2021-02-24

RCMP: Officers assaulted responding to Valentine’s Day disturbance

Authorities are not loving what allegedly happened during the lunch hour at a Cookville restaurant on Valentine's Day.

A man and woman known to each other were "yelling and screaming" at each other, which resulted in a call to law enforcement around 12:30 p.m., February 14, Cpl. Mark Skinner, a spokesman for the province's RCMP, told LighthouseNOW.

Someone at the restaurant, which a source familiar with the investigation said was the Swiss Chalet, contacted the police about the pair, who were arguing while seated at a table. The dispute escalated further after police arrived and the woman and man refused to leave the property peacefully.

"The woman punched the officer in the face, bit the officer, spit in their eye and kicked the officer in the chest," RCMP alleged in a news release issued February 17. Skinner clarified to LighthouseNOW the female officer was actually "kicked several times."

A male officer "intervened and was also bitten by the woman," RCMP said. "The man [accused] in the disturbance tried to intervene and was arrested for obstruction of justice."

Neither officer was seriously hurt, and both remained on active duty, Skinner told LighthouseNOW.

MacKenzie Page Jennings and Daniel Dwayne Johnson, both 19 and of Gold River in Lunenburg County, are charged with causing a disturbance.

Jennings is further accused of resisting arrest by punching, kicking, and spitting on Cst. Leah Moore, along with assaulting the same officer and Cst. Harsh Patel. Johnson is also charged with obstructing Patel by intervening in the arrest of Jennings.

Johnson and Jennings were released on a court-ordered undertaking and are scheduled to be in front of a Bridgewater provincial court judge again in April. The allegations against the pair have not been tested in court, and both are presumed innocent. Neither have entered a plea.