The story of Simona Tibu is a fascinating, to me, story about social media. How one person can spin the story in her favour until conviction. And how people can view the same video involving a police officer and an individual and come to vastly different conclusions. It helps that this entire story is made simpler to track because the alleged "innocent victim" has a unique name. It took two years from arrest to conviction but the truth is out.
She was arrested for failing to produce papers after being stopped for passing a
motorcycle cop doing 130 kmph in a 100 kmph zone.
(Now I don't know about you but I strongly suspect I'd notice if a driver of motorcycle
in
front
of me looked like they were wearing a uniform.)
She alleged a beating by the cop along with pictures of her lying in a
hospital bed,
with scratches and scrapes and a neck brace.. She was just found guilty
of resisting arrest, etc, etc. And now the police officer is suing her because
of
her actions subsequent to the arrest in stalking him including visiting him at
his
house and making allegations at his office. Among other things he got a
restraining order on her.
Simona Tibu, dentist detained for speeding, sued for $4M by Alberta sheriff
Watch the raw "dash" motorcycle video. Just below and to the left the photo
of
the mans face. What you can't see is that there is a lot of highway traffic to
the
left and if he had let her run in the direction she'd probably be dead.
There are several interesting things from a social media perspective.
1) I first heard of this story via the
CBC news story on Facebook.
I'm astounded by three things about the
Facebook postings.
a) Those who clearly posted without watching the video
b) A few who only read the headline and commented.
c) Those who criticized the police officer for "beating up a defenseless woman"
I'm quite happy to read that it wasn't just me who told the folks in categories a, b and c
that they were idiots. <smile>
2) Now if you do a search on her name you will see all kinds of commentary such as "Dr. Simona Tibu is Brutally Beaten During Traffic Stop by ..." etc And a photo of her in a hospital bed looking in very rough shape with facial scrapes and a neck brace. Well those all happened because she was resisting arrest and fell over. The judge, watching the video, came to the conclusion that the cop hadn't pushed her. And, furthermore, that he fell to the side of her.
Here's a Facebook page back from 2013. View the comments. Wow.
Cop Block via Cop Block: Edmonton
But when I think about it most everyone who would follow that page
would be against police for whatever reasons.
Here is the judge's decision
R v Tibu, 2015 ABPC 88 (CanLII)
convicting her. You can tell that the judge carefully watched the video.
I'm also
quite impressed with the amount of time the judge must have spent in writing up
the decision. Granted some of it is boiler plate.
Now here is another judge's decision throwing out all her appeals against the
Camrose City Police Chief dismissing her five complaints.
Tibu v Camrose (Police Service)
Her complaints are very interesting reading. One of the items is about a tow
truck driver forgot his clipboard in her garage and she wouldn't give it back.
So he
phoned the cops, she didn't answer the door, and then she complained about
harassment.
Now another court action she was involved in is also very interesting reading.
She
owned a condo and was suing the condo property people.
Waymarker Management (Silver Creek) Inc v Tibu, 2015 ABCA 140 (CanLII)
One
interesting paragraph is "The judge dismissed Dr. Tibu’s application for
reconsideration upon learning that, despite medical evidence submitted by Dr.
Tibu
indicating she was suffering from PTSD at the time of the trial, and could not,
therefore, be expected to conduct a trial, she had attended court in Camrose on
another matter on the same day."
Here is a list of her court convictions and various other judicial
activities in Alberta.
http://www.canlii.org/en/#search/all=Simona%20Tibu
I would like to thank the folks on Facebook who located the various judicial
proceedings links.