(Nettavisen): The incident in question occurred on the night of Saturday 19 March 2023. The police had arrested a drunken, aggressive and uncooperative man who had caused problems at a nightclub in Oslo.
The man was transported to the central detention center in Oslo, while he acted out, among other things, by repeatedly kicking the cell door inside the police car. He was handcuffed behind his back and placed in a stable side position in the police car. According to the policeman, the offended man tried to kick him twice in the head during the car ride.
Arriving at the central detention center, the arrested man had to wait in a waiting room. Here is the surveillance camera that filmed the entire incident. The Oslo District Court describes it as follows.
– A (the offended man) continued to act out in the waiting room. He primarily acted out verbally, using obscene words, but also repeatedly stood up despite being told to sit down. At one point the defendant grabbed A and laid him down on the bench. The defendant controlled A by standing next to him and holding him down with one hand. The defendant appears at this point to be calm. At this point in the sequence of events, the detention officer ( … ) entered the waiting room. Shortly after this, A kicked the defendant in the back. Immediately after this, the accused punched A in the face, before he and (the prison guard) took control of A on the floor. As a result of the blow, A suffered a bleeding skin scrape on his nose.
In court, the policeman described the blow as a reflex action and an immediate reaction to the kick he received in the back
Acquitted – referred to the Kongsberg case
The Bureau for Police Affairs believed that the use of force went beyond section 6 of the Police Act, and that the police officer had used stronger means of force than necessary.
The policeman was prosecuted for bodily harm under section 271 of the Criminal Code, and the Bureau believed he should be fined NOK 12,000.
The Oslo district court acquitted the man. As the legal basis for the acquittal, the Oslo district court refers to the district court verdict in the Kongsberg case, where a policeman was acquitted of violence against Kevin Simensen. This judgment was recently reviewed in the Borgarting Court of Appeal, which held that the policeman had broken the law.
Read: Police violence verdict: 120 days in prison
The Oslo District Court writes that hitting and kicking can be used in “certain very special situations”, and that assessment must be based on how the police officer perceived the situation. The district court assumed that the kick made the police officer perceive that he had lost control of the situation, and that he experienced being in immediate physical danger.
– He also had experience from earlier about arrestees who had got officials in a leg lock with handcuffs on. The defendant was not familiar with (her arrested husband’s) background, and did not know if he might have martial arts skills. The court cannot rule out that the defendant perceived the situation this way, and takes that as its basis, writes the Oslo District Court in the acquittal.
Also read: The prosecutor to a policeman accused of violence: – Was the plan to beat him until he lay still?
Polled
Now the special unit has chosen to appeal the acquittal in the Oslo district court.
– The Bureau is today issuing an appeal against the judgment in the case, writes legal adviser Adrian Idehen in the Bureau for Police Affairs to Nettavisen on Thursday.
Then he had just informed the policeman about the appeal. Idehen does not wish to give further comments, and thus also not whether Borgarting’s decision has had consequences for the appeal question in this case.
The policeman’s defender, Gry Schrøder Berger, tells Nettavisen that there has been an appeal over the evidence in the case, and alternatively the application of the law. She did not expect the verdict to be appealed.
– This verdict was unanimous, she says.
– Will it affect the police’s work in difficult situations if we now receive more convictions for unnecessary exercise of power in the police?
– It is reasonable to think that it can create a disturbance where people refuse to enter into this type of assignment. It can create an obstacle to moving upwards the power pyramid. Police officers can become insecure and afraid that they will find themselves in a relationship of responsibility, says Berger.
