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Saturday December 16, 2000
Frances Barrick
RECORD STAFF
A Kitchener judge has slammed Waterloo regional police for their abuse of authority in the improper arrest and strip search of a Waterloo woman last year. Justice Colin Westman threw out nine charges against Cheryl MacDonald yesterday, including those of impaired driving and uttering death threats. But before he did, Westman gave a two-hour, scathing judgment which criticized the "misleading" testimony of the officers involved in the Dec. 1, 1999, arrest outside a Waterloo bar.
Calling it a "very troubling case," Westman said he had a responsibility to let the public know abuse of police authority "will not be condoned, ignored or tolerated."
On the night of the arrest, MacDonald and a female friend left Loose Change Louie's bar on University Avenue in Waterloo shortly after 2 a.m. Because they had been drinking, they planned to leave their vehicle in the parking lot and arranged for another friend to pick them up. As MacDonald unlocked the passenger door to retrieve their coats from the vehicle, Const. Ken Taylor and his partner, Const. Adele Tempest, watched from their cruiser.
Taylor testified during a two-day trial last October that the women were staggering. Tempest, who had only been on the job two to three days, testified she didn't see any signs of impairment.
But Taylor, a three-year member of the force, charged MacDonald with impaired driving after she refused to identify herself.
He then handcuffed MacDonald and threw her in the back of his cruiser because he said between 60 and 80 people were milling around and he feared a riot.
But Westman said evidence from MacDonald and other witnesses indicated there were only three or four people in the area.
Westman ruled Taylor had no grounds to lay the impaired driving charge because the lock to the driver's side door was broken and MacDonald admitted opening the passenger door to get her valuables.
The judge also said MacDonald was within her rights to withhold her name because no crime had occurred. While the judge criticized MacDonald's apparent lack of respect for police, saying she could have helped avoid what happened to her that night, he found her a credible witness. But he accused the officers of giving misleading evidence in court as an "embarrassing effort" to justify their actions. And, Westman said, the situation went from "bad to worse" at the Kitchener police station.
There, acting Sgt. Bob Thomas told MacDonald she must be kept in a police cell because she refused to identify herself. Police policy says prisoners must be strip searched to ensure they have no drugs or weapons to harm themselves or police, or use to escape.
MacDonald testified she was terrified about being strip-searched and begged them not to. "I absolutely begged. I didn't want to be naked," Westman said, reading from MacDonald's testimony.
It took six officers, four lying on top of MacDonald with her face down on a cement floor, to control her, Westman said. ???? [gang rape]
It was then that she uttered the death threats against the officers, saying if she had a gun "she would shoot their f . . . heads off," he said.
The judge said police want him to believe that six officers "felt intimidated by a woman lying face down on a cement floor with four officers on top of her," because "they feared she may have Rambo qualities."
MacDonald said she never meant to kill them.
"I was frightened . . . I was hurting . . . and they wouldn't listen to me. I didn't mean it. I said it out of frustration," Westman said, reading from her testimony. MacDonald said Const. John Champion also used garden-like shears to remove a leather necklace -- which she had refused to remove because she couldn't undo it -- and an earring stud that was in her recently pierced ear.
Westman felt it was hard to believe police would view an earring stud as a possible weapon.
He dismissed the seven charges of uttering death threats and threats to cause bodily harm, saying there was no proof MacDonald intended to follow through with the threats. And he dismissed a charge of refusing to give a breath sample because police waited too long to ask MacDonald for one.
After court, an obviously elated MacDonald said she's very pleased with the decision. Chief Larry Gravill said the force intends to review the case and will "be providing our own insights into these events." Gravill declined further comment.
Assistant Crown attorney Steve Hamilton told Westman the Crown's office will be also reviewing his judgment. Like the chief, Hamilton later declined further comment.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
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This page created December 18,2000
