A continuum of cop violence against women: systemic and authoritarian, sexualized and fetishized. (updated)

From Ayesha, we learn about yet another woman's death, as a the tragic outcome of a desultory police investigation.

In an extensive post on a Facebook memorial page, her mother Leah Parsons described how the straight-A high school student became depressed and suicidal after the incident.

“The person Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral,” Leah Parsons wrote. “Because the boys already had a ‘slut’ story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a slut.

“This day changed the lives of our family forever.”

Rehtaeh, who was a 15-year-old high school student in Cole Harbour at the time, was repeatedly bullied at school and “suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.”

“She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” her mother told CBC.

Racialized women in Canada experience this daily.  First Nations, Metis, Inuit, Black, all brown-skinned women of mixed ancestries rarely if ever trust the police to take reports of sexual violence directed at them seriously, and to investigate properly. In reality, reporting such violence makes them vulnerable to the cops' own abusive practices, as case after case demonstrates. Operation Thunder Bird attempted to expose this reality.

In Ottawa, a judge recently exonerated the sexualized brutality that a police officer used against a woman detained for alleged public intoxication - a "charge" which was never actually shown to be founded.

Violent cops like Steve Desjourdy can sexually humiliate, degrade and punish jailed women with impunity. His actions which were challenged in criminal court, have been excused and thus can become the official standard that police taking women into custody can apply.

According to the judge who presided over the trial, Desjourdy "used reasonable force".

Many who viewed the internal video that captured Desjourdy and his colleagues' actions, observed that he seemed to be enjoying his job, exerting force in order to break the detained woman's will and her instinct to defend herself from the cops' deliberate, sexualized violations.

Familiar patterns of cops' fetishized brutality against women keep surfacing.  It would appear a measure of implicit identification with the perpetrators of sexual assault impinges upon some police officers' professional capacity to effectively investigate violent crimes against women.

In my opinion, the RCMP has become irreversibly corrupted and poisoned by misogyny; this latest outrage is more evidence of the toxicity of its systemic sexist culture.

UPDATE: Two excellent blogposts that MUST be read. Both cut to the core of the way rape culture enables violence against women and girls.

Child porn isn’t a “community issue,” RCMP from Steph Guthrie really nails the misogynist sub-text of the shoddy excuse the RCMP provided for its MASSIVE lack of due diligence, with regard to the taking and distribution of the photo of Rehtaeh Parsons.  A crime was committed; it's the RCMP's job to deal with it.  Unless its officers' sloppy lack of professional dedication is a recognition that the institution is de facto complicit with child pornographers and sexual assailants in that community.

This is heart-wrenching:

[...] where the fuck were the school officials, the members of the law enforcement, the people who should have made sure that she had adequate follow-up mental health care after her hospitalization? Where were they, and why didn’t they do anything? Or if they did do something, why didn’t they do enough?

Rehtaeh’s rapists are still out there. They are still in high school, they are still going to parties and they are, quite likely, still raping. Why wouldn’t they? They got away with it once, didn’t they? Rehtaeh’s rapists are still living normal, untroubled lives, and she is dead. [...]

Saying that we need to educate boys and girls about appropriate behaviour is victim-blaming. Saying that this wouldn’t have been a problem if the pictures hadn’t ended up online is like saying that rape is fine, but publicly broadcasting it isn’t. Calling Rehtaeh’s death a tragedy because we’ve lost a beautiful young woman is a joke – seriously, what bearing does her appearance have on how sad her death is? And since Landry is refusing to open an official review into how the RCMP handled this, isn’t he basically saying, “I think she was lying about the rape, but gosh, she sure was hot”?

All of this, every single word of this statement, all of the things that Rehtaeh endured, every single detail presented here is rape culture.

Read the comments too.


So, with regard to the way it deals with sexual violence against women and girls, should Canada feel *superior* to India?

Maintiens le droit ...

It appears that we've written quite a lot about the RCMP, at DJ!

And most of it covers the police violence within and outside its ranks - not the regrettable armed display of force required to fulfill its mandate of law enforcement - but a corrupt and despicable exploitation of its resources and its mandate that has repeatedly, unjustly harmed, damaged and killed people.

There's no end in sight, as it emerges that the Mounties do a truly negligent, incompetent job of keeping records with regard to officers that have been brought up on cases of professional misconduct, and possibly, of criminal activity.

[...]no one within the RCMP had a comprehensive list of Mounties who’d been disciplined, became obvious after CBC News asked for basic data between 2005 and 2008 that included offences and findings by internal adjudications boards.

CBC News submitted the request in November 2008. It was delivered four years later in November 2012. An officer who handled the file offered an embarrassed apology, and explained the delay was due to the list having to be created from scratch.

[...]Many of the allegations are also criminal offences, including two cases of possession of child pornography. The CBC asked for details on which cases went on to criminal prosecution, but the RCMP did not make that information available.

And while about 50 of the cases were withdrawn, in some cases due to the expiry of the statutory time limit for a hearing, more than a third were deemed so egregious the officers involved either quit, were forced to resign or had to forfeit 10 days pay — the harshest punishment under the RCMP Act short of dismissal.

Meanwhile, the RCMP old boys' club is calling the shots on the manner in which it will defend the institution from several sexual abuse and harassment lawsuits against the force and specific officers.

Moving from outright denial to counter attack, it appears that the legal strategy rests upon a campaign of discrediting the claims that have been brought forward by female officers.




A vulnerable female complainant has been singled out, likely to demonstrate to the others what awaits them - to intimidate them and ultimately, to silence them.

The RCMP’s statement of defence, filed earlier this week, details the results of the police investigation and the review board’s findings, and says whatever happened between Gastaldo and Pearson occurred outside of their work and has nothing to do with the force.

“If any of the Crown defendant’s employees, servants or agents engaged in the conduct alleged ... then all such conduct was outside the course and scope of the employee, servant or agent’s duties,” says the statement of defence, filed in B.C. Supreme Court.

Even if Gastaldo was harmed in any way by Pearson, the statement of defence says, it wouldn’t be the force’s fault.

“Any of the damage allegedly suffered by the plaintiff was caused solely by the unauthorized conduct of Pearson, and the Crown defendants are not responsible for that conduct,” the statement says.

Gastaldo’s lawsuit was among the first of several involving female RCMP officers who have claimed they were assaulted, harassed and abused on the job.

[...]The statements of claim and defence contain allegations that have not yet been tested in court.

The RCMP has so far issued denials in several sexual abuse and harassment lawsuits against the force and its officers.

The highest-profile case involves Cpl. Catherine Galliford, a former spokeswoman for the Air India and Robert Pickton cases. She filed a lawsuit last year alleging years of abuse by numerous officers.

Const. Karen Katz has a lawsuit alleging a colleague harassed and sexually assaulted her, as well as a second lawsuit that alleges more widespread abuse spanning her entire career.

And Janet Merlo, a 19-year veteran of the force, filed a class-action lawsuit in March alleging sexist comments, sexual pranks and derogatory remarks while on the job. Her lawyer has suggested dozens of other officers are prepared to join the case.

Aggressive "defense" tactics deployed by the RCMP display many of the elements that characterize systemic rape culture, as well as a toxic work environment.  The failure of the police force to treat its officers and other employees - male and female - with the respect they deserve as human beings, is typical of military-type organizations based on the very worst misogynist practices "tolerated" if not encouraged by the leadership.

The photo above is from here.

*Inadvertent* Cop Brutality?

Or teaching kids what police can and will do to them?

Officer Chris Webb was attending “career day” at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School when he sent 50,000 volts of electricity into the child’s chest on the playground. 
The young boy blacked out and has, according to his legal representative, been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ever since; the officer faces a civil suit. 
According to the complaint, Webb shot his Taser at the child (referred to only as “R.D.”) after he said he did not want to join fellow classmates in cleaning the officer’s patrol car.  [...] Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, ‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’

From here. More.

Such casual and callous disregard for a child's life because he gave the cop "attitude", such reactionary and self-protective response to the legitimate criticism that this was abusive - and illegal - police authority.

We've written much about the systemic and tactical deployment of cop brutality at DJ!, from brute force directed at adolescents, reprisal against someone reporting inappropriate police actions, sexualized violence and degradation of female detainees, to G20 security and SPVM accountability.

Exemplary Cop (Update)

The Montreal police force (SPVM), is known for its brutality and lack of accountability.

In this Rabble News report from March 2012, Stefan Christoff provided an overview of decades of injustice served upon the Montreal population, particularly members of communities that are not protected by their connections to social status, money, organized crime or political power. Some highlights:

Now widely used by the Montreal police, flash bang grenades are made by Defense Technologies, a subsidiary of the world's second largest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems.Flash bangs are rubber-encased devices that explode, creating a 175-decibel shock wave, while emitting a flash of light and releasing a charge of CS gas into the air. CS gas is a chemical irritant that burns the eyes, affects the respiratory system and can cause vomiting. 

According to Defense Technologies' official warning text on the exploding weapon, "this product may cause serious injury or death to you or others."
On March 15, police used sound grenades and CS gas on civilian protesters, weaponry that did in fact "cause serious injury" for 22-year-old student protester Grenier from Cégep de Saint-Jérôme, protesting for accessible post-secondary education. 

Why are Montreal police deploying dangerous explosive devises against popular protests in 2012? Why are more serious questions not being asked in mainstream media coverage about this dangerous weaponry being deployed by Montreal police?

Fredy Villanueva, an 18-year-old youth from Montreal North, was killed by police in the summer of 2005, and his death is the subject of an ongoing struggle for justice led by the Villanueva family. 

To this day, no police officers involved in the Villanueva killing have been charged criminally or faced trial in relation to the shooting, despite a wealth of existing evidence on the topic. 

Villanueva's death inspired numerous underground hip-hop tracks in Montreal, with artists like Sans Pression and Dramatik directing verses against Montreal police shootings and racial profiling. 

In early January 2012, a police intervention at métro Bonaventure turned deadly when police shot and killed Farshad Mohammadi, a Kurdish refugee from Iran struggling with mental health issues and homelessness. The police killing quickly sparked protest in the city and police continue to keep secret a great deal of existing evidence and details surrounding the shooting. 

Since 1987, in Montreal, more than 60 people have been killed during police interventions, including Mario Hamel and Patrick Limoges, killed on the same morning by police bullets in June 2011.

And now Radio-Canada's report on the aberrant actions of a patroller, one Stéfanie Trudeau aka Badge 728 - captures the dysfunctional cop culture that flourishes within the rank and file of the SPVM. (Google translations here and here.) The CTV report is here.

The list of complaints against her is considerable.  It includes gratuitous violence.

Some may remember Matricule 728 from this GGI manifestation in May.

Trudeau may be exemplary but she is not unique.

UPDATE: The inevitable baying of sexist hounds has started, demanding her address and phone number to dox her so that others will inflict the physical harm they wish this woman to suffer.

This is harsh, and may recognize that a form of rehabilitation is required, for her and for all cops who behave thus.

But this is vile, as this one notes.

Josée Legault reminds us of the "rage à deux" that political discourse and police repression produce.

ADDED resource. From this tweet, more about the deleterious impact of cop culture.

TODAY'S UPDATE: My perspective was willfully misrepresented, with regard to outing and doxing Trudeau.  Read my original post.  I never suggested that the procedure used to deal with abusive cops should be more lenient for her.

Though it has been well-documented how social media has been used to transform specific women into targets for the rampant misogyny that festers at large, there are a few so-called pro-feminism men who persist in obdurate denial of this phenomenon and shriek about "gender stalinism" rather than acknowledge the reality. 

From Anita Sarkeesian to Amanda Todd, women and girls are violated online in specifically aggressive ways that men are not subjected to.  Are these threats carried out in real life?  Once a woman has been doxed, she is an open target.  

Food for thought: Whitney Phillips' piece in the Atlantic about Adrian Chen exposing  infamous Reddit moderator Violentacrez in a long profile. This is the product of a tenacious investigation into the many facets of this self-proclaimed troller as well as his role as the creator and moderator of the "Jailbait" and "CreepShots" forums. 

Phillips' reflection on trolling and its oft-denounced racist, homophobic and misogynist manifestations is a compelling and informative lecture.

Added: For those who can read French, this from Josée Legault must be read to understand the foundation and the connections that produced Matricule 728 and a cop culture amenable to political manipulation.
Grand merci to Miranda Nelson.