Woman suing city, police officers for $700,000
Montrealer seeks $700,000, wants police held accountable for actions
Four years after Montreal police officers broke her arm during an arrest, Majiza Philip is suing the city of Montreal and two officers for $700,000.
Philip is seeking $100,000 for time she spent away from work and for the injuries she sustained. Additionally, she’s asking for $600,000 in moral and punitive damages for her unlawful arrest.
In 2014, during a concert, Philip’s roommate was detained for public drunkenness. It was a chilly November night, so Philip took her roommate his coat. According to Philip, she tapped on the police car window to let him know she had it. But then officers swarmed her, she said, and arrested her. She said she was slammed against the police car while an officer used a baton to forcibly twist her arms behind her back. She felt a sharp movement and her left arm went limp. It was broken.
Philip was charged with obstructing justice, resisting arrest and three counts of assaulting a police officer. She claims that police targeted her because of her race.
“I was the only black person at that concert, and I was the only one who was assaulted and arrested,” she said. “I think that speaks for itself.”
The officers later testified that Philip had hit the police car or had tried to unlock the car door, to let out her friend, but a judge said their testimony was contradictory and unbelievable. Philip was cleared of all charges in December 2017, and her arrest was declared unlawful.
“Why was Philip arrested? For obstruction? For assault against a peace officer?” Judge Katia Mouscardy wrote in her decision. “The answer: we’ll never know!”
Philip said she wants the officers involved to face consequences. In 2016, Philip filed a police ethics complaint, but the commissioner concluded the officers involved did not commit any wrongdoing.
“I just want some justice,” she said. “I never wanted to go about this is a financial aspect. I just wanted these officers to be accountable for their actions because they ’re people like me and they assaulted me.”
A surgeon screwed a metal plate into her arm, and after five months in a cast, it healed, but the injury cost her her job as a chef and left her unable to teach dance classes. Her relationship with law enforcement officers is still broken, she said.
Police officers in Little Burgundy, where she grew up, used to drive her brother to taekwondo class and were very involved in the community, but now, she can’t look at officers without feeling afraid.
“I’ve had really good experiences in the past with police officers, but now when I see one, my heart jumps into my throat,” she said.
In addition to the civil lawsuit, Philip, with help from the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), is filing a new complaint with the police ethics commissioner. She and her lawyer are hoping Quebec’s director of criminal prosecutions charges the officers involved. They allege that the officers assaulted Philip, and that her unlawful arrest warrants a kidnapping charge.
The city of Montreal and the SPVM did not comment on the case.