‘Someone could have done anything to me’
Nova Scotia police to review spiking incidents
HALIFAX• The last thing she remembers is buying a drink. Hours later she was found unconscious, alone on a dark sidewalk.
The 19-year-old has spent weeks trying to piece together what happened after a night out with friends, another suspected case of drinking tampering in downtown Halifax.
As the university town readies for an influx of students this fall, police are grappling with how to respond to a recent rash of drink spiking incidents.
The Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police drug committee, which includes officials from the Department of Justice, the medical examiner’s office, the public prosecution service, police, EHS and fire, has added the issue to its agenda at an upcoming meeting on Aug. 16.
Halifax RCMP Chief Supt. Lee Bergerman says a closer look is warranted even if it’s premature to call it a trend.
“I think it’s a topic that we should at least discuss,” she says. “I do think that drug and drink tampering is under-reported. I think it happens probably a lot more and people mistake it for being grossly intoxicated.”
The 19-year-old woman, who spoke with The Canadian Press on condition of anonymity, says a rough timeline of the Saturday night in mid-July has emerged after talking with friends.
But there are still significant gaps, leaving her feeling anxious and scared about what may have occurred.
“I didn’t feel like I got raped or assaulted in any way,” says the university student. “But I just keep thinking about people’s intentions when they drug you.”
She was woken up by her mother at 4 p.m. the next day. She couldn’t remember how she got home.
“I didn’t wake up the entire day, which is very unlike me,” she says. “I purposely didn’t drink a lot the night before because I knew I had to work but I couldn’t remember anything.”
Things got stranger when she checked her phone and noticed six missed calls from an unknown number. She texted back.
“He told me that him and a friend had found me completely unconscious on the sidewalk outside of Durty Nellys (bar) at 6:30 a.m.,” she says. “I had absolutely no recollection of anything this guy was telling me.”
Her last memory was buying a drink at The Toothy Moose, a late-night cabaret near Durty Nellys on Halifax’s popular Argyle Street. She can’t remember anything from that point on, but her friends say she was acting normally.
“They said I seemed completely fine. I seemed like myself,” she says.
They told her that she went with them to pizza corner, a local staple for latenight fare. But while her friends were buying pizza, they say she went to join another group of friends outside. By the time they were done eating, she was gone.
It’s unclear what happened next, but hours later she was found by two strangers who managed to wake her up long enough to get her address and drive her home.
“My situation could have been a hundred times worse, someone could have done anything to me,” she says.
Earlier this year, two women told The Canadian Press they were slipped an unidentified substance at The Toothy Moose. As well, women have complained in other media reports about alleged tamperings at other Halifax bars.
Owners of The Toothy Moose did not respond to requests for comment.
The 19-year-old says she never reported the incident to police.
But an RCMP crime analyst is encouraging people who suspect they have been drugged to report it to police.
Sheila Serfas says police can’t investigate something if it’s not reported.
“You can’t track what you don’t know,” she says. “We can’t target enforcement based on anecdotal information that is not reported to the police.”
Serfas says if someone suspects they may have been drugged, it can be reported as unusual or suspicious behaviour.
She says if police were to receive multiple reports of suspected drink tampering from the same bar, they could identify trends and review security footage or send in plain clothes officers on busy nights.
“I would encourage them to report it to police ... Maybe they could prevent somebody else from actually being raped.”