is recording. “I have to grab the phone,” the officer says, before the video ends. RCMP were at the airport after receiving a report of an intoxicated man who assaulted a person and then punched an officer in the face without provocation, the force said in a news release last year. When officers arrived at the airport, they tried to de-escalate the situation, but Laswick became combative and struck an officer, the news release said. Lasuik was handcuffed but kicked an officer in the groin before officers pinned him to the ground when the officer put his knee in the back of Lasuik’s neck, police said. Lasuik was charged with multiple assault charges and his case went to trial. Lasuik later pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and was found guilty of a third and given a conditional discharge. He was placed on supervised probation for one year. The IIU is not providing further details about the case against Gerein because the case is now before the courts, the press release said on Monday.
