The Toronto Community Mobilization Network, which organized several G20 protests, claims Toronto Police officers threatened and sexually harassed women at the temporary detention centre and subjected some female prisoners to illegal strip searches.
The group held a press conference Thursday morning at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre, hours before the city’s Auditor General Jeffrey Griffiths was expected to release his final report on Toronto Police sexual assault investigations.
TCMN spokeswoman Farrah Miranda said she’s spoken with women who reported being strip searched by male officers.
“Strip search is sexual assault and strip search by male officers is against the law,” she said. Miranda also noted she hasn’t learned of any woman who’s put forward a complaint to the police.
Authorities have encouraged anyone with an issue with officer conduct during the G20 to file a complaint. You can do that here.
“Most of the people I’ve talked to have no faith in any police complaints process,” she said.
“Some women have expressed interest in filing class-action lawsuits against the police.”
Jane Doe, the woman who successfully sued Toronto Police after she was used as bait to capture the “balcony rapist”, who attacked women in the Wellesley and Sherbourne area in 1986, also spoke out against strip searches at the press conference.
“Women were not safe on Toronto streets over the G20 days and nights and experienced a disproportionate amount of arrests and detention during which they were sexually harassed, assaulted, strip searched – including cavity searches – and subjected to misogynist and homophobic treatment, following which most of them were released without charges,” she said.
Doe also spoke out about Griffiths’ report, due out Thursday afternoon, and said it has “failed to implement any meaningful change in how police investigate crime and how they treat women who report it.”
In 1999, Griffiths outlined 25 recommendations for police to improve how sex assaults are investigated. Nineteen of those suggestions have reportedly been implemented.
At Thursday’s press conference, Washington D.C. woman Lacy MacAuley shared her story of alleged police brutality via video.
MacAuley was arrested Sun. June 27 at the protest in front of the Eastern Avenue detention centre (pictured above). She was dragged off the street and thrown into an unmarked van where she claims she was punched and choked by officers.
She also claims officers made profane and sexist insults.
A second YouTube video was shown Thursday featuring Amy Miller, a Montreal writer who claims officers threatened her with rape while inside the detention centre.
The Toronto Police Services Board was also scheduled to hold a public meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss the terms of reference for its Independent Civilian Review of the Oversight of G20 Policing.
The TCMN is conducting its own "people's investigation," Miranda said.
The makeshift jail set up at the Toronto Film Studios on Eastern Avenue at Pape was the centre of much criticism during the G20. Some protesters detained there complained about conditions in the building and claimed they weren’t provided with timely access to legal counsel.
Toronto Police rebutted those claims and insist every person detained at the facility was processed professionally and treated appropriately. Authorities gave the media a chance to tour the building days after the summit.