Warning: Some language in this story may offend some readers.
“Get the fuck down, get the fuck down!”
That’s the way a 32-year-old Burnaby resident says a RCMP officer greeted him on Sunday morning – a day that will forever haunt him.
Koshin Hussein was feeding his two 16-month-old twins on Easter Sunday when someone started pounding on his apartment door. When he looked through the peephole he got quite the shock – a police officer in full uniform pointing a firearm towards the door.
“Immediately I tell the police officer, ‘Officer, I’ve got 16-month-old twins inside the residence right now, please put the firearm away,’” Hussein says. “The response I get from the police officer is, ‘Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out right now, get the fuck out right now.’”
Because it was early, Hussein was still in his pajamas, which he says he tried to explain to the officer. As Hussein was madly throwing on underwear and sweatpants, the front door swung open and he came face to face with the officer.“The door comes flying off the hinges; there’s a pistol right in my face,” he says.
The officer yells at Hussein over and over, demanding he get on the ground. Hussein says that at this point he was pleading with the officer to lower his weapon, worried it would scare his family and upset the babies.
“I got my hands fully extended so he can clearly see that I don’t have anything, and there’s no justification to have a pistol right in my face,” he says, his voice rising in fear as he recalls the incident. “The thought of getting killed by a police officer is one thing, but the thought of being shot dead by a police officer in front of my children in my own residence terrifies me. I get choked up thinking about it; it petrifies me.”
As Hussein was lowering himself to the ground, he says the police officer holstered his firearm and pulled out his canister of pepper spray. Hussein says he begged the officer not to use it in case the fumes would harm his kids, who were in their rocking chairs in the next room.
The officer discharged the pepper spray into Hussein’s face, causing him to collapse onto the floor. The officer proceeded to handcuff Hussein and take him outside to a waiting cruiser.
“So I’m barefeeted now, and if you remember on Sunday it was pouring rain out here in Burnaby, and I’m getting taken outside. I’m in severe pain, I can barely see and I’m being put in the back of a cruiser,” he says.
As the pepper spray continued to burn, Hussein says he asked the officer and his partner, who was waiting in the cruiser, if they could get him some water or something to ease the pain. Both refused and said paramedics would deal with it later.
For 45 minutes Hussein says he sat in the cruiser, before the officers were ready to go. Initially, he says they told him they would take him to the hospital, but before he knew it, he was at Burnaby RCMP headquarters on Deer Lake Parkway.
According to Hussein, he was held at the detachment from about 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. without any indication when he would be released or whether he was being charged with something.
“They said I was under investigation for assault – an assault that didn’t take place, that didn’t happen,” he says.
Eventually, the arresting officer returned to Hussein’s cell to discuss the incident. Hussein says the officer asked him if he was Muslim and if he followed the Quran. Hussein asked why it mattered.
“Immediately, right then, I said, ‘I’m Canadian, I’ve been here 26 years, I’ve been here since I was a little child, I’m as much Canadian as anyone else,’” he recalls.
Finally, the officer escorted Hussein downstairs to the front desk to retrieve what few effects had been checked when he was booked.
It was still pouring outside, and Hussein asked the officers if they could drive him back to his home, which he says they had told him they would do earlier that day, but they declined and instead gave him a bus ticket and walked with him to the stop.
The officers then told the bus driver to call 911 if Hussein gave him any trouble and they would come and bring him back to the detachment.
“At that point, the bus driver closes the door and the bus starts going and that’s when the waterfalls started coming down my eyes – I just couldn’t believe it,” he says.
Hussein eventually made it back to his Metrotown apartment, still in shock and soaking wet. He says the officer told him he wasn’t being charged with anything but wouldn’t give him any details as to what the reason was for the investigation, only that the RCMP received a complaint about a possible disturbance at his residence.
“There was no fighting, there was no disturbance, we were having a conversation,” Hussein adds, remarking that often his voice is louder than people are used to. “We had a whole day planned out, and he came out like Billy the Kid from the Wild Wild West, you know what I mean? Guns drawn.”
Hussein told the NOW that he does have a criminal past – he was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking, trafficking in controlled substances and breach of undertaking or recognizance – but his last conviction was nearly a decade ago, when he says he was in his early 20s and hanging around with the wrong people.
When the NOW visited Hussein at his home on Wednesday afternoon, evidence of his new role as a father and family man was everywhere. Pictures of his twin babies and his wife were hung all over the apartment, toys were scattered on the floor, and baby food and diapers were piled near the kitchen.
Hussein says the incident has shaken him to his core. The night of the incident, he says he had nightmares about the officer returning to his home and terrorizing his family.
“That’s something that no parent – you know, the thought of being killed in front of your kids – no parent should have to go through that, especially at the hands of a police officer and especially in this wonderful country of ours,” he says. “I pray to God this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Burnaby RCMP Staff Sgt. Major John Buis told the NOW he couldn’t comment on the incident because of privacy concerns, not only for Hussein but the other people involved.
“We encourage him to come down to the detachment to discuss his concerns or if he wishes to, he can contact the public complaints commission for complaints against the RCMP,” he says.
Buis says both he and other officials with the Burnaby RCMP are willing to speak with Hussein.
“We encourage Mr. Hussein to come forward and make a complaint if he believes there was some wrongdoing by the police,” he adds.
