Constables followed training, trial told
Witness couldn’t remember anyone asking if woman would willingly remove garments
A use-of-force instructor and police officer who helped to arrest a female prisoner who later had her shirt and bra cut off in the cellblock agreed there was “nothing inappropriate” about how police handled the struggling woman up until the moment she was taken to the ground.
Const. Cameron Downie agreed with Sgt. Steven Desjourdy’s defence lawyer Michael Edelson that special constables were following standard police training when they attempted to control the woman’s head, put her in a wrist lock when she slipped out of a handcuff and delivered a pair of knee strikes designed to distract her when she resisted a search on Sept. 6, 2008.
The woman then kicked a female special constable and was taken to the floor.
Edelson never specifically asked Downie about the appropriateness of Desjourdy snipping off the woman’s shirt and bra as she lay prone on the floor, although Edelson did ask whether Downie thought there was anything sexual about anything that happened. Downie said there wasn’t.
“Did you see anything other than officers doing their job that day,” Edelson continued.
“No,” replied Downie, who was testifying Thursday during Desjourdy’s sexual assault trial.
Downie earlier agreed with Edelson that using a pair of scissors and guiding the woman to a cell while covering her with what remained of her top was “far less intrusive” than threatening to use a Taser on her if she didn’t remove the items herself.
Downie explained a Taser was an “intermediate weapon” that was classified as a firearm and delivered an “excruciating” shock.
Prosecutor Chris Webb later asked Downie if he thought the threat of the use of force is more serious than actually using force.
“That would be different than laying your hands on somebody and cutting their clothes off?,” asked Webb.
Downie acknowledged that communicating a threat to use force and actually using force were different things, but stood by his opinion.
Downie also didn’t back down on his belief that officers did nothing improper, even though he had no idea why Desjourdy cut off the woman’s clothes and had never seen a strip search done that way before.
Downie said people are occasionally violent when arrested for public intoxication, but no one he had ever arrested for the offence had been strip-searched once they got to the cells, he said.
Webb asked if Downie heard anyone ask the woman if she was willing to co-operate with a strip search, as per Ottawa police policy. Downie said he didn’t remember anyone asking the woman, either when she was at the search table or lying on the floor, if she’d willingly remove her clothes.
Downie earlier agreed with Edelson that assaultive people can be hiding things and that officers often subscribe to the mantra of “better safe than sorry” when it comes to searches.
“The search has to be thorough and whoever is searching has to be sure they are clear of any weapons or contraband,” said Downie, who was one of the officers who arrested the woman. He is now a use-of-force instructor.
Downie said he had told the woman to “scram” and go home after catching her drinking on Rideau Street.
The woman started walking away when “a bit of a switch flipped” and she returned to the police cruiser to demand an explanation about why she was stopped.
Downie said he provided one several times.
The longer the woman argued with him, the more drunk she appeared, he said.
“If she had not started this whole confrontation, she could have walked home or whatever, she would have been gone?” asked Edelson. “Yes,” replied Downie. (A judge later stayed charges against the woman and criticized the police conduct in the case, calling the woman’s treatment a “travesty.”)
Edelson suggested the switch flipped again when the woman was in the cellblock and she resisted the search.
Downie agreed with Edelson there was no way of knowing when the woman’s demeanour might change again after she was grounded.
Edelson also used his cross-examination of Downie to pick apart large portions of the woman’s statement to the SIU, including her allegations that she wasn’t stumbling drunk and that officers made fun of her for wetting her pants.
Downie said much of what the woman alleged in her statement didn’t happen or was wrong.