Farrah McBride went to the G20 protests in downtown Toronto, upset by news of vandals smashing windows. But the assistant manager at a restaurant supply store was transformed from spectator to prisoner when police arrested virtually everyone in front of the Hotel Novotel on The Esplanade on the night of Saturday, June 26, 2010.
She says she was held, handcuffed, at the temporary Eastern Ave. detention centre without adequate water, food or her correct anti-anxiety medicine.
She suffered a severe anxiety attack before she was released without charge after 18 hours.
“It opened my eyes. I never imagined this would ever happen in Canada,” says McBride, 29. “I totally lost respect for police. I can’t even look at them now.”
More than 1,100 people were held over the Toronto G20 weekend, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.
Only 317 people were charged with summit-related criminal offences.
And of those, 187 have seen their charges withdrawn, stayed or dismissed, according to statistics released by the Ontario attorney general’s ministry Monday. Just 24 pleaded guilty.
“It’s a classic example of police overcharging,” says lawyer Clayton Ruby, whose law firm represents three G20 detainees suing police.
It’s a well-known game in Ontario, where defendants are told: “We’ll withdraw the charges that have no foundation if you plead guilty to charges that are in fact defendable (by police),” Ruby says.
One solution is to have Crowns screen charges before they are laid, as occurs in British Columbia, Ruby says.
Normally, 30 per cent of all charges are withdrawn or stayed by the prosecution, says University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach. The fact that the G20 figure is double that raises questions about the arrests, he says.
Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, says demonstrators were targeted while simply exercising their democratic rights.
“Many charges were bogus,” she says.
Charges against 100 demonstrators, mainly from Quebec, sleeping in a University of Toronto gym on Sunday, June 27, were later withdrawn because police barged in without a warrant — an elementary legal error, Des Rosiers says.
In addition, 39 defendants took diversion, in some cases making charitable donations to have their charges dropped even if they felt they did nothing wrong, she says. Eleven entered peace bonds.
Moreover, several defendants endured long delays in their cases because Crowns took hours to review video evidence, she adds. “You don’t arrest people and then say, ‘I’m going to watch video and see if I have any evidence to tie you to this,” she says.
Des Rosiers says the best way to get to the bottom of what went wrong at G20 is to hold a full public inquiry, an option rejected by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Crown spokesperson Brendan Crawley maintains it was the prosecution’s duty to carefully review the “substantial” G20 evidence before deciding whether to proceed.
Toronto police deny they laid too many charges.
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Source: Toronto Star
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