An FAQ by the man who filmed a VPD officer punching a Vancouver cyclist

On Tuesday (March 26), a Vancouver cyclist named Andishae Akhavan was punched by a Vancouver Police Department officer. The incident was recorded and uploaded to Facebook by Mike Schwarz, a friend of Akhavan’s.

Responding to significant interest in the video, Schwarz wrote an “FAQ” that describes his perceptions of the altercation. That post appears unedited below.

 FAQ On what happened with the "punch" thrown by VPD member on what appears to be excessive force.

I'm getting hundreds of messages from random people, and reporters asking similar questions, so here are the FAQs. You can also hear about this at 11 on Global, CTV, and CBC. On CBC Radio, or read it in the Sun / Province Tomorrow.

Q: How did this start? Where were you when this started?

A: I was driving home over the Cambie Street bridge turning left onto Beatty when I noticed a friend Andi was being questioned by two officers. Their body language made it looked fairly serious, so I quickly parked my car, and ran over to the scene. I heard about 10 seconds of conversation before I got the video rolling. They were arguing about the ticket.

Q: What did Andi say before he was put into handcuffs? Was he provoking the police?

A: He was upset that he was getting an expensive ticket as he was riding his bike through the red light at the bottom of Robson where it meets Beatty. This is a T intersection with little to no traffic, and a nice, safe bike lane. He was arguing with them, but not threatening. He didn't raise his voice. At the end he said "This is bullshit", and then they arrested him. That is when the video started.

Q: How did you feel when you saw this happen? What was your reaction?

A: At first I was really angry and started yelling, then I realized I had better stay back or I was going to get arrested and lose the video footage. I just kept my distance, 6 feet away for the full 40 minutes they kept him there.

Q: How many police were on the scene for this?

A: Well after they punched Andi, his face was bleeding pretty good. He had cuts on the inside and outside of his mouth... it looked like his tooth may have poked right through his lip. So they called for a medic and three firefighters showed up. Because there was an altercation, they called in the police supervisor who stood around and watched the whole time. A total of 6-7 officers including the firemen, 3 police vehicles, and not once was Andi resisting anything (other than arguing a ticket). Add in the medical services today and that is a lot of taxpayer money at work here...

Q: What do you think should happen to the officer who did this?

A: I think the hardest part about an officers job is to stay calm in stressful situations. We don't know what these officers had to deal with last night, or how much stress they were under. I wouldn't say he is a "bad cop", but that he handled this specific situation with excessive force and should probably have some training on how to keep his cool. If he has a previous record of this sort of thing perhaps it isn't his cup of tea.

Q: What do you think the officers should have done instead?

A: They could have easily restrained his arm, put him in a thumb lock, or even just given him a warning "if you don't stop moving, I will punch you in the face". He would have stopped moving for sure! There were two officers there much larger than Andi, they didn't need to be so rough.

Q: Did Andi go to Jail? What happened next?

A: Well there was about 30 minutes of sitting around burning through a lot of taxpayer dollars while paper work was filled out. Finally they told him that if he signed some paper work stating he would appear in court, they would let him go home and wouldn't have to bring him to jail. That is how we got all the officer's information.

I love Vancouver... have been living here for most of my life. I have several friends who are amazing, proud members of VPD that love their jobs. The police did an amazing job handling the Olympics with their friendly attitude. I've been deleting ugly comments all day long and hope that people will realize that being a police officer is not an easy job. Everyone makes mistakes... even the best people, and the best cops. Lets make this a learning experience and hope this story sheds a light on PART of a system that may be broken. Lets work on officer training to handle stressful situations, and on our part - give them a little slack if they pull you over... regardless of how menial the infraction.