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from the Toronto Star, February 24, 2001
Amanda Graham STAFF REPORTER
Six guards have been charged with aggravated assault after a 26-year-old man was severely beaten at the Toronto East Detention Centre. The man, who was taken to hospital with internal bleeding, a ripped scrotum and head injuries, was in the centre Feb. 2 awaiting a trial for aggravated assault.
Police said the victim had bumped into a female guard earlier in the day and was given a misconduct, an internal discipline within the jail. The man was taken to a room and two other inmates were asked to leave, said Detective Lorne Firlotte of 41 Division. The inmate was then assaulted by as many as eight guards, he said. The beating was so severe, the man had to be taken to Scarborough General Hospital.
"He had internal and external injuries," Firlotte said. "His hair was pulled out; he had bruises and scrapes all over his body. He had internal bleeding and broken blood vessels."
When the man told nurses what had happened, a justice of the peace was brought to the hospital so he could be released on bail and not have to return to the detention centre. Soon afterward, he swore out charges against the guards and an investigation began.
``In this particular case, there was overwhelming proof that something had happened,'' Firlotte said.
The inmate identified six of his attackers, Firlotte said. Six prison guards turned themselves in yesterday and were charged with aggravated assault. The Toronto East Detention Centre refused to comment on the charges last night.
Donald Cuthbert, 33, Kuitim Collin, 33, Alton McFarlane 35, Carleton Johnson, 28, Robert Mondesir, 33, all from Toronto, and Dale Sammy, 33, of Pickering have been charged.
The six will appear in Scarborough court on March 21. Police are not releasing the name of the inmate until the investigation is complete.
ANDREW MITROVICA
Saturday, February 24, 2001
TORONTO -- John Wayne Laws was bleeding badly when doctors at St. Michael's Hospital rushed him into surgery early in the morning Jan. 4, 2000, to mend a ruptured spleen, two broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung.
Mr. Laws insists his life-threatening injuries came courtesy of the boots and fists of two Toronto police officers.
Armed with police videotapes from 51 Division, medical records and reports by two emergency room physicians who treated him, Mr. Laws is suing the Toronto Police Services Board and two of its officers.
In a statement of defence, the police deny the allegations and say Mr. Laws was, in fact, grievously hurt in a fight with grocery store security guards after a shoplifting spree on Dec. 29, 1999.
The videotapes, however, suggest a different story.
When Mr. Laws, a recovering cocaine addict, first appears on police video at 2:51 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000, he walks freely into view and answers questions in a firm voice.
But about six hours later at 8:21 a.m., things have changed. Unsteady on his feet, he stumbles into the camera's range and then collapses onto a bench where for four minutes he remains doubled over. His face drawn, he almost falls as he rises to be taken to the hospital.
"I was fine when I walked into that police station and almost dead when I came out," Mr. Laws said in an interview.
Police say an internal investigation, conducted by the Special Investigations Unit, not only cleared the officers of any wrongdoing but noted inconsistencies in Mr. Laws's story and pointed an accusatory finger at the grocery store employees who allegedly assaulted Mr. Laws on Dec. 29.
"We stand by our conclusions," John Ansell, an SIU spokesman, said in an interview.
However, Mr. Ansell confirmed that SIU investigators have not interviewed, and don't plan to, the emergency room physician at Wellesley Hospital who after examining Mr. Laws on Dec. 29 concluded that he suffered only a mild back strain at the hands of the store employees.
"There are many unsettling inconsistencies and holes in the police's version of events and we intend to get some hidden answers to what actually happened to John Laws," said Mr. Laws's lawyer, Barry Swadron.
Mr. Laws knows that he isn't a particularly sympathetic figure.
The 48-year-old has spent most of his adult life in jail. His record of 28 criminal convictions, mostly for theft, stretches over 30 years.
With a friend, Mr. Laws was up to his old tricks early on New Year's Day. While high on a cocktail of crack cocaine, Valium and booze, he helped break in to cars behind a pub on Parliament Street.
Police soon arrived. He told the arresting officers that his ribs were sore and gave them a false name.
It was a ruse, he said, he would quickly come to regret.
Police videotape shows Mr. Laws walking into the police station through a garage entrance without assistance. He did not appear to be in any physical discomfort as he sat upright on a bench in the station's waiting area.
He was then ushered into an interview room. There were no surveillance cameras in the room.
It was during the interview that Mr. Laws alleges two police officers, angered at discovering his real identity, kicked and hit him while he sat on a bench.
"I got a kick to my left side, lower abdomen by a plain-clothes detective," Mr. Laws said. "Next thing I know I'm on the ground and he is still kicking me."
The detective then left the room, he said. "I was really hurting. I crawled to the door and said: 'Look, I think I need medical attention.' "
His plea was rebuffed, he said.
Mr. Laws said he felt an overwhelming need to defecate -- doctors who examined him say this is consistent with someone who is critically injured -- and asked an officer to help him to a washroom. In the washroom, he felt so weak, he said, he could not lift up his pants.
Once again, he said, he pleaded for help. This time, the police agreed.
The next videotape at 8:21 a.m. shows Mr. Laws with his pants drooping and in obvious physical distress as he emerges from the interview room. He slumps onto a bench in the waiting room.
He struggles to put on his shoes as police officers look on warily, at times laughing. They appear to order him about.
However, the audio of this portion of the videotape does not exist. (The SIU said the loss of sound on the tape was inadvertent.)
Mr. Laws struggles to his feet and almost falls, before regaining his balance. He is helped out of the station by two police officers and first taken to Wellesley Hospital.
At 9.10 a.m. Jan. 1, about seven hours after he was brought to 51 Division, Mr. Laws was examined by Rob Kirkpatrick. Given the gravity of his internal injuries (which are noted in medical records obtained by The Globe and Mail), Dr. Kirkpatrick ordered Mr. Laws transferred to St. Michael's Hospital where he would undergo surgery three days later.
In a letter to Mr. Laws's lawyers, Dr. Kirkpatrick wrote that it was almost impossible for Mr. Laws to have sustained his life-threatening injuries on Dec. 29, 1999, as police allege.
"You have asked me to comment on whether I think it is likely the injuries that Mr. Laws had on January 1 could have been sustained on December 29, 1999. They could not . . . I think it is likely that the injuries he demonstrated were sustained during the six to ten hours before he came to our emergency department," Dr. Kirkpatrick wrote.
Seymour Axler, the emergency room physician who examined Mr. Laws on Dec. 29, has also challenged the police theory of events.
"The SIU's investigation appeared perfunctory," said Jennifer Griffths, Mr. Laws's criminal lawyer.
Mr. Ansell said that while SIU investigators had not questioned Dr. Axler, they had interviewed medical experts who support the police conclusion that Mr. Laws suffered his injuries on Dec. 29. However, he declined to identify the experts.
By ANTONELLA ARTUSO
Ontario's jails are too costly to run and plagued by high absenteeism, says Corrections Minister Norm Sterling.
Speaking to the Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Sterling said having the private sector in the correctional system will introduce the "discipline of the market."
The average number of sick days for correctional staff is about 20 per year -- compared to the average of 10 sick days a year for the Ontario Public Service, Sterling said.
Sterling said the ministry will start publishing the average number of sick days at each institution.
The minister said he's also "dismayed" by how expensive it is to run the overall system -- the average per diem rate is $140.
But keeping an inmate at one of the oldest jails -- in Sault Ste. Marie -- can cost $226.10 a day.
The government is building a new privately run jail in Penetanguishene.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
"Politics is the shadow cast upon society by big business..." John Dewey.
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This page created February 25, 2001
