By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Lethbridge man honoured by Police Chief for helping officer

Feb 1, 2018 | 9:46 AM

LETHBRIDGE – “It looked like he had his hands full. Nobody else was helping. Everybody else had their phones out.”

Oct. 4, 2017, Allan Black was walking home near McDonalds on 5 Ave. N., when he saw a street fight going on. He says he stopped along with a few other people, and the fight broke up. One of the men involved was high on methamphetamine and alcohol, and had pulled a knife on someone, was damaging property, and smashing car windows.

“I had to go around the block to go to my house, so I went around the block and saw him running, a police officer was in pursuit. [He] Stopped his vehicle and the perpetrator started to run. [Police] tackled him and they started fighting.”

The officer involved in the fight was Lethbridge Police Cst. Chris Stock, who described what happened next.

“It turned into a street brawl unfortunately… like a good old hockey fight. And, [I] fought for about a minute and I was getting pretty gassed, and I was running out of energy. After 30 seconds, that’s a long time to be in a street fight. Mr. Black was walking by – there were witnesses – and he kinda followed the guy and followed me and asked if I needed a hand and I said ‘yeah, get in here,’ and he ran and jumped in.”

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Black came at the combative man from behind, grabbing his ankles and pulling his legs out from under him so that he was nearly flat on the pavement. He then put the man in a head lock while Cst. Stock was able to regain his footing and get handcuffs on the suspect.

“It was a brawl,” says Stock, recalling the incident. “It would have got a lot worse if Mr. Black hadn’t stepped in.”

While Stock says in his 17 years as an officer he’s been in his share of fights, the one that occurred in October was one of the worst he’s experienced.

“He was high on meth and drunk, so his pain tolerance was just through the roof. You could have hit him with a sledge hammer and he wouldn’t have went down. He knew how to fight…he was blocking my strikes. I haven’t had that happen much in 17 years…lucky Mr. Black stepped in and intervened. Gave me the upper hand for a few minutes.”

“It means the world,” Stock continued, with tears in his eyes. “It’s nice to know there’s people out there that still want to help, and that’s good.”

For his efforts, Black was honoured at a brief ceremony during Wednesday’s (Jan. 31) Police Commission meeting with a Chief’s Certificate of Commendation from Lethbridge Police Chief Rob Davis.

“This was really neat,” said Black. “It was unexpected, I like it. Yup, it’s going up on the wall.”

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