Judgments | Accusation: The police gassed the boy and punched him in the stomach – the district court will give the verdict today

Helsinki today the district court will issue a verdict in a case where the prosecutor is demanding fines or imprisonment for excessive use of force in an arrest situation for a former police officer of the Helsinki Police Department.

According to the prosecutor, the policeman used gas spray on a 16-year-old boy who was lying on the ground and was handcuffed on New Year’s Day 2021. According to the prosecution, the man also hit the boy in the middle body when two other policemen had raised the young man to his feet.

The Helsinki police have previously said that the suspected assault took place in an arrest situation after the patrol had intervened in the shooting of fireworks by young people in the center of Helsinki. The accused’s colleagues told their superiors about his behavior. After the incident, the suspect was arrested from his post and he resigned in March 2022.

The prosecutor demands that the man be punished for assault and breach of duty. The man has denied that he committed the crime.

To the district court in the written answer he submitted, the man says that the young man was aggressive and did not calm down despite the prompts. The man says that because of this, he decided that the 16-year-old should be tranquilized with a gas atomizer.

“As the threats continued, in this situation I did not see any other, milder means of force sufficient to break the resistance. Eye spray in itself does not prevent resistance, but according to general experience, affecting vision curbs resistance and limits the targeting of aggressive actions at other people,” the man writes in his answer.

The former police officer denies hitting the boy after he was lifted into an upright position. According to the man, he himself had tried to get the young man in an upright position so that he could be checked.

“In the surveillance camera recording, the event in question looks like a beating to some,” the man says in his answer.

The man also denies that he is guilty of breaching his official duty. According to the man, the “inability or unwillingness” of the other members of the police patrol to participate in the activity led to the fact that the man had to make the arrest alone.

“Because of this, the arrest was much more laborious and caused both myself and (the young man) various minor physical injuries,” the man says.