Const. Todd Sweet has returned to work in the Royal City after winning a competition to work in the New Westminster Police Department's criminal intelligence unit.
Sgt. Diana McDaniel of the New Westminster Police Department confirmed with The Record recently that Sweet, who was involved in two high-profile incidents in 2005, has spent the last four-and-a-half years working on a secondment to the provincial criminal intelligence unit.
"Todd Sweet will start in our criminal intelligence unit later this month (February) and it will definitely be an inside office role that's intelligence-based," said McDaniel. "It's a very similar role to what he's already been doing (provincially), but this will have a more localized focus."
McDaniel said the department has had a constable working on the intelligence beat for the last three-plus years, but that position became vacant earlier this year and Sweet's application was successful.
The Record tried repeatedly to contact Sweet through his line at the New Westminster Police Department and the message on his voice mail was "the owner of this mailbox is not accepting messages."
Sweet garnered headlines because of two 2005 incidents that dragged on through the court system for years afterwards.
In June 2005, police officers from Abbotsford investigated Sweet after he kicked a man who was lying on the ground in handcuffs in June 2005.
The man had just been arrested after an early morning police chase through New Westminster's streets in which he had run red lights and reached speeds of up to 120 km/h in residential neighbourhoods.
Heading north on McBride, the man lost control on a curve just before 10th Avenue and crashed into the green space on the Burnaby side of the street.
Sweet and another officer pulled the man out of the car, arrested him and handcuffed him.
It was while the man was lying on the ground that Sweet stepped over him and, as he later admitted in court, gave the man a "substantial" kick to the head.
Sweet pleaded guilty in May 2007 to assault causing bodily harm, but during the July 2007 sentencing hearing, a provincial court judge gave him a conditional discharge, meaning that he won't have a criminal record.
Two separate investigations started, the criminal one leading to court and Sweet's sentence and the Police Act investigation.
In the Police Act investigation, Sweet was demoted from a first-class constable to third-class, which meant a substantial drop in pay.
Sweet had other duties, such as training new recruits and being a part of the emergency response team, that he had to give up.
Also as part of his discipline, Sweet was suspended without pay for five days, the maximum allowed under the Police Act, and he had to take more training and counselling courses.
The second high-profile incident Sweet was involved in occurred on Aug. 23, 2005 and resulted in Sweet firing three shots and the death of 16-year-old Kyle Tait.
The details of that incident come from a 2008 inquest into Tait's death, where Sweet provided his account of what happened.
Shortly after 2 a.m., Ian Campbell, then 18 years old, had run a roadblock on McBride Boulevard, almost hitting a police officer with the SUV he was driving.
New Westminster police officers jumped in their cars and chased Campbell through the city's streets and into Burnaby, where he eventually turned on to Burns Street.
"I was of the opinion we were after somebody who had committed an assault with a weapon against a police officer," Sweet told the inquest.
He didn't realize the police officer hadn't been hit by the SUV, nor did he hear the report over the police radio that the licence plate check showed the SUV hadn't been stolen.
This was a point New Westminster police kept from the public at the time, saying in the days following the shooting that the SUV had been stolen and never correcting that statement.
At various times during the chase, Sweet and Const. Gareth Blount, a recruit he was training, had been at the back of the six police cars following the SUV.
Twice, Campbell had stopped on Kingsway, in the middle of the street.
But both times, as police were getting ready to arrest those inside the SUV, Campbell took off again.
The second time, Sweet and Blount had caught up to the other officers and became the lead car.
When Campbell cut across the lanes and nearly swerved into oncoming traffic, Sweet said at the inquest that he told the other officers to back off.
He continued to follow Campbell, but more slowly, hoping it would stop.
The SUV ran a couple more stop signs before turning onto Burns.
With nowhere to go on the residential street, which dead-ended, Campbell stopped, and Sweet angled the police car in front of the SUV's bumper.
"I was trying to prevent the vehicle from going mobile again," he said. "I've seen instances where people get out on foot and double back to the car and take off again."
But as soon as Sweet stopped, Campbell rammed the SUV into the passenger side of the police car.
"I felt the sensation of being pushed sideways down the road and the police car going up on two wheels on the driver's side," Sweet said.
The police car ended up jammed against a parked car, and Sweet managed to get out but believed Blount was trapped in the car, he later said.
He drew his gun, turned on the flashlight that was attached to it and aimed the weapon at Campbell's head.
"I'm looking right at him, and I gave him repeat commands to 'Show me your hands,'" Sweet said.
Instead, Campbell kept his left hand on the steering wheel and fiddled with something on his right, which Sweet later discovered was the gear shift.
Campbell backed up and stopped.
"I was continuing to watch the (SUV)," Sweet said at the inquest. "I knew that, if it started to come toward me, I would have to try and stop him because I knew Const. Blount was in the vehicle and would be seriously hurt or killed."
When Campbell drove forward, Sweet fired three times into the SUV, hitting Campbell in the hand but fatally injuring Tait, the front-seat passenger.
There were three younger teenagers, two girls and a boy, in the back seat, but they weren't hurt.
At the time, there was a warrant for the arrest of Campbell, who later got a six-year sentence for dangerous driving and other offences.
