Statement issued today by our clients, the Wu family:

In the early morning hours of January 21, 2010, about a month and a half ago, Vancouver resident Yao Wei Wu was awakened, dragged out of his house and brutally beaten up by two men who turned out to be police officers in plain clothes. Mr. Wu and his family are completely innocent law-abiding people who had done nothing wrong. Although the perpetrators of the assault on Mr. Wu were immediately identified, no charges have been laid against them and there is no indication that they will ever be brought to justice. Therefore, in order to attempt to achieve some measure of justice, Mr. Wu and his wife have commenced a civil action this morning in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Court file no. S101576, Vancouver Registry.

The details of the claim are set out in the Court documents, and they speak for themselves. It is important to note that none of the allegations in the Statement of Claim have been proved in Court, and the Defendants have not yet responded to them. The Defendants are the two alleged assailants, Vancouver Police Department constables Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London, their employer the City of Vancouver as well as the Corporation of Delta. The Corporation of Delta has been named because it is responsible for the Delta Police Department investigation of the incident, which the Wu family alleges has been negligently conducted.

The Wu family is very dissatisfied with the investigation of this matter. They feel that charges should have been laid weeks ago and that the men who beat Mr. Wu up are receiving preferential treatment because they are police officers. They don’t believe the Canadian justice system should work this way.

They were asked to file a complaint with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, but they have no confidence with that process, because it involves police investigating police. The OPCC is staffed almost entirely with former police officers who must naturally be uncomfortable finding fault with their former colleagues.

The Wu family have full confidence that the civil court system will deal with this matter appropriately, and will have no further comment on this matter before the case comes to trial.