A Bella Bella man is considering a human rights complaint after he and his granddaughter ended up in handcuffs after trying to open a bank account at a Vancouver Bank of Montreal branch last month.
Maxwell Johnson went to the branch December 20th to open an account for his 12-year-old granddaughter so that he could deposit money while she was on the road playing basketball.
But the bank employee questioned the identification they presented, including Indian Status cards, saying it didn’t match up with what was on her terminal.
The employee took their ID upstairs and later told them to come up and retrieve their cards. Shortly after that, they were detained by Vancouver Police and handcuffed.
VPD says Johnson and his granddaughter were detained after BMO alleged they were involved in “possible fraud”, but were released within the hour and received an apology from officers after it was determined that there was no fraud.
BMO issued a statement to CFNR saying “We deeply regret this and unequivocally apologize to all.”
The bank says it is reviewing what took place, how it was handled, and says it will use the incident as a “learning opportunity”.
