Woodstock Police lose bid to fire officer who punched, kicked handcuffed man
Det.-Const. Eric Dopf avoided termination after pleading guilty to two professional misconduct charges
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A Woodstock police officer who had been suspended with pay after he was charged with assaulting a handcuffed man vowed to give criminals a “free pass” if he ever returned to work, according to documents from his professional misconduct case.
Det.-Const. Eric Dopf, 48, made the admission while doing his daily sign-in at police headquarters, the documents say.
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“When I come back, no one is getting charged. You get a free pass, you get a free pass . . . I’ll be writing f***ing reports and I’ll be like, officer discretion,” Dopf told two officers in the undated conversation included in the documents.
Deputy Chief Nick Novacich would later tell a disciplinary tribunal Dopf’s “usefulness to the service is gone” and “he didn’t grasp the seriousness of his indiscretion.”
Despite Novacich’s conclusion and Dopf’s own admission, the veteran officer kept his job after pleading guilty to two professional misconduct charges related to the criminal case. Two other charges against him were withdrawn.
The family of Che Bosch, the now-deceased man Dopf assaulted, is outraged he’s back at work and called the decision in the officer’s internal disciplinary hearing a “slap in the face” to them and the Woodstock community.
“I believe that police are in a position of power and are to be held at a higher standard than the public. Eric Dopf receiving his job back seems to be showing the reverse of that,” said Bosch’s sister, Lori Bosch-Garland. “It’s just wrong.”
Che Bosch died 24 days after he was arrested by Woodstock police on Oct. 17, 2022. A coroner’s report concluded Bosch died of sepsis.
Some details about Dopf’s assault of Bosch were first revealed at the officer’s sentencing hearing in March 2024, when he was given a conditional discharge that included 12 months probation and 100 hours of community service.
Dopf pleaded guilty in December 2023 in a London court to assaulting Bosch, who was handcuffed and sitting down. The Crown argued Dopf deserved a suspended sentence that would have given the officer a criminal record because of several aggravating factors.
New details of the case are included in a 30-page penalty decision written by hearings officer Morris Elbers, a retired OPP superintendent, following Dopf’s two-day professional misconduct hearing in January.
Police had a warrant to search Bosch’s Springbank Avenue home on Oct. 17, 2022, as part of an investigation into cocaine and fentanyl trafficking. Dopf was part of a team of officers surveilling the home when Bosch, 48, left and got into the passenger seat of a car.
Officers tried to stop the vehicle but the driver reversed, nearly striking Dopf and driving across several lawns, before speeding away, the hearing decision said. The driver sped around several police cruisers, drove directly at two officers who had drawn their guns and drove down a flight of stairs in a frantic effort to escape.
Surveillance video from a grocery store shows the vehicle stop in the back parking lot, where Bosch gets out, throws a bag over a fence and lies on the ground shortly before police arrive. The first officer on the scene, Const. Tim Wiseman, handcuffs Bosch. Dopf soon arrives in an unmarked SUV, runs over to Bosch and kicks him four times and punches him twice, the hearing decision said.
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“Do you know how many kids you could have killed?” Dopf said during the assault.
Woodstock police referred the case to London police and Dopf was charged in December 2022 and was suspended with pay.
An internal Woodstock police probe was launched following the completion of the criminal case in March 2024. Bosch was charged with insubordination, unlawful or unnecessary exercise of authority and two counts of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act (PSA), the now-replaced law governing policing in Ontario.
The Community Safety and Protective Services Act (CPSA) came into effect last May, but cases involving allegations before the new legislation are still held under the Police Services Act.
Dopf, an 18-year service member, pleaded guilty to discreditable conduct and insubordination. The other two charges were withdrawn.
Alex Sinclair, the lawyer representing Woodstock police, asked for Dopf to be fired, while defence lawyer Lucas O’Hara requested a one-year demotion or forfeited hours.
Deputy chief Novacich, the only witness Sinclair called during the two-day hearing, told the tribunal the incident had a “huge” impact on the force, resulting in negative media coverage, a lawsuit, and the drugs and intelligence unit being down an officer while Dopf was suspended.
A lawsuit filed by Bosch’s family is the second time Dopf was the subject of civil action and the officer has lost the trust of both the community and the force, Novacich said. The first civil action involved a man who alleges Dopf assaulted him during his arrest in 2014. The lawsuit was settled in 2023.
O’Hara, who called three retired Woodstock police officers and a former member of the city’s police board to support his proposed penalty, said his client made the “free pass” comment out of frustration with delays in his legal case.
Rodney Freeman, who retired as Woodstock’s police chief in 2015, told the tribunal he had great trust in Dopf and would want him responding to a call to his house if there was an issue.
Freeman called the assault on Bosch “a momentary lack of emotion” and said Dopf’s “free pass” claim was the result of frustration.
Marci Shelton, who retired as a Woodstock police inspector in 2023, told the tribunal Dopf’s guilty plea showed remorse and the “free pass” comment was just sarcasm.
“Eric lays charges, always had a healthy assignment list and worked hard for me when he was on my shift,” Shelton said.
Dopf’s performance reviews from a 15-year period were also submitted as exhibits. Those reviews were mostly positive but included comments from supervisors highlighting Dopf’s “confrontational episodes, sarcasm and losing his cool . . . ”
O’Hara argued Dopf is a first-time offender who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder related to his work and has attended more than 50 anger management counselling sessions.
Sinclair argued Bosch posed no threat to Dopf and was in custody at the time of the assault.
Elbers ruled Dopf would be demoted from a first-class constable to a third-class constable for one year and ordered him to attend arrest and use-of-force training.
Dopf abused his authority and his unprofessional actions hurt the force’s reputation, said Elbers, who criticized the officer for making the “free pass” comment and also making light of Bosch’s death.
“Detective Constable Dopf, I hope you realize by virtue of this disposition you are being given a second chance. Numerous candidates are denied the opportunity to wear the uniform of a Woodstock police officer,” Elbers wrote in his decision. “Not often officers are given a second chance. I urge you to make the best of this situation and opportunity.”
But Bosch-Garland said Dopf shouldn’t get a second chance.
“Because it’s not a second chance, it’s a third chance and . . . I don’t believe he deserves it,” said Bosch-Garland, who questioned why her family wasn’t notified of Dopf’s professional misconduct hearing.
“The victim’s family should have been there to voice their opinions and their concerns. We were not informed or given the opportunity to speak . . . Che is no longer here,” she said.
Bosch-Garland, who grew up in Woodstock but now lives in Muskoka, said she learned Dopf was back on the job after a friend saw him in uniform and contacted her.
“We’re just in disbelief,” she said, adding the ordeal has been especially hard on her 72-year-old mother. “She is very upset.”
Professional misconduct hearings for police officers are open to the media and the public, just like criminal and provincial court proceedings, but it’s unclear whether Woodstock police released the details of Dopf’s upcoming hearing. The force has a section on its website where it posts hearing decisions, but police didn’t respond to an inquiry about how information about upcoming hearings is shared publicly.
Bosch’s daughter, Kayle-Ann Howe-Bosch, 26, said her family wasn’t notified about the Police Services Act hearing or the penalty decision.
“We wanted to be at every hearing . . . Because my dad’s not here to represent himself anymore so we have to be there to do it,” she said, adding relatives from outside Woodstock had planned to attend the proceedings.
“I feel like they were trying to hide stuff,” she said of police.
For Howe-Bosch, who is still struggling to come to terms with her father’s death, watching the video of Dopf assaulting him was especially difficult.
“I have nightmares from it,” she said. “It’s been really hard.”
Bosch’s family has filed a $3-million lawsuit against the Woodstock police board, Dopf and a second unidentified officer.
The two officers displayed “shocking, contemptuous” and “abhorrent” behaviour, and the police department should have done a better job training and supervising them, according to a statement of claim.
The lawsuit alleges Dopf’s blows to Bosch’s kidney increased his vulnerability to kidney failure and sepsis and were a “significant contributing cause of (his) death.”
Statements of claim and statements of defence include allegations not yet tested in court. No statements of defence have been filed.
The lawsuit alleges the unnamed officer didn’t prevent the attack on Bosch and put his knee against Bosch’s back to keep it upright and “facilitate the assault.”
The Woodstock police department knew, or should have known, that Dopf had used excessive force in the past and had anger management issues, the lawsuit alleges.
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