Zip ties, cold air, strip searches: Ont. jail officials probe alleged assault on inmates by guards
CBC
Ontario correctional officials are investigating a reported assault — by specially trained officers in riot gear — on dozens of inmates at a provincial jail last December, the ministry of the solicitor general has confirmed to CBC News.
Video of the incident at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, west of Toronto, was to be played in court for the first time on Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed at the last minute.
A judge who viewed the video in private said inmates were "herded" with their hands zip-tied. One of the men caught up in the alleged assault described being strip-searched and left to wear just boxers in the "freezing cold" institution for 20 hours.
On Dec. 22, officers "busted in the door of my cell with a loud bang," the inmate, Jason Mercuri, said in a sworn affidavit reviewed by CBC. "I had no idea what was happening and hit the ground fearing for my life."
The incident followed an alleged attack on a correctional officer by an inmate two days prior.
The Toronto Star, which first reported the incident, cited other prisoners as saying they had been beaten and pepper-sprayed.
A spokesperson for Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner said the ministry's Correctional Services Oversight and Investigations Branch is carrying out a "comprehensive internal investigation."
"Ontario expects all public safety personnel to act with the highest level of professionalism, and the vast majority do," the solicitor general's press secretary, Hunter Kell, said in an email.
He declined to say whether any jail staff had been suspended following the December incident.
Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday he wasn't aware of the episode.
In Hamilton, Ont., Justice Anthony F. Leitch said at a June sentencing hearing he had reviewed affidavits "from those … at Maplehurst which suggested that this was a step taken to protect order in the institution and it was a necessary step in all the circumstances."
The incident is alleged to have been carried out by officers with the Institutional Crisis Intervention Team (ICIT) wearing riot gear and carrying shields. In a news release in 2019, the provincial government described ICITs as being "responsible for controlling violent or potentially violent inmates as well as removing and escorting these inmates within the institution or transferring them to another institution."
Across Ontario, lawyers representing some of the inmates involved are now seeking to have their clients' sentences reduced or the charges stayed. Many of the inmates held at Maplehurst are awaiting trial, meaning they're considered innocent in the eyes of the legal system.
"It's a severe violation of their Charter rights," said Alison Craig, a criminal defence lawyer who represents three clients caught up in the alleged Maplehurst incident.
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