Video Shows Sheriff Attacking A Deaf-Mute Throat Cancer Survivor Who Accidentally Entered Courthouse Through Wrong Door

Video showing a sheriff’s “unjustified” and “excessive” force on a mute, deaf man in a Red Deer courthouse has now been released.

On Dec. 9, cancer survivor Bill Berry, 52, was paying a traffic ticket when a sheriff told him he didn’t go through the proper security screening, as he had come in through an exit door.

Berry, who is deaf, mute and breathes through his neck with a tube, tried to signal that he couldn’t hear or speak, at which point the sheriff became more forceful and tried to carry him out.

Berry collapsed to the ground and his stoma tube fell out.

He was unable to breathe until other sheriffs noticed and reinserted it.

A probe conducted by the Solicitor General Office’s Law Enforcement and Oversight Professional Standards Unit, found the sheriff, identified as Thomas Bounds, was fine to advise Berry of his error but was unlawful in physically confronting him “without hesitation.”

The report calls Bounds’ use and level of force “unjustified” and “excessive”.

It also included an interview with Bounds, who said he tried telling Berry to go through security and he responded “non-verbally by aggressively waving his arms, at which time I took control of him.”

Bounds went on to say a wristlock was ineffective so he ended up carrying Berry to the exit, adding he believed Berry’s actions posed a potential risk to people in the courthouse and he had to use force.