Alberta Mountie Simon Seguin who tackled Chief Allan Adam remained on duty despite assault charges

A First Nation chief was tackled and punched by an RCMP officer outside an Alberta casino over an expired license plate, dashcam video shows.

Chief Allan Adam leads the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.

In March 2020, an RCMP officer pulled Adam over outside a Fort McMurray casino over an expired license plate, according to the video.

A 12-minute dashcam recording later released to the public shows the traffic stop deteriorating rapidly, video shows.

The officer pushed Adam’s wife against their truck and yanked her by the shoulder as she cried out, the video shows. Adam swatted the officer’s hands away and told him to leave her alone, the recording shows.

A second officer then ran at the chief, tackled him to the ground, and punched him repeatedly in the head, the footage shows.

Adam was handcuffed and put into the back of a cruiser with blood streaming down his face, the recording shows.

Police charged the chief with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, court records show.

Three months later, Alberta Crown prosecutors withdrew both charges after looking at the evidence again, court documents show.

His lawyer, Brian Beresh, publicly addressed the decision by prosecutors to drop the case.

“The withdrawal of these charges at this stage in the law, for our purposes, is a finding of not guilty. It is a true victory, not only for Allan Adam and his family, other Indigenous accused, but for our society generally,” Beresh said.

Beresh then revealed details about the second officer that the RCMP had not volunteered, according to the lawyer.

The officer who tackled Adam was identified as Const. Simon Seguin, records show.

Seguin was already facing his own trial that September on unrelated charges, according to court documents.

Those counts included assault, mischief, and being in someone’s home illegally, records show. They stemmed from an incident the previous August.

Through all of it, the constable stayed on full duty without suspension, records show. He was never fired by the force.

RCMP spokesman Fraser Logan defended the decision to keep the officer on duty, public statements show.

Logan said Seguin’s duty status was “the result of an assessment made by his managers,” unrelated to the pending criminal case against him.

The fallout from the arrest reached the provincial government, officials said. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced the Police Act was under review with a focus on racism and abuse of authority, acknowledging “there are some bad apples” in policing.

Alberta’s independent police watchdog opened its own investigation into the arrest itself, separate from either man’s criminal case.

Adam had his criminal charges withdrawn within three months of the stop, court records show. Seguin kept his badge for months longer despite facing an unrelated assault charge of his own.

Seguin was scheduled to stand trial that September on the unrelated criminal charges, court records show.