Today, at 4:08 in the morning Vancouver time, American actor DJ Qualls went to Twitter to report: “Was beaten by a Vancouver Police Officer for no reason. Got stitches and released.” (Qualls, who was in town shooting an episode for the CW’s Supernatural, first made a name for himself playing the token virgin character in 2000’s Road Trip, but has since appeared in any number of feature films and prime-time series, including Lost and redneck masterpiece My Name Is Earl. Now back to what happened in the wee hours of the morn.) After leaving a café on Vancouver’s Granville Street, Qualls witnessed a “multi dude fight,” as he put it. Once police came and arrested the brawlers, Qualls, who’d seen one of the guys punch a girl, tried to point the man out to an officer. “He said if I didn’t get out of there, he’s [sic] arrest me, I asked why and he tackled me, busted my face and handcuffed me.” For half an hour, he says, the cop kept yelling, “you think you’re fucking better than me?”
Finally an ambulance came to take Qualls to the hospital, where he ended up paying an $800 ER bill. (4:34 a.m. tweet: “Free healthcare, Canada?”) He did, however, get the officer’s card and so made sure all 6,000-plus of his followers knew the aggressor’s name: Officer Brian Trklja. By this morning, Canadian newspapers had published comments from the city’s police force requesting that Qualls call them. Constable Lindsey Houghton speaking to the Vancouver Sun:
Obviously we’re aware of the complaint that he’s made via the media and we’ve reached out to him. Despite not hearing from him we’ve proactively started an investigation.”
So maybe justice will be done after all. But Qualls is probably already feeling a bit better about the whole situation, considering the incident netted him 600 new Twitter followers in just one hour.
DJ Qualls Tweets he was beaten by VPD officer on Granville Street [Vancouver Sun]
