Photo from Isabel Chuong
By Louis Chan, AsAmNews National Correspondent
A confrontation between a Canadian Border Services Agency officer and a private citizen in Vancouver is capturing the attention of the federal agency.
Video which has been posted on Facebook shows a CBSA officer identified by the private citizen as Kent Kean.
AsAmNews has confirmed the person seen on the video is a CBSA officer.
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Kean is seen on the video getting out of his parked vehicle in an underground garage and aggressively going after a man only identified by his girlfriend, Isabel Chuong, as Nathan. She says the fight stemmed from an earlier incident involving Nathan’s pet dogs and Kean’s cat. It ended months later with her boyfriend suffering a concusssion and an infraorbital fracture, according to Chuong.
“Trying to record me?” Nathan says as he apparently approaches Kean’s vehicle.
“Don’t f*cking walk up on me,” Kean says as he gets out of his car.
“You trying to record me?” Nathan repeats.
“Don’t f*cking walk up on me, don’t f*cking walk up on me,” Kean again says as he shoves Nathan and gets into a tussel. “You piece of sh*t,” Kean says.
“Don’t f*cking push me,” Nathan responds.
“Do something, do something,” Kean says in a dare.
At that point the video ends, but a second video shows Nathan putting a headlock on Nathan.
“Let go,” Nathan pleads. “Let go, f*cking let go of me.”
Kean releases Nathan as he continues to swear.
Photos of Nathan show him with blood stains below his nose, around his lips and on his forehead. A second photo taken two days later shows Nathan now has a black eye.
“The CBSA is aware of the situation and can confirm that a thorough investigation of the employee’s conduct is ongoing,” said CBSA spokesperson Judith Gadbois-St-Cyr said in a statement to AsAmNews.
Nathan’s girlfriend Chuong explained on Facebook what she said led up to the confrontation which had been apparently brewing for several months.
She says back in May, Nathan was walking his dogs when a cat on a long leash ran onto the “common path” and encountered the dogs.
“Nathan made a comment to himself on how the owner should be more responsible for their pet,” she wrote on Facebook. “It seemed the owner aka Kean heard and he rushed outside and immediately began a verbal dispute with Nathan.”
The two ran into each other a second time. This time Chuong said Kean “pressed his face against Nathan’s, and started shoving and provoking him to fight. Fortunately, I was able to break them apart. Kean also shouted at us to “Go back to your country” which is ironic because it seems his partner is also Asian.”
On July 16, Chuong said Kean followed the two with his vehicle into the under grouond garage of Nathan’s town home. Kean began recording Nathan and Nathan responded by doing the same thing. The confrontation then ensued.
A police officer responded, but Chuong said the officer told Nathan that if he decided to press charges, he would be arrested as well.
As a result of the assault, my boyfriend has an infraorbital FRACTURE as well as a concussion,” said Chuong. “He is in incredible pain and has trouble sleeping. I am completely disgusted at the fact that an officer at the CBSA would use their position of power to intimidate others. As a peace officer, his duty should be to protect the public, not assault them. In addition, shouting gross and stereotypical racist insults is embarrassing and an incredibly poor representation of the men and women who dedicate their time working for the CBSA.”
In a statement to AsAmNews, the CBSA said “Any employee who breaches CBSA’s strict code of ethics and behaviour will face disciplinary action.
“This matter involves a single CBSA officer and is not representative of the integrity and professionalism of thousands of CBSA employees who carry out their duties in an exemplary manner.”
Chuong is asking those who support her boyfriend to please share his story, but is urging everyone not to post his personal information or send him or his family any threats.
AsAmNews will continue to follow this and will update the story as information becomes available.
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Why didn’t Nathan call police from beginning if he was scared? Where is proof of Kean being a racist? Kean’s identity, vehicle, residence is broadcast by Nathan’s girlfriend saying Kean is a racist officer. If there is any proof of Kean’s actions please provide it. If there isn’t and I was Kean, I would sue those two especially among others for slander as his life is being threatened by others due to their possible slanderous posts.
This is the lamest storyline ever. 1) where is the rest of the video? Why was it selectively edited by the other party? 2) What did the “injured party” expect when at least 3 people are approaching a guy in a garage? Hugs? 3) Where was this abuse of authority? He isn’t in uniform or flashing a badge or a gun, if he has one? 4) why was Nathan approaching him if he felt threatened? I think the cops got it right not laying charges as it seems like a meaningless fight between 1 if not 2 idiots. There is real racism in the community, I do not believe this is it since you show no evidence of racism whatsoever. 5) on the FB thread his GF posted it says Nathan has had previous assault charges… I’m certain that was taken into consideration when all this played out. Did you guys check into your story whatsoever?
Perhaps you didn’t read the statement from the CBSA AsAmNews received after contacting the agency. The statement is in the article. So to answer your question, yes, we checked out this story.
Crying defamation is a common tactic used to silence victims from speaking out. A defamation claim would require proving first and foremost that false statements were knowingly made by Isabel and Nathan against Kean. Although many of Isabel’s accusations cannot be verified, they cannot be proven false either. Hence, there are no grounds for a defamation case.
Regarding the comment of the article (?) or the video (?) presenting no evidence of racism, the article never once claimed that Kean is a racist. In her FB post, Isabel also did not claim that the recorded assault was racist. She did however recount a separate unrecorded incident where Kean made racist remarks to her and Nathan. However, whether Kean omitted racist words when assaulting Nathan or whether they were simply unrecorded has zero bearing on Kean’s culpability in committing assault. Nathan’s previous police records also have zero bearing on his culpability in this incident, which should be judged by the first punch thrown (from Kean). I applaud AsAmNews for not bringing up Nathan’s irrelevant police records, which was done in other articles without clear attempts by the reporter to also investigate Kean’s background or potential police discipline records.
So if it was a white person with a bloody nose, none of you guys would care because hey, it’s only a white person, who cares?
You only care about this because it was an asian with a bloody nose?
And you claim to be an asian association being persecuted by evil racists and fighting against racism?
You speak from a position of privilege in that these are issues you don’t have to worry about. Thanks for the empathy.