Chokehold Chong —
a twice-convicted violent criminal
and upstanding Victoria police officer
VicPD Sergeant George Chong committed his second assault
around the time his probation was ending for his first offence.
The judge said a civilian would have got prison time
Nov. 26, 2011
The victim can be seen co-operating until about 5:22 into the video.
After 6:00, VicPD sergeant George Chong steps up (or back, actually)
to show him what some cops are made of.
In the first place, Frank Blair was wrongly arrested. He was on probation and there had been a curfew, but the curfew was rescinded. Victoria police arrested him for breaking the non-existent curfew.
Surveillance video shows Blair fully co-operating with police until near the end of his fingerprinting session. At about 5:22 into the video, Blair is seen stalling, apparently objecting to something. During VicPD sergeant George Chong’s criminal trial, provincial court judge Herb Weitzel accepted Blair’s testimony that, due to pain in a finger that had been broken a few months earlier, he wanted to finish the fingerprinting himself instead of having an officer forcibly press his fingers into the ink pad and onto the fingerprinting sheet.
After six minutes into the video, Chong steps behind Blair and, for no apparent reason, places a chokehold around him. A second police officer bends the victim’s arm behind his back while a third stands nearby watching. The second officer and Chong, who’s still choking Blair, take the victim down to a sitting position for several seconds, then slam him hard, face-down, onto the concrete floor.
The two cops hold him face-down for a few minutes, then lift him up to finish the fingerprinting. At that point Blair is unable to stand on his own and looks barely conscious.
The third officer seems concerned only about the blood on the floor. While the victim is slumped forward, apparently in significant physical distress, she walks back and forth carefully setting paper towels on the floor.
Police didn’t call an ambulance until nearly two hours later.
The judge convicted Chong of assault, giving him a conditional discharge and 12 months’ probation. Chong committed this crime around the time his probation was ending for an earlier, off-duty offence, in which he assaulted someone during a road rage incident.
Weitzel told Chong that had he been a civilian, he would have been sentenced to prison.
Victoria police suspended Chong for five days. But he remains an officer in good standing with the force.
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