A former Edmonton police officer accused of attacking an Indigenous man he mistakenly believed was tampering with his wife’s car was fined $1,200 for assaulting two colleagues who intervened, court records show.
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The charge for the alleged assault of the Indigenous man, however, was dismissed because the man died before trial.
Scott Carter’s case resurfaced this week as part of a judicial review application in which Carter and two other former Edmonton Police Service officers asked the court to assess whether Chief Dale McFee and the Edmonton Police Commission followed the law in relieving them from duty without pay.
In Carter’s case, Court of King’s Bench Justice James Neilson upheld the suspension, finding it reasonable for both the chief and the commission to conclude there were “exceptional circumstances” meriting unpaid leave.
The decision revealed new details about why Carter — a 25-year EPS veteran at the centre of an earlier scandal about policing and Indigenous people — was criminally charged in the case.
The altercation
The incident began while Carter and his wife were having dinner at Joey Bell Tower in Downtown Edmonton on July 6, 2021. Carter, who was off duty, left the restaurant after his wife said someone was “messing with” her vehicle in the parking lot across the street.
CCTV footage later revealed an unidentified man had been circling and peering into the vehicle. Carter, however, confronted a different man, Lambert Cardinal, who happened to be walking in the area. A 15-year-old girl accompanying Cardinal told investigators Carter approached them, told them not to touch his vehicle, then “tackled” Cardinal to the ground. According to the girl, Cardinal did not fight back and restrained her when she pulled a folding knife from her pocket.
Two EPS constables driving down 101 Street pulled over after spotting the fight. According to McFee, Carter remained aggressive and did not identify himself until later.
“Const. Davies grabbed you from behind in an effort to pull you away from Mr. Cardinal,” the chief wrote in Carter’s notice of suspension. “You turned around shoving Const. Davies in the chest and shoulder area with your two hands. This caused Const. Davies to stumble backwards a few feet, allowing you to continue your assault against Mr. Cardinal by shoving him to the ground, and lifting your arm, apparently preparing to strike him.”
Carter also manhandled Const. Fonteyne, grabbing his body armour and clothing with a clenched fist and pushing him backwards. He shouted, “Don’t you know who I am?” When Fonteyne told him to calm down, Carter allegedly replied, “Don’t f–king tell me to calm down, arrest them!”
Aftermath
Cardinal spent more than an hour in cells before being released without charges. The teen girl, who is also Indigenous, was held for a bail hearing on charges including assault with a weapon, uttering threats, and breaching a release order, all of which were later withdrawn.
In his report, Carter claimed the girl started the fight by pulling the knife, and that he grabbed Cardinal to shield himself. McFee called that claim “misleading,” saying it is “not consistent with the CCTV video, which shows Mr. Cardinal stumbling backwards into a car after you appeared to push him into the intersection.”
Carter was the subject of a Police Act investigation after an internal complaint. Crown prosecutors reviewed the investigation and in February 2022 recommended he be charged with assault for the attack on Cardinal, as well as two counts of assaulting a police officer.
McFee took the additional step of relieving Carter from duty without pay, saying if he did not do so, “discipline within the EPS may reasonably be undermined, and a loss of public confidence in the EPS may reasonably occur.”
According to court records, Carter was convicted after a trial of assaulting the two constables.
The count involving Cardinal, however, was dismissed in August 2023 “as there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction due to the availability of a key witness,” Alberta Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson Michelle Davio said in an email.
According to an obituary, Cardinal died on July 25, 2023, at the age of 36. The circumstances of his death were not disclosed.
Carter was fined $600 for assaulting each constable and retired from EPS.
‘Mr. Socko’ scandal
Carter was previously disciplined for authoring a notorious email circulated in EPS’s downtown division titled “Mr. Socko’s Ten Principals (sic) of Downtown Policing.” Written in 2002, the email eventually came to the attention of EPS leadership, who deemed it “racist, discriminatory, disgusting and offensive.” The email was released in 2009 as part of a legal proceeding, revealing Carter had said, “An ‘Aboriginal’ is actually just an Indian” and reccomended calling the prisoner transport van “the mobile Native Friendship Centre.”
In 2009, then-Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simon called the Socko list “asinine,” but on a closer read “came to the conclusion that the author wasn’t being hateful, so much as he was satirizing some of the less savoury aspects of Edmonton police culture.”
Carter’s lawyer for the judicial review declined to comment, as did Edmonton police.
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