Kane Niyondagara was walking home from a Starbucks in Ottawa’s east end when he heard the sirens.

“Get on your knees,” he remembers one officer calling.

But Niyondagara, 27, hadn’t done anything wrong. He dropped his hands and shrugged, as if to ask why. He looked at the sidewalk under his feet and said he was afraid of being “brutally arrested” against the hard concrete.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) won’t say much about that encounter or what followed, except to explain that it was all a case of mistaken identity.

Niyondagara, who is Black, said he was shocked with a stun gun, pinned down, struck in the face and handcuffed before police realized their mistake. Parts of the incident were captured on video by a bystander who shared it with CBC News.