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In 2002, having just been paid for his job at a fish and chip shop, Brendan Clarke tried to buy cigarettes and gum with a $100 bill at a Warwick Street convenience store in Digby, N.S. The clerks asked him to show identification and then refused to take his money over apparent concern it was counterfeit or from an illegitimate source.

Protestation from Mr. Clarke, a black man who was 19 at the time, prompted a threat from the store clerk that police would be called, which struck Mr. Clarke as a good idea.

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Expecting officers to tell the store clerks his money was good, he waited inside the store.

“They came in and things went sour fast,” Mr. Clarke said.

An officer punched him in the face and grabbed him by the throat; as Mr. Clarke pleaded with the clerks to help, the officer punched him five times in the back of the head, the store’s surveillance video of the incident shows.

The only thing I wanted was service

He took a knee to the gut, was handcuffed, dragged outside, pushed into an RCMP cruiser, had the door shut on his leg and driven out of view of a crowd that had gathered, according to a statement of claim.