Recent
Watch also...
Summit protesters weigh legal options
After being caught in the crush of a G20 police sweep, Isaac Bon-Hillier’s concerns are practical and modest.
The 28-year-old would like to be compensated for a backpack, watch and eyeglasses that were destroyed, he says, when police officers bore down him during a “kettling” incident south of Queen’s Park.
Lulu Harper, 17, hasn’t made any decisions about what kind of legal action to pursue. But like Bon-Hillier, she showed up Sunday at a United Steelworkers’ Hall on Cecil St., east of Spadina Ave, seeking information and, possibly, justice.
“I will do something, because I’m not just going to accept what happened,” said Harper, who was strip-searched, left without her bra and held for more than 10 hours at an Eastern Ave. detention centre before being released without charge.
Harper said she was drawing peace signs on a sidewalk outside a protesters’ convergence centre in Parkdale on June 27 when officers on bicycles swooped in and arrested everyone in the area.
Sunday’s information session was organized by the Movement Defence Committee of the Law Union of Ontario, a working group that includes lawyers and law students who provide legal support to activists in Toronto.
Those attending the meeting were told of at least four possible options for seeking redress if they believe they were unlawfully arrested, held in deplorable conditions, mistreated or injured.
They include joining a proposed $45 million class action lawsuit filed last week against the Toronto Police Services Board and the Attorney General of Canada, representing the RCMP.
Other legal avenues include making a human rights complaint, lodging a complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director or initiating a Small Claims Court action.
About 75 people, mainly in their teens and twenties, filled the room. Trays of bagels, hummus and raw vegetables were spread out on one table. Pamphlets were laid out across another.
One was from Sandi MacDonald, a therapist offering free counselling to anyone experiencing post-G20 trauma. Incidents which took place during the summit, her brochure says, “have left many feeling terrorized.”
Bon-Hillier was a familiar face to some of the officers during a June 26 demonstration at College and University, south of the Legislature. Three years ago, he was involved in a serious car accident in British Columbia and suffered a traumatic brain injury which caused his personality to change, leaving him prone to periodic violent outbursts.
He has been accused of uttering threats and, last year, Justice David Brown of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice concluded Bon-Hillier was a security risk and that his conduct was “tantamount to stalking” when he showed up in the judge’s courtroom on a day when his case was not scheduled to be heard.
Bon-Hillier said he was not taking part in the June 26 demonstration. He had left a book store in the Eaton Centre and was walking west along College St., towards McCaul, when police began corralling demonstrators.
He said he had problems getting out of the way because his right arm and leg were also partially paralyzed in the car accident and he walks with a limp.
“I didn’t move fast enough for their liking.”
Bon-Hillier said at least two officers landed on top of him.
He said he was taken to the Eastern Ave. holding facility and released without charge at about 3 a.m.
“The police officers … were actually very apologetic.”
For about a third of her time in the detention centre, Harper said she was held in a cage about 1.8 metres by 1.2 metres, with three other women.
In earlier stories she was identified as Lulu Maxwell. Her full name is Lulu Maxwell Harper, but she said she omitted Harper when speaking with the media previously because she was mad at Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the time.
She is surprised when she hears that some people believe she was breaking the law by drawing on the sidewalk and deserved to be arrested.
“I would ask them if they think their children should be arrested for drawing a hopscotch board on the sidewalk, because I was doing no worse than that,” she said Sunday.
Harper said she called out to officers during her confinement, telling them she was just 17, had been there for 9 hours and wasn’t sure if her parents even knew where she was.
One officer told her that in the future, she should consider her parents’ feelings before she gets involved in a protest or demonstration.
“On a side note, my mother came protesting with me the next week,” Harper said.
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845388--summit-protesters-weigh-legal-options