NWT RCMP defend use of force after officer breaks man’s leg

Warning: This article contains references to violence and suicide that may be disturbing to some readers.

NWT RCMP say police used “appropriate” force during an arrest in which an officer hit an Indigenous man with a truck and drove over him outside Fort Good Hope, breaking his leg, in early 2023.

A judge, however, ruled in 2025 that the arrest was unlawful and police had violated the man’s Charter rights as officers used excessive force and did not tell the man why he was being arrested.

According to court documents, the incident took place on March 13, 2023 after Sonny Gully, now 26, assaulted a woman in public in the Sahtu community, dragging her by her hair, then knocked the woman’s father to the ground before Gully’s parents intervened.

At his parents’ home, Gully, who was described as being “intoxicated and agitated,” then took a knife and cut himself on the arm, causing significant bleeding, and said he was going to kill himself.

RCMP located Gully leaving Fort Good Hope on foot on the winter road. Three officers followed behind him in two police trucks.

Sgt Michel Mignon was driving the truck directly behind Gully with Cpl Lucy Skellhorn in the pasenger seat. Gully, who was still carrying the knife, did not respond to police and continued walking on the ice road.

The officers used the loudhailer in their truck to tell Gully he was under arrest but did not tell him the reason. Mignon and Skellhorn then tried various actions to get Gully’s attention and arrest him, including bumping him with the truck and unsuccessfully using a Taser and pepper spray against him.

The three officers present testified that Gully raised a knife and brandished it at police.

The interaction ended when Mignon accelerated the truck, hitting Gully with the vehicle, knocking him down and running over him. Gully’s mother, who witnessed the truck drive over her son, said she thought he might be dead.

Police pulled Gully from under the truck, arrested him and took him to the local health centre.

Gully suffered a fracture to his right lower leg. He was medevaced to Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife for surgery.

Arguments at trial

Gully was charged with and pleaded guilty to assaulting the woman.

He pleaded not guilty to additional charges of assaulting Mignon and Skellhorn with a knife, failing to comply with conditions of a release order to live in Colville Lake and have no contact with the woman, and carrying a knife for a dangerous purpose.

During the trial, Gully’s lawyer, Charles Davison, argued RCMP had violated Gully’s Charter right to life, liberty and security of the person by using excessive force. Davison said when RCMP located Gully on the winter road, he “posed imminent harm to no one but himself” and officers “escalated the situation completely needlessly and resulted in far greater harm than would and should have otherwise resulted.”

Davison further argued that Gully’s arrest was unlawful as police had violated his Charter right to be promptly informed of the reason for his arrest.

Davison requested that, as a remedy, the court stay the charges against Gully related to the alleged assaults of Mignon and Skellhorn, exclude evidence related to those charges, or reduce Gully’s sentence.

Crown prosecutor Clare Brackley, conversely, argued the reason for Gully’s arrest was obvious and the situation was too urgent and volatile for police to take the time to explain to Gully why he was being arrested.

She also defended RCMP’s use of force in the situation and said it was an accident when Mignon drove over Gully.

The Alberta RCMP conducted an investigation into the arrest and, according to the NWT RCMP, determined police had used “an appropriate amount of force relative to Mr Gully’s behaviour.”

Police only considered escalating force, judge finds

NWT Territorial Court Judge Gary Magee sided with the defence.

He said, from Gully’s perspective, “there might have been any number of reasons why” he was being arrested.

Magee added the situation was not out of control, nor chaotic. He noted Gully was walking slowly away from town, the woman he assaulted was safely in Fort Good Hope, and police were in a truck and had a way to communicate with Gully from a distance.

“At any point in the first few moments when the police encountered Sonny and undertook to arrest him, it would have been a safe and simple thing to tell him why he was being arrested,” Magee said, concluding officers’ failure to do so was a “careless oversight.”

Considering arguments on RCMP’s use of force, Magee said it was difficult to determine exactly what happened before Mignon hit and ran over Gully. He noted inconsistences between evidence given by the three officers and bystanders, as well as inconsistencies in evidence from the same officers. He excluded Skellhorn’s evidence from his decision altogether due to “credibility concerns.”

Magee also stressed that “police actions cannot be judged against a standard of perfection” and “looking back from the relative calm and safety of a courtroom, a judge cannot second-guess police actions with an expectation that police will measure the force they use with exactitude.”

The judge concluded, however, that police “unnecessarily used potentially lethal force, causing Mr Gully grievous bodily harm” and violated his Charter right.

Magee said he found it “concerning that in what started out as a slowly unfolding situation,” officers had “only ever considered interventions of escalating force.” He said, for example, that police had not considered using the sirens or lights of the truck, telling Gully they wanted to help him, warning Gully that if he did not comply they would use force against him, firing a warning shot, broadcasting Gully’s mother through the loudhailer, or using a non-lethal projectile.

Magee ultimately determined that, in the circumstances, it was not necessary nor reasonable for Mignon to drive into Gully when he could have closed his truck door in “a split second” instead.

“The act of accelerating the police truck into Mr Gully put Mr Gully’s life at serious risk,” Magee said. “If the intention was not to drive over him, but only to hit him and deflect him, and I find that it was, I cannot understand how that would have any advantage over simply closing the truck door. Either way, Mr Gully would end up outside the truck, police officers inside the truck with their doors closed and windows up.”

As a result, Magee threw out the prosecution’s evidence related to allegations that Gully had assaulted the officers. The judge found that evidence had not been gathered lawfully and allowing it at trial would “tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute.”

Magee acquitted Gully of those two charges and convicted him of assaulting the woman, two counts of failing to comply with conditions of a release order, and carrying a knife for a purpose dangerous to the public peace.

‘It was traumatic’

At the time of the offences, Magee said Gully did not have a criminal record. Gully said he was trying to reconnect with the land, work on his relationship with alcohol and better himself.

“I am here to say this, as what happened to me, I wish never happens again to another Indigenous person. It was traumatic and all the pain can still be felt today, physically and emotionally,” Gully said during sentencing.

Magee sentenced Gully to 30 days in jail followed by six months’ probation.

He told Gully the assault on the woman was “absolutely terrible behaviour” and he hoped Gully would be able to deal with his substance abuse issues.

“I hope that you manage to keep it up with the counselling and stay sober and I think you will be OK,” the judge said.

In response to questions from Cabin Radio, NWT RCMP spokesperson Josh Seward said that, as an Alberta RCMP investigation found the officers’ use of force was appropriate, no corrective action was implemented and no apology was given to Gully.

“The officers responded to a challenging and dynamic situation with a person who was in crisis, armed with a knife, was swinging the knife at the officers, and refused to follow police direction,” Seaward wrote.

“While the court made their ruling, the police officers responded with less lethal force options to a very high-risk incident. Mandatory training for use of force and de-escalation is already in place for all front line RCMP officers.”