McGuinty ‘Troubled’ By Police Strip Search Of Woman

The lawyer who represented a 27-year-old woman who was strip searched in an Ottawa police station says all interactions between law enforcement and the public should be videotaped.

Video of the 2008 strip search was released Thursday after Justice Richard Lajoie’s decision last month to stay charges of public intoxication and assault against Stacy Bonds.

Lajoie criticized the conduct of police, saying he was “appalled” that Bonds was strip searched in the presence of male officers, calling the incident an “indignity.”

Bonds’ lawyer Matthew Webber described the incident at the Elgin Street detachment as “an utterly unjustifiable abuse of authority and power.”

The video shows officers struggling with Bonds and kneeing her in the back before she is wrestled to the floor, where her shirt and bra are cut off.

She was then left topless in a cell at the police station for three hours in soiled pants.

“We have an egregious string of Charter violations … perpetrated on my client,” Webber said Friday. “It’s impossible for any reasonable person to rationalize or accept.”

“I think the social good would be greatly served by having all interactions between law enforcement and civilians of this country the subject of videotape,” Webber said.

Webber said he doesn’t want to see surveillance cameras on every corner, calling that an “invasion of civil liberties and privacy.”

But he said he can see “innumerable reasons” to have video cameras in police cruisers and stations.

“If everyone’s conducting themselves lawfully, who could ever possibly object to that,” Webber said.

Bonds was “uncomfortable” with the release of the tape and the public attention on her story has been “overwhelming,” Webber said.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said he was “very, very troubled” by the incident, saying it shakes people’s confidence in authorities.

McGuinty said he hadn’t actually seen the video, but was disturbed by the event.

“I must say what I have heard is very, very troubling,” the premier told reporters Friday after an unrelated event at the RA Centre in Ottawa.

“I’m pleased that the SIU is going to conduct an investigation and I’m pleased with the response put forward by the chief of police.”

Police Chief Vern White agreed Thursday that residents would be shocked by the video, and appealed for “understanding and patience,” noting police can’t comment while the Special Investigations Unit is probing the incident.

“(Police) will not be making further comments on this matter nor the release of a video by the court, until such time as the SIU investigation is completed,” White said.

The Ottawa force is co-operating with the SIU and reviewing its procedures and its officers’ actions, he added.

Most police officers act in a legal way, said McGuinty, but cases like this one undermine their authority.

“From time to time things happen which shake us, and it’s very important that we get to the bottom of this and that people know exactly what happened and what we need to do to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” he said. “Every time something untoward like this happens, it shakes our confidence.”

Officers need to remember this was someone’s sister, someone’s daughter and _”for all they knew, this might have been somebody’s mother,” added McGuinty.

“We’ve got to be very, very careful about how we deal with each other and it’s very important that police act in keeping with what is right and appropriate and lawful,” he said.

The SIU is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates circumstances involving police and civilians which have resulted in serious injury, including sexual assault or death.

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin, who used to be head of the SIU, tweeted Thursday night about the “very troubling jailhouse video,” but declined further comment Friday.

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