The City of Thompson and the RCMP are being sued by a woman from Tataskweyak Cree Nation who was punched and knocked out by one of the city’s community safety officers after being taken to the Thompson RCMP detachment cell block for being intoxicated in public, CBC has reported.
The incident occurred in early January 2018 after Genesta Garson, then 19 years old, was picked up by two community safety officers outside the Northern Inn on suspicion of being drunk.
Garson was detained under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act (IPDA), which allows police and community safety officers, who have the power to enforce some provincial statues as well as city bylaws, to take people who are believed to be intoxicated in public to the RCMP holding cells until they are sober, though they aren’t formally arrested.
Required to remove all but one layer of clothes and her bra for safety reasons before being put in a holding cell, Garson was removing clothing while supervised by the male community safety officers and a female RCMP officer in the processing area of the cell block when she appear to strike one of the safety officers with her belt, a surveillance video from the detachment obtained by CBC through a court application shows. The officer then punched Garson and her head hit the wall and she fell to the floor unconscious. Her pants were then removed by the RCMP officer and she was dragged by her arms into one of the holding cells. She was again pushed to the floor when she tried to leave the holding cell before the exiting officers closed the door behind them. Garson remained in the cell for 15 minutes until paramedics arrived and transported her on a stretcher to Thompson General Hospital for treatment. Hospital records from that visit show that Garson had a cut on her lip, bruising on her chin and the side of her head and that she had lost consciousness for about 10 seconds, CBC reported. The records also say that she “struck officer with her belt, so got punched in the face.”
Garson told CBC that she had drunk a few beers that night but was detained after slipping on the ice and that she felt uncomfortable when asked to take off her bra. She said she gave her “soft, thin” belt to the safety officer so fast that he thought she was trying to hit him.
Garson was later charged with assaulting an officer but lawyer Rohit Gupta took her case pro bono and the charge was later stayed. Gupta also helped Garson file a formal complaint against the RCMP with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission in November 2018. The complaint named Gupta as the RCMP’s formal contact for that process but Garson said she was visited repeatedly by several different RCMP officers on multiple occasions in Split Lake until she signed a form withdrawing the complaint, an action she said she took because she felt bullied and pressured by the police.
RCMP North District commander Supt. Kevin Lewis told CBC he could not say if there had been an internal RCMP investigation into the incident and that the officers who visited Garson’s home may have ben trying to informally resolve her complaint, which is a normal part of the complaint process.
In addition to the City of Thompson and the RCMP, the lawsuit, which alleges Garson was discriminated against because she is Indigenous, also names the Attorney General of Canada, community safety officers Garrett Allen and Thomas Warkentin as well as RCMP Const. Jenelle Hulan. The allegations the lawsuit makes have not yet been proven in court.
Thompson city manager Anthony McInnis told the CBC he could not speak specifically about the January 2018 incident because of the ongoing lawsuit but that neither of the two men named are still employed as community safety officers and that only one of them is still a city employee. Allen was contacted by the CBC but declined to comment. A statement of defence filed by the city alleges that Garson was “actively combative” while being detained, the CBC says, while the RCMP statement of defence characterized her behaviour as “erratic, uncooperative, and aggressive.”
Manitoba’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigation Unit, which investigates allegations of serious misconduct by police officers in the province while on and off duty, does not have jurisdiction over community safety officers, which a former head of Ontario’s police watchdog told the CBC should be changed.
Gupta said the IPDA is applied disproportionately against Indigenous people in Thompson, where it is used frequently. Through the first nine months of 2020, Thompson RCMP had responded to 4,340 public disorder calls, including detention of intoxicated people. CBC said figures provided by the RCMP showed that 27,000 people had been detained under the IPDA in Thompson over the past five years.
Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakank (MKO), which represents 26 Northern Manitoba First Nations, issued a statement Nov. 9 calling the video of the community ssafety officer hitting. Garson in the Thompson RCMP detachment "deeply distubing."
"We will be meeting with the RCMP to address this callous act of violence against an Indigenous woman as we are one of the strongest advocates of the protestion of women in Canada," said MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee.
