G20 jail photos raise ‘alarm bells’ for police chair

Photos depicting the cramped conditions inside the G20 temporary jail raise “alarm bells,” police services board chair Alok Mukherjee said Wednesday.

The Toronto Star has published the first images to emerge from inside the now-notorious prisoner processing centre during the June 2010 summit. The makeshift jail, housed in an unused film studio on Eastern Ave., held 885 of the 1,118 people arrested over the course of the G20 weekend.

The photograph was taken from video footage capturing the detention of Michael Puddy, then 31, who was cleared of his G20 charges in August. He and 27 other inmates can be seen inside a 3-by-6-metre cell with their hands bound by zip-ties.

“I think there are a number of issues that the images raise, particularly around the treatment of Mr. Puddy and the others,” Mukherjee said. “It rings alarm bells.”

The Star’s photograph was the first Mukherjee had seen from inside the operational holding facility. He said the plan was for the G20 temporary jail to meet the same standards required of regular detention centres used by Toronto police.

“The intention was to treat people in the same way as they would be treated if they went to 52 Division or 31 Division or any other police facility,” he said. “The mystery is whether those plans were strictly followed and, if not, why not?”

Mukherjee declined to comment further on the issue because the detention centre is among the many aspects being probed by an independent civilian review of the G20 summit. The review, led by retired judge John Morden, is expected to be completed in March.

Since the G20 weekend, many accounts have emerged of inhumane conditions inside the detention centre, including overcrowding, open washrooms, routine strip searches and limited access to food, water or legal counsel.

Puddy was held at Eastern Ave. for 17 hours before being transferred to Maplehurst prison in Milton, where he was jailed another night. In August, a judge threw out his sole remaining charge of possessing a prohibited weapon, ruling Puddy’s arrest had been “completely without justification” and in violation of his Charter rights.

Eric Gillespie, one of two lawyers heading the $45 million G20 class-action suit, said the photograph confirms the many stories he has heard about the temporary jail. People who were detained there are included as plaintiffs in the class action.

Gillespie noted Puddy’s jail cell was already overcrowded at 12:25 a.m. on Sunday, June 27, before many arrestees had yet arrived. Approximately 450 people were arrested “Saturday evening into Sunday morning,” according to Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair’s review of G20 policing.

A major concern is also the fact that all 28 inmates appear to have their hands zip-tied, despite being inside a cell, he said.

According to the United Nations’ “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,” handcuffs “must not be applied for any longer time than is strictly necessary.”

But what the photograph fails to show are the collective experiences of those who were unlawfully detained at the G20 jail, Gillespie said.

“For most of the individuals in that image, there were 100,000 moments just like the moment captured in the picture, going on and on and on,” he said. “The evidence that will come forward through the legal process, I think, will build and add to what’s been captured in the photograph.”

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Source: Toronto Star