DJ Qualls—the reedy Road Trip actor who for several years answered the question, “What if The Fall’s Mark E. Smith starred in teenage sex comedies?”—had an unfortunate run-in with police in Vancouver, where he was shooting an upcoming episode of Supernatural. Qualls (who’s more recently had roles in the movie Hustle & Flow, as well as shows like Lost, Breaking Bad, and Memphis Beat) chronicled the incident on his Twitter account, which he said began when he witnessed a “multi dude fight” and “a dude punch a girl,” after which he attempted to relay the account of these various dude-related happenings to the authorities, with one of them responding by beating him up.
According to Qualls, the cop he approached “said if I didn't get out of there, he's [sic] arrest me, I asked why and he tackled me, busted my face, and handcuffed me.” Over the next 30 minutes, the officer allegedly continued to berate him after Qualls told him he was an actor, supposedly yelling, “You think you’re fucking better than me?” TMZ has some appropriately anticlimactic video of the confrontation below, in which “DJ Quails” further clarifies that he was detained for attempting to “pull somebody away,” which is pretty bold for a guy who weighs 130 pounds.
After being admitted to a local hospital, Qualls received stitches in his chin (which he characterizes as being “disfigured” on Twitter) and was presented with an $800 bill for the service, prompting him to exclaim, “Free healthcare, Canada?” and thousands of Canadians to respond angrily that he’s not entitled to free healthcare because he’s not a Canadian taxpayer, and (in the words of one TMZ commenter) that he should go back to “that chithole called the U.S.A.” This plus various other insults, many of them having to do with The New Guy. Qualls has since clarified that he’s well aware of the inner workings of Canada’s healthcare system, and that no, he’s actually asking that the Vancouver Police Department compensate him for the ordeal. According to the Vancouver Sun, the VPD has already “proactively started an investigation,” spurred by the surprising media response to Qualls’ Twitter campaign. Meanwhile, the sad shirtless dude sitting next to Qualls on the sidewalk up there doesn’t get anything.