I HAVE BEEN A COWARD - VICTIMS' VOICES

 

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I HAVE BEEN A COWARD

September 8, 2010

 

 

Phyllis Carter > Global National, CTV and CBC News :

News reports that women protesters at the G-20 demonstrations in Toronto were threatened with rape by Toronto Police. The first time the "partners in crime" had me picked up by the Montreal Police for protesting the robbery by Dawn McSweeney, the police officer who arrived on the scene in a fury threatened me with a full body search. I will post the whole story at PHYLLIS CARTER'S JOURNAL - http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/ in the next few days. The piece is titled - I HAVE BEEN A COWARD - and it was published originally in my news letter, VICTIMS' VOICES, and distributed to members of government and the media. After all these years and after all that Dawn McSweeney and her partners in crime have done to me and to my family, the Montreal Police still refuse to take any action against them. 

 

Victims' Voices

 

An independent, non-profit newsletter

dedicated to victims' rights
Copyright: Phyllis Carter, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
Founded September 15, 2000

 

Montreal, Quebec, May, 2001

 

I HAVE BEEN A COWARD

 

I started publishing Victims' Voices in September, 2000, after trying everything I could think of to get the MUC Police to take action and recover my belongings stolen in 1996. Through Victims' Voices, I am publicizing my story and my observations about other injustices - particularly those that affect people in the Montreal area - as well as the stories other people tell me. My purpose is to focus attention on injustices in our so-called Justice System. Stop telling victims to forgive and forget ! We deserve justice. So I encourage silent victims to speak up.

 

But I have been afraid to tell one aspect of my own story. I have kept quiet about the events of May 23, 1998 when an MUC Police officer with some personal problems of his own took action to intimidate me, to humiliate me and to destroy my credibility. I have been afraid to publicize this part of my story because I was afraid that people would believe exactly what that policeman hoped people would believe. I have kept this part of my story quiet - except for my repeated appeals to the Police Ethics Commissioner. But Me.Denis Racicot and his lawyer, Me. Paul Monty refused to act. I suddenly realized that my silence is exactly what these officers of the law have wanted all along. So here is the truth for all  the world to see:

 

A Montreal Police Officer sent me to hospital
for "thirty-days' mental evaluation".

 

This is what happened: On May 23, 1998, I was walking in the vicinity of  the teenage thief's house. My purpose for being there was to draw attention to the robbery. After appealing for help to the police and many other authorities for two years, I felt I had run out of options. When every reasonable effort had failed,

 

I decided that PEACEFUL PROTEST was all I had left

 

It was late afternoon. I was walking along the street by the curb across from the thief's house. I was not on private property. I was not impeding anyone's movements. I was not blocking traffic. I did not approach any vehicle, dwelling or person. I was not making any sound. I was not threatening anyone in any way. I wore posters saying why I was there. I walked slowly along the street, praying silently for protection and for justice. I prayed that someone in authority or perhaps the media would hear about me and would care enough to help my case. I carried a wooden cross - because it was my Christianity that had made me an easy target for my niece. The thief, Dawn McSweeney knew that my mother felt terrible about my conversion and she used that to turn my mother against me and set me up for the robbery.

 

As I walked along the curb, an MUC police car came up from my right, did a 180 degree turn and screeched to a halt immediately in front of me. I stood absolutely still, facing the officer as he jumped out of his car. Red-faced, he demanded "What's going on here!"

 

I explained. The officer ordered me to leave the area immediately. I laid down my cross carefully on the lawn beside me to avert any concern on the part of the nervous policeman.

 

I WOULD NOT OBEY

 

I told the officer that I would not leave because "I believe we have a right to peaceful protest in this country." I said that, if he believed I was doing something illegal, I was ready to submit to arrest and an opportunity to have my case heard in court.

 

He just glared at me. He was so edgy. He paced back and forth in front of me making offensive, aggressive comments each time he passed close to me. "You're no goddamn Christian! I'm a Christian! You're no goddamn Christian!"

 

I offered to remove my placards to assure him that I had nothing hidden. He burst out, "No! No! You wear them! You wear them!" (Yes, he did repeat himself that way.)
Then he said that, where I was going, I would be subjected to a thorough search. His tone conveyed a frightening image. He meant it to do just that. My heart started pounding, but I wouldn't let him see my fear. I took a deep breath and prayed.

 

A second police car arrived with two young officers. One of them was in the process of putting on rubber gloves as he approached. I was surprised! I'm a widow in my 60's, not a thug. I said, "Don't worry. I'm a Jew and a Christian." I spoke spontaneously to reassure the young officer that I was not aggressive. I had no way of foreseeing how my benign statement would be misinterpreted.

 

The first officer suddenly exploded ! "My brother died of AIDS!" he raged. "Now I'm going to take care of you ! I'm not going to arrest you ! I'm going to send you to the hospital for thirty-days' mental evaluation !"

 

I did nothing to oppose him. In fact I apologized to him quietly. I felt sorry that he had lost his brother. I had not intended to infer anything about people suffering from AIDS. I had only intended to assure the young officer that he had no reason to fear me.

 

All this did nothing to calm the angry policeman. His manner, from the moment he arrived on the scene, was like that of a raging bull desperate to break out of his stall.

 

A man and woman passing by stopped their bikes and also tried to calm him and reason with him, but he raged on. Through all of this unique experience in my life, I conducted myself with gentleness and dignity. Under fire, I hung on tight to God, and hope.

 

The angry policeman called for an ambulance - an ambulance that might have been needed to carry a sick person to hospital. When it arrived, I asked the officer if I might move my car off the street to the home of a friend who lived close by. If I was to be hospitalized for thirty days, my car would surely be towed away.

 

"You're not going to move your car!" he snarled. "I'm going to have it towed to the pound and it's going to cost you sixteen dollars a day!" I didn't say a word. I submitted.

 

I stepped up into the ambulance and I was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital, miles away from Pierrefonds where I had been picketing the home of the thief. It was a long drive.

 

By the time I was seen, it was about midnight. Since my car was many miles away, I had no way to get home. I appeased the very strange doctor who wanted me to stay the night. I said I wouldn't mind spending the night in the waiting room. He said, "Do you see this? I am wearing a white coat. That means I am a doctor. You are a patient, so you have to wear this little blue gown." I was definitely not going to argue with him.

 

Good friends came in the middle of the night to get my keys and my car registration so they could rescue my car. But I stayed until morning so as to avoid complications.

 

In the morning, another psychiatrist noticed me in passing. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. "What are you doing here?" he asked. I wondered if he was someone I knew. As it turned out, he was just expressing surprise to see me there. He saw at a glance that I didn't belong there. I told him what had happened and he sent me home.

 

I reported all this to the Police Ethics Commissioner, Maitre Denis Racicot, but he has refused to act on any part of my case. I advised him that the officer who was so enraged at me has the potential to do serious harm to anyone who might be less docile, but the Commissioner has closed the file, and his ears - and his eyes.

 

Through all of this, since the robbery of October 7, 1996, all my requests for police reports have been ignored.

 

PERSPECTIVE

 

There is another aspect to this story that is quite an eye-opener. I had attended a seminar in a Chinese church in downtown Montreal, earlier in the day that I was arrested: That is the correct term, because I was stopped by the police - from doing something that I believe is a human right. The keynote speaker was a Chinese missionary. During her presentation she reported that, in China, people are no longer sent to mental institutions for being dissidents. Ironically, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, that very same day in 1998, a woman was sent to a mental hospital for committing a peaceful protest.

 

In order to intimidate, discredit and silence me, in the year 2007, shortly after my mother's death, Dawn McSweeney's partners in crime obtained a court order declaring that I was insane and dangerous and, once again, Montreal Police arrested me, taking me this time to the Jewish General Hospital for a thirty-day mental evaluation.

 

After a day, due to overcrowding in the JGH emergency department, I was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where doctors hearing my story were incredulous. They couldn't believe this could happen, as they told a reporter from The Suburban weekly Montreal newspaper. I was released unconditionally after a total of three days.

 

The Suburban reported the story in two parts in September, 2007 under the headlines THE PHYLLIS CARTER DETENTION and CONDEMNED IN FOUR MINUTES ( in absentia.)

 

See all the details of these human rights violations in Montreal, Quebec, Canada at http://dawnmcsweeney.blogspot.com.