EDMONTON—The owner of a controversial car-booting business that ran afoul of Edmonton police brought his claims that he was wrongfully arrested and that the investigations against him were the product of “malevolent disdain” to the Law Enforcement Review Board on Monday.

“My life has been unlawfully stolen from me, and I want it back,” said Derrick Cantwell, who described his arrest by Edmonton police on Nov. 12, 2015, for extortion and mischief as “a turning point in my life, and, sadly, a burning point.”

Cantwell, who at the time of his first arrest was the owner of RFM Parking, was arrested in Edmonton in a private parking lot on the corner of 109 St. and 104 Ave., while he put a wheel immobilization device on a car.

He said his company was being contracted by owners of private parking lots to put the device on unlawfully parked cars. The immobilizer — otherwise called a wheel clamp or parking boot — is clamped to a vehicle’s wheel and prevents it from being driven. In order to get the boot removed, the car’s owner would have to call the company and pay a fee.

Cantwell said he had been in the car-booting business for more than a decade after booting his first car on Jan. 23. 2007 in Fredericton, N.B., and came to Edmonton with designs on expanding his company nationally.

Edmonton police have viewed car booting as illegal, treating it as a form of mischief, but Cantwell believes his company was operating legally as signs posted at private parking lots count as a contract.

Cantwell believes it is a civil matter, not criminal. Edmonton police disagree.

“There are potentially two criminal offences happening with this business practice even though it’s taking place on private property,” said Det. John McConnell in a news release from April 2016. “There’s the act of mischief to another person’s vehicle by rendering it inoperable. A second criminal charge of extortion may be appropriate when the vehicle owner is approached in the lot and forced to pay a fee before the device is removed.”

According to Edmonton police, “there are no statutes or authorities in Alberta that allow the placing of (an) immobilization device on a vehicle by a citizen or private company. While police agencies are the only entity granted authority to immobilize vehicles in this manner, it is a practice police no longer perform.”

Edmontonians who find their car booted are encouraged to call police and an officer may be dispatched.

Despite the position of the Edmonton police and multiple arrests in Edmonton and other jurisdictions where Cantwell’s company operated, charges against Cantwell for the actions of his company in Edmonton have been repeatedly stayed or withdrawn, meaning they haven’t been tested in front of a judge.

Cantwell is still facing outstanding charges of mischief and obstruction in Edmonton.

At his hearing Monday — the purpose of which is only to determine whether the Edmonton police chief may have erred in his decision to dismiss Cantwell’s earlier claims against police — Cantwell was often overwhelmed by his emotions.

Cantwell said he has been treated for depression multiple times in his life and is in the grips of another such depression. “I’m not mentally well,” Cantwell said, adding, regardless, it was important for him to be here because he has waited three years to be heard.

Cantwell, 55, said he is a father of four and owned a video rental company before retiring in 1999 to spend time with his family.

Cantwell came out of retirement and started working with a car-booting company. “I thrived in this business,” he said.

But after being arrested by Edmonton police in 2015, “a business in three provinces was wiped out in one day,” Cantwell claimed.

He said he has since declared bankruptcy and now has no fixed address.

“Nothing more than fecal matter, that’s how they made me feel,” Cantwell said.

Cantwell argued “it was an arbitrary arrest, and an arbitrary imprisonment,” alleging investigators ignored his side of the story and a subsequent investigation into his complaint was deeply flawed.

“They didn’t ask me a single question before pulling the trigger and ending my life,” Cantwell said.

Karen Agnihotri, the legal representative appearing on behalf of the chief of police, said Chief Rod Knecht considered all aspects of Cantwell’s complaint before dismissing it, describing Knecht’s review as thorough.

“What he did was reasonable,” said Agnihotri, adding there is nothing to suggest his review was tainted.

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Malcolm Jones, representing the police officers involved in Cantwell’s complaint, said Cantwell’s arguments seem to be with police policy and don’t appear to involve a police disciplinary issue at all.

Jones said officers continued their investigation after Cantwell’s arrest, suggesting they were being thorough, and charged him with extortion and mischief on the advice of the Crown.

The Law Enforcement Review Board will render a written decision.

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