RCMP officer admits to road rage
Glenn Bohn, The Vancouver Sun, Oct. 9, 2003
A Vancouver-based RCMP officer admitted Wednesday he struck another driver who took a parking space the constable wanted.
Constable Kenrick Whitney, a 250-pound former nightclub bouncer who once played for the B.C. Lions and three other Canadian football teams, pleaded guilty to the assault last November near Hemlock and Broadway.
“I regret what happened,” Whitney said in Vancouver provincial court. “I lost my cool for that short moment.”
Whitney testified he had just finished an RCMP overtime shift at the University of B.C. campus and was returning home about 3 a.m. He said he felt frustrated because he had spent about 10 or 15 minutes looking for a parking spot.
He said he had located a spot on the other side of the street and was turning around when the victim pulled into it.
Former Vancouver resident Cameron Pashak, a middle-aged man of average height and build, was still in his car when Whitney pulled alongside. When Pashak left his car in the parking spot and walked away on the sidewalk, Whitney followed in his car.
Whitney and his victim offered different versions of the argument that preceded the assault, and whether a racist insult was hurled toward Whitney, who is black. (By court order, news media are prohibited from showing the public an image of the RCMP officer.)
While still in his car, Whitney pulled his car alongside the car being driven by Pashak. According to Pashak, the RCMP officer became angry and declared: “I want that f----ing spot.”
That was when Pashak noticed the RCMP crest on Whitney’s jacket.
Pashak said he told him: “You’re a police officer and you’re getting unduly upset over a parking spot. . . .
“I asked him whether I had done something illegal, and I asked him if he was going to arrest me,” Pashak testified.
Pashak then got out of the parked car and started to walk away on the sidewalk, in the direction of his nearby home.
He said Whitney drove beside him and he began walking faster.
“I was getting quite nervous,” he said. “To me, [Whitney] looked quite large. . . . He told me that I had an attitude problem, and then he uttered a threat. He told me: ‘You’re f---ing dead.’”
Pashak said he began running towards his home, and didn’t see Whitney get out of his car and approach him from behind.
“The next thing I knew, I was hit in the face, and ended up on the ground,” he said.
Pashak said he then turned around and used his cell phone to record the licence plate number of Whitney’s car. He said he felt blood coming from his nose and mouth as he called 911 to report he had just been hit by an RCMP officer.
“I was surprised by that behaviour, that someone was getting so angry over a parking spot,” he added. “I was even more surprised and shocked that it was a police officer.”
Whitney, 38, is currently assigned to the RCMP drug section at E Division headquarters and is currently doing covert work such as surveillance, but also does regular duty shifts at UBC and Whistler.
Whitney, an RCMP officer since 1997, said racist comments were directed toward him during his childhood in Moose Jaw, and someone once put up a racist sign on his front lawn when he was an RCMP officer in Kelowna.
Whitney conceded he told Pashak, “You’re an ass” after Pashak refused to pull out of the parking spot, then said Pashak told him to “f--- off.”
Although Whitney did not state during his initial testimony that Pashak called him a “nigger,” Whitney’s defence lawyer asked his client: “How did you feel when he said f--- off, nigger?”
“I felt disrespected as a person,” Whitney replied.
Earlier, when Butcher suggested to Pashak that he used the word “nigger” with the swear words, Pashak said he did not.
“It is not my character to use that word,” he said.
Judge Catherine Bruce said she will sentence Whitney Oct. 17.
More information about RCMP constable Ken Kenrick Whitney:
Mounties sting Mountie:
Ken Kenrick Whitney proved himself too odious even for the RCMP.
For a cop, that must be the ultimate disgrace. More…
An ongoing RCMP disgrace for many years, Ken Kenrick Whitney’s back in court,
this time for stealing while on duty. But despite all the extraordinary leniency
granted to him, Whitney says he’s been punished excessively. The unmanly tough guy
also claims he can’t be held responsible for his own actions. More…
Richmond police officer
pleads guilty to breach of trust.
Const. Kenrick Whitney was a former BC Lion
with a history of assault while on duty
Graeme Wood, Richmond News, Oct. 30, 2014
Through at least 16 years of offensive, disgusting and vicious behaviour,
Mountie brass have supported RCMP constable Ken Kenrick Whitney.
Now allegations of theft and breach of trust have finally got this creep suspended.
Did RCMP bosses wait until he qualified for full pension?
Kenrick ‘Ken’ Whitney:
From offensive tackle to offensive cop
What constitutes ‘gross misconduct’ for RCMP officers questioned
Brian Hutchinson, National Post, Dec. 5, 2009
It’s time to ditch spitting Mountie
An editorial in the Vancouver Province, July 21, 2009
Mountie’s pay docked for spitting on motorist
Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun, July 19, 2009
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