Earlier this week Campbell River resident Robin Doxey was about two blocks from home when he innocently walked up to an RCMP cruiser at the corner of Dogwood Street and Westmere Road and promptly found himself in handcuffs.
The RCMP had effortlessly caught their man. The problem is it was the wrong man.
Doxey says he was verbally abused, relieved of $105 he was going to use to buy a Christmas tree, held in jail until after 3 a.m. and charged with a crime he could not possibly have committed.
The 48-year-old is still steaming about the nightmare and he wants an apology. But, the RCMP are in no rush to say they’re sorry.
Staff Sergeant Troy Beauregard says: “We know Mr. Doxey. If he has an axe to grind he should go to the Police Complaint Commissioner. We are not going to get into a public debate over this. It will not become public fodder.”
“I was irate,” Doxey says. “They told me I was under arrest for stealing a purse from Wal-Mart. They said they were going to bring a police dog to sniff me, but they never did. They just threw me in jail.”
Doxey says he was told the shoplifter had been chased for many blocks and could not be caught. “But, I couldn’t even run a block. I’ve got a foot-long scar on my lower left leg to prove it. I am clearly disabled.”
He also says the RCMP could have easily verified his innocence by calling his wife at home. He says she would have told them he’d just left home on his Christmas errand with $105 in cash in his pocket. But, they did not make the call. Instead, they took his sweat pants away, cut the tie string on his shorts and left him in a cell.
“I didn’t get my money back for two days,” he says. Doxey says he has a criminal record, but has been on the straight and narrow for more than six years. He’s even been working on getting his record expunged so he can wipe his slate clean.
Doxey says the charge of theft under $5,000 has been dropped, but that’s not enough. “I want some recognition from them that they were wrong. I’m still distraught.”