Two Sarnia police officers, including a former Sarnia Sting player, were just trying to make sure everyone inside the London Road home was safe amid reports of yelling and screaming.
But while responding to a domestic call three years ago, constables Greg Armstrong and Chris Beauchamp were punched, slapped, spit on, and had an earpiece removed. Kevin Racette also directed an expletive-laden death threat at Armstrong.
An Ontario judge was not impressed with the way the 31-year-old Sarnia man and another suspect treated the officers that night.
“You know full well that the police have a tough job to do and they don’t need the types of reaction that they faced with you on that date,” Justice Kevin McHugh said last month while sentencing Racette to four months in jail. “It’s those offenses that I find to be particularly egregious here.”
The court heard police were repeatedly called to a Sarnia home over a six-month period about issues between Racette and his common-law wife. Multiple calls came in on Jan. 22, 2019, with reports of yelling and screaming and objects being thrown.
But the lights were off when Beauchamp, who was hired in August 2017, and Armstrong, a 20-year veteran who is also part of the city’s emergency response team, arrived. So they knocked loudly on the doors and windows. Racette eventually answered the door, claimed only he and his grandfather were home, then tried to slam the door shut.
But Armstrong put his boot in the door jamb and the officers walked in, saying they had to make sure everyone was OK based on the 911 calls. Beauchamp, a 31-year-old Midland, Ont., native who played 50 games with the Sting during the 2008-09 Ontario Hockey League season, could hear a woman yelling in a different room. A female suspect came storming out of the room and yelled at the officers to get out. She waved her finger in the face of Armstrong, who was named in a $1.25-million lawsuit against Sarnia police that was dismissed in 2017, and used her body to push him backwards towards the door.
The officers tried to calm the pair down and find out what happened, but they refused and kept boisterously demanding they leave. The woman allegedly removed Armstrong’s left earpiece, spit on one of his boots, repeatedly slapped him in the face and tried to push him out the door.
“This caused Racette to come to Const. Armstrong and throw punches at his head, striking him two or three times in the head,” assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan said while reading an agreed statement of facts to the court on Feb. 23.
Beauchamp tried to arrest him for assaulting police.
“Racette continued to struggle, throw punches at Const. Beauchamp and kicking him in the chest,” Coughlan said.
Armstrong handcuffed the woman, then took out his stun gun and warned Racette he’d use it if he didn’t stop resisting and assaulting them. He finally complied.
But as the pair was being taken to the parked police cruisers, the woman managed to slip her handcuffs and allegedly punched Armstrong in the head. During the struggle, Racette made a death threat to Armstrong.
“I’m going to (expletive) kill that cop. That’s a promise,” he said, the court heard.
The couple was taken to headquarters and held for bail hearings, with Racette being released two days later.
Defense lawyer Autumn Johnson said her client’s memory of the incident is spotty as he was highly intoxicated.
“He does admit that there was a significant exchange of words. He doesn’t specifically recall uttering that threat, but he’s not in a position to dispute the officer’s evidence,” she said.
More than three years later, Racette, 31, pleaded guilty from the Sarnia Jail to uttering a death threat to a police officer, assaulting police, resisting police, and mischief with a value worth less than $5,000 linked to an unrelated incident in September 2020.
The court heard he slashed the tire of a Chevrolet Tahoe with a knife while a woman was sitting inside. It was in retaliation to a previous property-related incident.
A suspect had already been arrested for what previously happened to him.
“However, Mr. Racette still reacted in this violent and destructive way,” Coughlan said.
He also wasn’t supposed to have weapons at the time based on his bail following the altercation with police.
Coughlan and Johnson both suggested a four-month jail sentence for Racette, who had a prior criminal record, along with a one-year probation order and a 10-year weapons ban.
“I agree with both of the lawyers,” McHugh said.
Racette had enough pre-sentence custody credit to fully serve the sentence, but wasn’t released that day due to other outstanding charges. Johnson said her client, who struggles with a drug addiction, has lined up a bed at the Salvation Army Ottawa Booth Center rehab facility when he is released.
Racette declined a chance to address the court.
Other charges were withdrawn.