The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal has ordered the Ministry of Public Security and correctional officers to pay damages to a young black man for discrimination, due to the way he was treated in prison. They also failed in their duty to provide reasonable accommodation “on the grounds of disability,” given his disturbed mental state.
The department and the agents will have to pay $40,000 in moral damages and the head of unit will also have to pay $1,500 in punitive damages to Samuel Toussaint.
“If the Court had not had the benefit of video evidence, it would have been difficult to give credence to Mr. Toussaint’s story as the treatment he suffered on December 4, 2016 appears undignified and inhumane,” he wrote. in his judgment rendered on November 3.
As for the Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights (CDPDJ), which brought this case before the court on behalf of the young man but also “in the public interest”, it welcomed the judgment, calling it of “important progress for the recognition of racial profiling and the duty to accommodate in prisons. »
Samuel Toussaint, a 21-year-old CEGEP student, was serving an intermittent prison sentence, meaning he only spent weekends in prison. He was sentenced to 82 days in prison for assault.
On December 4, 2016, he reported to the detention center as scheduled — on his 33e weekend. He smokes a cigarette by the door before entering. A correctional officer warns him that he has no right. According to the correctional officer, Mr. Toussaint is arrogant, blows smoke in his face and throws his cigarette at him — which the young man denies. The Court accepted the agent’s version, deemed more credible.
Inside, the officer informs the team of the action taken and of the fact that the inmate does not seem to be in his normal state, appearing intoxicated. Mr. Toussaint was given priority for isolation. The agents testified that he appeared angry, upset, gesticulated a lot, uttered insults towards them, addressed God and warned them of the divine sanction that awaited them. He did not comply with all orders received, they say.
It is decided to place him in a cell, alone, so that he can calm down. Then, the agents want to move him to carry out the obligatory search and handcuff him, then lead him backwards, which worries him because he has never seen this way of proceeding.
The agents struggle to establish contact with Mr. Toussaint, the head of unit Leclerc even describing him as “out of phase”. Once the handcuffs are removed, the inmate raises one arm in the air, which is seen as an “attempted assault.” The officers perform various maneuvers to control him, including “arm locks,” pressure on the sciatic nerve, and “joint checks” — techniques used several times and at various times that day. Mr. Toussaint is sweaty, very agitated and resists. When an officer talks about getting a knife to cut his clothes to conduct the strip search, he panics. The team decides to take him to another, safer cell where he is taken, completely naked. “It was laughing,” said Mr. Toussaint during the hearing.
In this other cell, there were a lot of people, some having “come to see”. “I am completely panicked,” testifies Mr. Toussaint, who says he was afraid of dying. It resists and is peppered — directly to the face, causing an immediate burning sensation.
He will spend the rest of the day “without the slightest clothing, meal or mattress, afflicted by a headache and the fear of being disfigured by the burns of the inflammatory product. »
Different treatment
The young man was not treated in the same way as the other detainees, ruled the Court, which added that he clearly presented a “disturbed mental state”, probably attributable to the consumption of some drug. . However, the agents refuse to adapt their interventions accordingly, criticizes the Court.
Is a disturbed mental state caused by drugs a disability according to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Yes, says the Court, citing a judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada which specifies that a “handicap” does not “necessarily require proof of a physical limitation or the presence of any condition. » “Disability” can be either real or perceived. “The cause and origin of the disability are irrelevant. »
As for racial discrimination, the Court was not able to determine whether the racist insults heard by Mr. Toussaint were uttered by correctional officers or by other inmates.
“The fact remains that the deployment of an abnormally high number of ASCs (correctional services officers) and the disproportionate force deployed by them in order to force Mr. Toussaint to submit to the strip search are fully justified. phase with these stereotypes which fuel racial discrimination in prisons. »
“In light of the evidence, it seems inconceivable that widespread stereotypes linked to race or color did not have the slightest impact, even unconsciously, on the intervention of CHWs given the brutal, even inhumane treatment that “They reserved Mr. Toussaint until he left the establishment at the end of the day, December 4, 2016.”
The Court finds discrimination because the young man was deprived of the opportunity to enjoy, in full equality, some of his most fundamental rights and freedoms due to the treatment that the agents subjected him to, it concludes.