The junior Prince George RCMP officer who directed a witness to delete a smartphone video the night an Indigenous man died in police custody in 2017 should be jailed for six months for obstruction of justice, according to a Crown prosecutor.
But the defence lawyer for Arthur Dalman, 33, said he should instead receive a conditional discharge because it took five and a half years for him to be charged and tried.
“Obstruction is a serious offence deserving of serious sanction,” Crown prosecutor Cory Lo told Judge Michael Fortino at the Jan. 12 sentencing hearing in Prince George Provincial Court.
Dale Culver, a 35-year-old Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en man, was violently arrested July 18, 2017, after a call about someone on a bicycle casing vehicles on 10th Avenue between Central Street West and Commercial Crescent.
In July 2024, Judge Adrian Brooks found Dalman guilty. Lo told Fortino that Dalman snatched the smartphone from the hand of witness Kevin Moe. When Moe pulled it away, Dalman threatened to arrest him for obstruction and take the phone as evidence if he did not delete the file.
“Const. Dalman did testify and his account was rejected,” Lo said. “It was not believed nor did it raise a reasonable doubt. The court found that Const. Dalman lied in his testimony to the court.”
Defence lawyer Danielle Ching McNamee said Dalman’s sentencing was not about the tragic death of Culver, a father and valued member of his community.
“Mr. Dalman arrived on scene following Mr. Culver’s placement in the back of a police cruiser,” Ching McNamee said. “So Mr. Dalman did not see any previous interaction between members and Mr. Culver. He had no dealings at all.”
Ching McNamee said it was Dalman’s first attendance at a high-priority “10-33” call — the distress signal an officer uses when his or her life is in danger.
“The interaction between Mr. Dalman and Mr. Moe took place within minutes, and the findings at trial show there was no evidentiary value captured in the video recording that Mr. Moe deleted,” Ching McNamee said.
She said her client has suffered an exacerbation of post-traumatic stress disorder and is likely to lose his job, which should be considered mitigating circumstances.
“He could have learned early on in his career from this mistake, moved forward with it, and quite possibly still be a flourishing ERT member, giving back to his community as a police officer,” Ching McNamee said.
Lilly Speed, Culver’s daughter, gave a victim impact statement that said her father was killed because he was an Indigenous man on a bike in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her father’s death went largely unnoticed until after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, which sparked continent-wide protests and riots.
“Dale Culver and George Floyd were both killed in very similar circumstances,” Speed said. “My dad’s case suddenly became a lot more important to the public. My family and I took the opportunity to make what happened to my dad as public as possible.”
She also expressed regret about the lack of accountability. In early 2024, the BC Prosecution Service stayed manslaughter charges against Const. Paul Ste-Marie and Const. Jean Francois Monette and an obstruction of justice charge against Const. Clarence Alexander MacDonald.
The only other officer charged, Sgt. Bayani (Jon) Eusebio Cruz, was tried at the same time as Dalman and found not guilty of obstruction of justice.
Dalman also addressed the court, saying the length of time it took for the trial to occur put his career in limbo, harmed his reputation and caused severe stress for his family and himself.
He said he was even subject to “a highly credible death threat” after the RCMP’s Real Time Intelligence Centre identified online chatter naming him. Individuals were allegedly seeking his home address through hacked property databases and “expressed intent to ambush myself and others involved in this incident as we travel to and from work.”
Dalman said an unmarked police vehicle was stationed outside his home around the clock, panic alarms were installed in his house, emergency fobs with panic buttons were issued to his family to trigger a police response, and he was authorized to carry his RCMP-issued pistol while off duty.
“These measures significantly heightened an already elevated state of hyper-vigilance,” Dalman said.
At the same time, he continued working with the emergency response team and on general duty, often for 80 to 90 hours per week. But the incident ultimately derailed his dream of being a full-time emergency response team member. He is now pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice.
Fortino is expected to reserve decision after the hearing concludes Jan. 13.