
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Advertisement
They were court officers.I've heard bad things about those guys.They're very terrible people. I remember the name of one officer: Egerton. That's the only one I remember because I was concussed, so I couldn't remember anything too specific, but I remember him laughing at us, and calling us punks and faggots, and eating in front of us…Taunting you…Completely taunting us to the point of us just wanting to kill him. One guy actually yelled "if I ever see you on the street, I'm going to fucking kill you." I assume they were trying to rile us up. They brought us into the main detention area, like the off-loading center, and I think if I remember correctly there were four large cells filled with people. They brought us in there and they had us handcuffed in the cells, like we were going to do anything in there like that. Most of the people in there were all non-violent people, all peaceful people. Most of the guys in my cell got arrested at the Novotel (the large downtown hotel where the French delegation were staying during the summit). Every one of them said they were sitting on the ground with their hands in their air making peace signs and they just got rushed, and that was the big mass arrest at that point. They said they got rushed and a couple of them got beaten up; one guy had a black eye.What were the cells actually like?I felt like I was a fucking dog in the dog kennel. I felt like I was a prisoner of war, and I guess that's what we were essentially. Yeah, there were these big, commercial-sized halogen lights, buzzing the whole night in our cell. Coming into the cell itself, if you open the cell door, to the left of it, there was a small, four-person bench, and there was a port-o-potty with no door, which I guess is standard for a jail or whatever. There were concrete floors and the main cell that I was in was dusty. I guess there was old paint that was chipping away off the wall and all our clothes were covered in this dust because all thirty or forty of us were sitting on the floor. Also, it was freezing cold in there, like they must have had the air conditioning blasting, because people were shivering.
Advertisement

Advertisement
Yeah. Initially when we were in there, it was kind of a joke; we couldn't believe what was going on. We thought we were going to be in there for maybe, three hours, four hours. We get processed, we get charged, we get our court date, we get let out. Easy. Twenty-four hours and thirty minutes, with no lawyer, no questions answered, handcuffed. And it's so sad. I didn't even get it that bad, I mean, I did at the time, but I heard reports of people being chained with their arms up, their joints are all swollen because they had been standing for 15 hours. People were tortured in there, you know? I've heard so many stories that are all coming out now as everyone is being released. There were reports that they weren't even giving tampons to the women, they were completely denying anything to anybody, including phone calls and food and water.
Advertisement
So they ended up charging you with something?It's not a real charge; it's a "catch and release" charge.Do you have a court date set up?No. So basically what's going to happen is that if I were to get arrested in any protest that's related to G20, then I will get charged. That's what they told me.What happened to you when you were finally released back on to the street? Were you given an escort home?My mom was there to pick me up. She actually found out that I was in jail because of my ex-girlfriend who lives in New York. I'm not sure who told her, but she called my mom and she told her that I was in there. My mother got off work and went straight down there and was waiting for me outside. The jail solidarity was still going on at the time I was let out, and they gave me a towel because I was soaking wet from the rain. They wiped me down, gave me a granola bar and juice box and they were saying "anything you need, just let us know, cigarettes, anything, just let us know…" Those people are so brave to sit out there and help us out for being completely innocently detained.
Advertisement
I was going to ask if you had a drink after all of this.
Absolutely. I had a plate of meat loaf that my dad had just made, and a tequila and coke, which is disgusting, but anything I could find I just had to drink.Are you seeking legal action for the way you were treated?Apparently a lawyer saw Dylan and me getting beaten up on TV and he was waiting outside the detention center when Dylan got out and he said "I recognize you from TV. Take my number." And he called Dylan yesterday and he wants to meet up.So you're going to participate in this legal action?Absolutely. I'm going to do whatever they can and a lot of people are going to do whatever they can. While I was in there, there was a legal observer named Jeff who was there to observe the jail solidarity outside the detention center. Same situation as me, completely non-violent and he was arrested and detained for absolutely no reason. He had LEGAL on his hat and he was just like "I'm a legal observer, I'm not a protester." How can you arrest a legal observer? How can you arrest a photographer? How can you arrest the media?I think these are all questions that the public is demanding answers to know.Somebody is going to have to pay for this, and I'm going to fight this for as long as I can. A lot of people know my story. I'm on the news for fuck sake getting my face kicked in by police officers. This is completely horrifying that this is happing in our city, not to mention our country. Big Canada: the peaceful country.PHOTOS AND INTERVIEW BY CHLOE VICE